Monthly Archives: April 2010
Barcode Your Baby with Sticky Labels
Kettering hospital have come up with a great new way to improve the safety of newborn babies – barcoding them with sticky labels.
On the face of things, this could be seen as a negative – how many comic and video game villains have a barcode on them, after all – but in the main, it’s most definitely a positive. These barcodes will track lots of necessary bits of information such as the baby’s name, NHS number, date of birth and mother’s name and make this available to the doctor or nurse in seconds after scanning these sticky labels with a barcode reader.
This is cool for three reasons. Firstly, these sticky labels will save a lot of time for doctors and nurses as they will have the information open to them instantly rather than having to flip through charts. Secondly, the information will be displayed on a computer screen. As obvious as this sounds, this is very handy due to one simple reason: handwriting. No matter how neat it seems, most of us simply can’t read one another’s handwriting, especially not when you’re overworked, tired and sporting a fetching headache the way most of our doctors and nurses are. Thirdly, who doesn’t want a baby that looks like Hitman?
Seriously. If I had a baby, I’d want it to look like Agent 47 from Hitman. This is probably why I don’t have any kids, but that’s neither here nor there.
Ultimately, as much as we may be against the “corporate ID” side of things by sticking barcodes our babies, they are just sticky labels at the end of the day and if it means that doctors can get the information they need quicker and more precisely than they would do from someone’s squiggles, I can’t really see anything wrong with that.
Villas in Spain – Don’t Judge a Book and All That
That’s right, villas in Spain – notice the plural? That’s what a new friend of mine has and all I can think is ‘why didn’t I make friends with this person sooner?’ I think that’s largely because I’m an awful person, but either way, having a friend who has multiple holiday properties can never really be considered a bad thing.
Ironically, we met in the biggest dive of a pub in my town (that’s saying something too), and have been becoming something resembling drinking buddies. The only thing that’s really changed in our friendship since it because apparent that they’re loaded (not that you’d know it to look at them) is that I have a habit of saying ‘your round’ more often rather than being over-generous the way I usually am.
I haven’t been out to any of their villas in Spain yet and all-told, I probably never will, unless I want to take a girlfriend out somewhere for a cheap holiday in a nice shiny villa. They say you learn something new every day and what I’ve learned today from this is truly not to judge a book by its cover or its company. Most of my friends – especially the ones I’ve met in that pub – tend to look like stereotypical metal fans, may not be the cleanest, drink like and have mouths like sewers and usually don’t have the greatest jobs in the world. This person fits the mould too, they just seem to have a good job (one that they won’t disclose) and own a lot of property.
Actually, thinking about it, they might be an undercover secret agent or something. I’m not sure whether that would be the coolest thing ever or a terrifying thought.
Do I Need a 3D TV With LED Screen?
I’m something of a gadget hound and I really love my toys, especially multimedia related ones. My room looks like the Curry’s backroom with all the gear in there, from the overpowered PC to the TV setup which is a 1080p plasma TV, Sky HD, blu ray player, Xbox 360 and 1080p media player which plays all the stuff from my external hard drive. It’s all HD and it’s all very shiny. Unfortunately for my bank account, however, there’s all this new LED screen technology which boasts brighter, sharper pictures, smaller footprint and 3D capability in some cases.
The gadget lust is strong with these things, but do I really need it? The LED screen will be nice – it’s always good to be able to see Kate Beckinsale in a sharper picture – but do I want the 3D? I think ‘want’ and ‘need’ are two different things in this case. You see, I’ve been to the cinema to see films in 3D a couple of times lately and haven’t been overly impressed with it. Avatar looked great in a couple of bits (shame about the film), but for the most part, the 3D seemed unnecessary – in fact, it just highlighted the flaws with the technology and do not get me started on Clash of the Titans ‘just throw it in after the film’s done’ approach.
I don’t doubt for a second that 3D TV is the future, but my feeling on it is that the future’s not quite here yet. I might well upgrade the plasma to an LED screen soon though. Those Samsung ones look a bit shiny.
All the time people keep inventing new tech, I will most likely never feel that my setup is complete. That’s probably a little sad.
Look the Part with Credit Card Design
I had a slightly disturbing revelation the other day as I caught my reflection in a shop window as I was walking along – I really do look like I work in the media. That’s not a bad thing necessarily – I am a media graduate, after all – but I felt that my look was almost stereotypically ‘media’ for some reason. There I am with my messy haircut, designer piercings, trendy goatee and obscure band t-shirt all offset with a D&G watch and suddenly it clicked that I really do look like one of those people you often see wandering around London and you can spot them a mile off. I had a fleeting thought of looking into some credit card design just to really get that ‘successful’ look.
It’s a little strange for me, since normally I look like I’m homeless or on the way to see a band in some dive or another, but I quite like the idea of not being poor and not looking like it every now and then, and a custom credit card would probably help me with that. I’m not talking something ostentatious and 80’s and certainly not something like a photo of my parents or something like that, just maybe something a little dark and abstract like one of my Photoshop pieces, I haven’t really decided. In fact, I haven’t really decided on whether or not I’m going to do it, but if I do, it’s going to be something understated but still posy enough to make the investment worthwhile.
All in all, credit card design wasn’t something I’d really considered before I caught that sight of myself in the window, but it’s certainly an interesting idea and I might do it. If nothing else, my wallet’s not looking very distinctive these days.
