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If This Isn’t Motivation to Cast On the “Fitted Knits” Back-To-School U-Neck Vest, I Don’t Know What Is

This, cats and kittens, is a Chumby, and the widget it’s running in the photograph is called the Life-O-Meter.

Not a Biological Clock

I’m sure this raises all sorts of questions, namely, “What The Heck is a Chumby?” and “Laiane, Are You Some Sort of Emo/Goth Nutter, or What?”

The second question is much easier to answer: “No, but I do have a rather dark sense of humor which is more than likely exacerbated by my work in the Death Care Industry.”1

The first? Well… My non-technologically oriented mind would call it a Cute Leather Beanbag/Glorified Clock Radio with a Wi-Fi connection blah, blah, blah Linux Open Source Software blah blah Touch Screen blah Internet Radio blah blah RSS News Reader. Um… I’ve heard it described as a “digital media receiver” and as a “computer designed by Teddy Ruxpin.” I found an excellent review of my brand new toy over at CNET and others at Daily Tech News and Wired.

My Chumby’s name is Castor (as in Castor and Pollux).2 There’s a story behind that, too, but I’m not sure if I want to go into the meaning of Greek/Latin names.

Anyway.

The Life-O-Meter widget quantifies your time remaining (or your time already spent, depending on how one looks at it) into a nice little percentage.3 I’m sure it would be more effective if it had a partially-filled-in download bar-thingie that says “53% complete.” Graphic representations have much more oomph.

The Life-O-Meter is described as “the most depressing widget ever.” I beg to differ. Thinking that my life is 53% over has me more motivated about working on my projects — be they knitting or otherwise — than any other anti-procrastination self-talk I could ever come up with.

* * * * *

  1. Well, the filling out forms bit of the Death Care Industry; nothing “hands on.” [↩]
  2. You are encouraged to name your cuddly little device when you set up your media channels at the Chumby website. I’m not just being weird, here. [↩]
  3. This is calculated by your entering your estimated life expectancy when you configure the widget. I figured 80 years was as good a guess as any. [↩]

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “If This Isn’t Motivation to Cast On the “Fitted Knits” Back-To-School U-Neck Vest, I Don’t Know What Is”

  1. Octopus Knits Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 8:47 pm

    My goodness! I had not heard of Chumby before… that widget is pretty funny… incentive, indeed.

  2. Shelly Says:
    May 19th, 2008 at 8:29 am

    My DH made this depressing little widget for an article he wrote for GameDev.net.

    I hate it.

    When he first showed it to me, I thought it was terribly maudlin and uncharacteristic of him.

    Funny thing, though, he said that his Chumby was blogged about on some one’s knitting blog (he’s become a little fascinated by the whole knitting subculture since I started knitting almost three years ago).

    I’m a knitter, too, (I’m civilgrrl on Ravelry) so I had to say hi!

    I’m also a little more optimistic about how long I’m gonna live. Haven’t hit 50% yet (I’m gonna live to my 90′s). Kinda gives your heart a little racing feeling, doesn’t it?

    Love the vest!