Episode 1090

A New Video of Dick’s Gadget Warehouse
Dick shot a video of his Gadget Warehouse recently with his Creative Vado HD (Episode 994), and you can see the video on Dick’s channel madmaddest on YouTube.

Inflation Calculator
Back in Episode 283, a listener found an inflation calculator from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.  David Campbell has found the CPI inflation calculator.  His 1974 Texas Instruments handheld 5-function calculator would cost $835 today.  The Marantz 5120 would be $1,335 today.  Leo’s parents’ $50,000 2-acre house in Santa Cruz in 1972 would cost $250,000 now.

How Leo Became A Trawler Person
Leo takes issue when Dick calls him a “trawler person”.  As far as Leo can remember, it was Dick who first suggested that Leo should get a trawler if Leo wanted to see the world on a boat but speed was not an issue for him.  For once, Leo got it right.  See Episode 231 (22 January 2007), starting at about 7′40″.  Anyway, Leo thinks he is a trawler person.  He wants a trawler with a figurehead – maybe a TWiT Tug.

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Episode 1089

A Review of Plantronics Voyager 855
Tim Hopkins suggests a review by Dick and Leo of his favourite Plantronics Voyager 855 but ends up doing that himself.  It has a standard boom mic and earpiece, but you can add a second earbud.  During work, he can keep one ear free, and if he wants stereo sound, he puts the second earbud in.  This model itself has been discontinued, but Tim wouldn’t mind a review of any modern replacement from Plantronics.

Plantronics Voyager 855 -discontinued
MAD Collectibles
The MAD Magazine Clock (Episode 1065) has been auctioned off, and Dick got about a month’s worth of rent for the Gadget Warehouse (where Dick is has been the longest-standing tenant).  A MAD collector called Tim Johnson has offered to help auction off some of his MAD stuff, and you can find them at MAD Collectibles, including an unopened Alfred E Neuman Packing Tape, and some original MAD Minute tapes.

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Episode 1088

Showering with DGW
Listener Emchik has long tried to figure out a way to listen to DGW while taking a shower.  Buying a Sonos seems to be an overkill, but his iPhone is too quiet.  A friend suggests placing his iPhone into an IKEA plastic cup which will act as a loudspeaker, and it works.  The tapered bottom keeps the iPhone up and the sound is reflected up.  Of course, there’s the Griffin AirCurve, a TTTT gadget which is an acoustic amplifier (Episode 747), or an FM transmitter which Tim from Australia uses to listen to the show during his morning shower (Episode 47).

IKEA Mugs as Amplifiers for the iPhone

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Episode 1087

Autonomous Lawn Mowers Competition
In Episode 1081, a listener wrote in about the Robomow.  Doug Hanchard then follows up with news of a robotic lawn mower competition, sponsored by Honeywell and the US military.  Read about it on ion.org.  “The mow, the merrier.”

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Episode 1086

A Convenient Change of Plan
Jordan Gollop set up a trip to San Francisco for late August with the help of Eva Laporte so that he could be at the TWiT Cottage on a Tuesday for the recording of net@night and the Daily Giz Wiz.  Then DGW’s recording switched to Saturday.  He lives on the East Coast and wrote to Dick if he could visit Gizneyland.  He’s in Dick’s studio right now for this week’s recording, and will get some of the TWiT memorabilia that Dane Golden has sent along to Dick.

Colleen Leaves TWiT
Colleen Kelly, who basically built the studio and runs TWiT, is leaving TWiT for Google as video streaming engineer.  She will be sorely missed at TWiT and her last task will be making a tribute video for herself.

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