Hello Liefje » gadgets

Parents of 6 ban gadgets in their home

Liefje — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:06:09 +0000

In a crazy drastic move a mother of 6 has decided to ban all gadgets from her home when she decided that her kids were spending too much time playing video games. It wasn’t just a one-day change, but the parents did it gradually. First they took away the PC and gaming consoles, they never bought mobile phones in the first place and eventually they moved to a place where they never installed a TV ariel, making the TV unusable except for watching DVDs.

On the weekends, the children are allowed to watch DVDs but they aren’t interested. Well no shit, they’re probably only allowed to watch Toy Story and the Wizard of Oz. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great movies but it would be nice to enjoy some Scarface once in a while.

Joshua, 17, Sacha, 15, Theo, 13, Rudi, seven, Moses, three, and Nestor, one, are allowed to watch DVDs at weekends and will get a mobile phone when they turn 18.

With one kids 18th birthday just around the corner i’m sure it’s going to change the dynamics of the household. How are these children supposed to keep up with societies changes which come hand in hand with technology? Might as well just be amish.

The nano UV disinfection wand

Liefje — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:12:27 +0000

Only a month to go until Christmas and most of you will still be searching for the perfect gift for that “OCD” friend. You know, the one who wipes the seat of the train before they sit down. That one that asks you to open the public bathroom door after they’ve washed their hands 20x (granted, the door handle is gross). The one who actually cleans out their keyboard on a regular basis (not just when the keys are starting to hit against the blanket of crumbs underneath).

Friends like these you tend to run out of stuff to buy for them because for some reason they always seem to have everything they want (except a sterile environment).

Sharper Image present a small solution to this problem with this ~~light saber~~ Nano UV disinfection wand. From the thumbnail I thought it was some kinda awesome futuristic knife that glows but it isn’t. Apparently all you have to do is scan it over stuff to disinfect it. They say:

Kitchen and bathroom surfaces, door handles and cupboards, mattresses and cribs – how about your family’s phone or computer keyboard? Once you begin killing germs (in just 10 seconds) with the Nano UV Wand, you could keep going and going.

I sure can imagine people would keep going with this. But it has been tagged “not safe for use on humans or animals” so once you disinfect your whole house, how are you supposed to keep it clean? This raises many more questions:

Can you really use it on food like in the picture?
If you can’t use it on yourself, is it good to use on things that you’re putting in your stomach?
If you scanned all your food would it lose its flavour?

What do you guys think about this? Would you use one? Let me know what you think @helloliefje!

Fluffy headphones for winter

Liefje — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:14:02 +0000

I don’t know about you but in winter a huge thing I hate about being outside here in Europe is that my ears really start to freeze! I’m not a huge fan of hats, especially those beanie-type ones that are usually worn in winter. Ear warmers were never really my thing either. They always look cute on the shelf then when you have them, they’re ridiculous.

But perhaps i’ve found an alternative which also allows me to listen to music at the same time! I recently read this post about some knit headphones:

But damn they’re fugly. And for $42, you can probably expect that the sound will not be good. But suggesting the headphones as a cover-up for cold ears is a great idea.

So I did a little more research and found that someone had invented earmuff-headphones already. You can find these on ebay for $14 but i’m not even sure that you’ll get your moneys worth with that price. The construction of these looks so poor for one. It’s like they stuck that horrible polyester fluff on a thin strap of plastic. You’d be better off just buying a pair of regular earmuffs and sticking earbuds in underneath.

Then I remembered the awesome skullcandy headphones:

These ones are more expensive than the other 2 but I can guess it’s probably worth it ($70 on Amazon). I had 2 Skull Candy products and for their price, the sound quality isn’t that shabby. The ear plugs are my favourite but they’re twice the price here in Europe than what I got them for in LA. Skullcandy have a lot of colourful designs which I always like. These probably will also keep your ears warmer cos it looks like the fluff is softer and theres a lot more padding around the ears to keep out the harsh winter winds! You’ll probably look like a dork in them, but you’d look like a dork in any of those headphones so you might as well have good quality music playing to drown out the sound of laughter.