I went to New York Comic Con today. It’s a real eye opener to attend an event where everyone is 40, or even 50 years, younger than you. It’s like going back to the future. I tried my best not to feel like I was on the outside looking in. It didn’t take very long to get caught up in the fantasy of comics. Here is my pictorial essay. 
Ever since inventor Keahi Seymour was 12 years old, he has always wanted to run faster than an Ostrich, sometimes even a car. Seymour’s prototype Bionic boots let him travel up to 25 miles per hour. You have to see this video. Read more about it in Science Dump.
Image: Loon Labs
I don’t know why I was so surprised to learn that there really is an app to find out more about a woman’s monthly flow. I heard a few young girls talking about it in my nail salon. I thought they were kidding me.
They all saw it on Kickstarter and plan to pre-order it. How sweet of them to ask if I was interested too. I told them that those days were long gone but thanks for the compliment.
I was very curious how this thing works. I don’t think in my day we wanted to monitor our period. We barely said the word.
The Looncup is a Bluetooth menstruation cup that gets inserted into a vagina during a woman’s period. The cup tracks details like fluid volume and color. It then compares the data on a monthly basis and sends the info to your smartphone.
The Looncup will also let women know when the cup is full and when it needs to be changed. I have written about menstrual cups before, but none of them were connected to an app.
Mashable, the tech site, said cups are more environmentally friendly than anything else. Reports say that women throw away between 250 and 300 pounds of pads, tampons and applicators in a lifetime.
All I have to say is “that’s a lot of paper.”
My girl friend Mindi Lampert is a mental health counselor. She has just published this book which is filled with notes she received from children expressing their inner most thoughts. It’s a must read for anyone who wants to understand how children think. There are some amazing words under the cover.
Mindi has a Master of Science degree in Counseling. For the past 18 years, she has been counseling children in the Miami Dade County Public Schools. She is a psychotherapist with a private practice for adults, adolescents, and children. She is also a Florida Supreme Certified Court Family Mediator and an Adjunct Professor at Miami Dade College where she teaches classes on phychology and student life skills.
The reason why I’m writing about Mindi’s book today is because more and more of my friends are starting to have grandchildren. This book is an eye opener. It’s also a great gift. There is nothing else like it around.
From The Author
As I collected, assembled, and compiled this book, even after more than fifteen years of accumulating and reading these notes, there has not been a time when I wasn’t filled with an array of emotions. It’s the difficult and many times gut-wrenching feelings expressed that are the hardest to digest. The honesty of the children’s notes can be most overwhelming to read, especially as parents. There are many books on parenting. This is a different kind of parenting book. I wanted to bring you the voice of the children. This book has, in its most simplistic way, hopefully taught you what children want most from their parents. They want to feel safe, loved, wanted, accepted as they are, and mostly they want your complete and undivided attention, at least some of the time. I also hope that you have a better realization of how smart and deep-thinking elementary-aged children are. They understand much more than you can imagine. They have their own perceptions and beliefs when the family is going through a crisis, even if you don’t tell them anything. They have complicated and prolific minds. They long for an attachment and a connection to you, the people that are supposed to love them the most-their parents. With that richness of safety and love, the possibilities are endless. Lastly, for the thousands of children that will forever have a warm and special place in my heart for sharing their “Elementary Thoughts” with me, I will lovingly remember you always
Quite honestly, I never heard of the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (also known as CEATEC) annual trade show in Japan. It’s going on now. Japan says it’s their largest electronics trade show.
The only reason I know something about it is because my fiend, Steve Greenberg, was asked to attend. He flew to Tokyo on Sunday.
Robots seem to be the big attraction this year. Watch the videos for some miraculous introductions. Also click on this CNET link for a more in depth story.
This is a great opportunity to see these products first.
http://youtu.be/6rfFmqz6s8M
My long time friend, Rob Calem, felt I gave Skype’s language translation service too much credit for being “the ultimate” in this type of technology.
Rob explained he covered this technology more than two years ago when it mainly worked with an old-fashioned phone.
Rob said. “I’m just saying that the Skype language translation service is not a breakthrough. Your headline is “The Ultimate In Language Translation.” I’d say the ultimate is something that works for everyone, including the many people in the world who don’t own a computer.”
Rob granted me permission to rerun the blog he wrote when he first heard about Lexiphone. The headline was, “Lexiphone Launches Real–Time and Low Cost Foreign Language Translation Service for Old–Fashioned Phone Calls”
Click here to learn more.
Happy birthday Dad. You would have been 98 today. Miss you, love you…..
I feel like someone read my mind. I always wanted to organize all of my favorite things to do: read books, watch TV, go to the movies, restaurants, museums, hotels, etc. I like keeping lists. It makes me feel productive.
The trouble is that I keep my favorite “things to do list” with all the other things I need to do. Everything always gets mixed up and I never have the time to do the proper research on the items I’m interested in.
Then I heard about a new app in Tech Crunch that could be a great solution. Called “Soon,” the app organizes my bucket list into categories. But that’s not the bonus news. Soon actually posts additional information about each item. For example, if I list a book, the app might add the author’s biography, plot, and purchase information.
Soon also has a social feature. You can follow your friends to see what they have on their lists. I love comparing notes. And I also absolutely love that Soon has a “trending” section which lists the hottest items in each neighborhood or city. It takes all of the guesswork out of what to do at home or when traveling.
I just downloaded Soon. The following photos are the opening introductions. I will let you know if Soon fulfills my expectations. I certainly hope it does. If you try it, let me know your impressions.
The newest feature being offered by Skype is going to open up a whole new world of communications. The software company is going to allow you to talk to people you could never talked to before because of a language barrier, Skype now has an on-the-spot language translation feature for users of Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
You can now converse in one language and it will be automatically translated. To date, the following languages are involved: English, French, German, Italian, Madarin, and Spanish. It’s pretty amazing that you no longer need to learn a new language just to speak to someone. How awesome is that?
Look out for the new translator button within conversations. There’s no word on Mac or iOS / Android support yet, but the company expects it to happen very soon.
אני מדבר באנגלית עדיין זה שתורגם לעברית
Estoy hablando en Inglés pero esto está siendo traducida al español
Je parle en anglais encore cela est en cours de traduction en français
I’m speaking in English and it’s being translated into —– by an app called the iHandy Translator
I used this app for years when I needed to translate one language to another. Then I forgot all about it. I’m so glad I rediscovered it because it’s new and improved.
You type in the sentence you want to translate and then pick the language. You have 52 choices.
If you upgrade, the pro app will give you a speech translation and often used common phrases.
I plan to use the iHandy Translator to help me learn other languages. It’s just so easy to use. If you search the App Store, you will see that there are many language apps. We live in a time when we should be taking advantage of all these electronic aids. Our ancestors would have loved them.
Or, learn a new language.
DigiDame 