Mad Charles Stross took a stab at buying a cell phone in the UK, armed with a spreadsheet and a hankering to sodomize his calm, and discovered the total cost of ownership doesn't vary wildly when you start all of Vodaphone's plans out in neat boxes:

The first obvious conclusion I reached is that if you look at the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a phone, including both the phone cost and the monthly tariff cost multiplied by the term of the contract, there's surprisingly little elasticity in the bottom line until you get into the eye-wateringly high usage tariffs. The TCO for a sample phone on 18 month contract varied by only £102 between the Talk 75 and Talk 500 tariffs (75 included minutes and 100 included texts per month, versus 500 minutes and 1000 texts per month). The same pattern held on 12 month contracts, with a £60 spread. Which is, frankly, ridiculous, because you get so few minutes and texts on Talk 75 that the actual cost per minute is nine times higher, and the cost per text is eight time higher than on Talk 500.

...

Cost for a Nokia E90 with Vodafone, 12 month contract, Anytime 500: £187.23. Cost per month: £34.04. Cost of phone plus twelve months: £595.71.

Cost for a Nokia E90 with Vodafone, 18 month contract, Anytime 500: £127.66. Cost per month: £29.79. Cost of phone plus eighteen months: £663.88.

I don't believe the monthly rates typically vary on contract length here in the U.S. Then again, contract lengths rarely vary here, either. It's two years more often than it's not.

Marketing Musings [Antipope.org]

Back in July, T-Mobile began offering its Hotspot@Home feature that allows unlimited minutes of cell phone use over a Wi-Fi network, with seamless transfers from a Wi-Fi call to the T-Mobile cellular network. I had always wanted to go without a land line, so I jumped head first into a new contract. Six months later, I've got no regrets.

Hotspot@Home is a service plan add-on, similar to unlimited text messaging, so I had to start a regular plan instead of using a pre-paid account. I opted for the cheaper "myFavs" 300 minute plan. In addition to the plan's 300 regular minutes, I got unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited calls to the 5 "myFavs" (who I can change once a month), and unlimited calls to anyone while I'm on my home (or any open/T-Mobile) Wi-Fi network. Calls even have unlimited minutes outside of a Wi-Fi network, as long as the call begins on a Wi-Fi network.

I really enjoy not thinking about cell phone minutes. In order to use all 300, I would need to talk between 7am and 9pm somewhere outside of my apartment, not near a hotspot. It would have to be a number I don't call much, as otherwise they might be one of "myFavs." In terms of a landline alternative, this plan works great. I never think about the minutes left on my plan. Last month, I used 29.

Occasional problems with the Wi-Fi compatible Nokia 6086 phone (you must use a special phone that works with Hotspot@Home) have been minimal. It connects just fine to every home wireless router I've encountered, so I don't recommend T-Mobile's "optimized" router. It doesn't like it when I try to connect to a network with a weak signal and I'll occasionally have to restart the phone when I've been switching networks a lot. The battery is sapped significantly faster on Wi-Fi signal, reducing my standby time from 4-5 days to 1-2 days. But I'm at home then, so plugging it in is no bother. And all these problems are outweighed by calls clearer than on a standard cordless phone anchored to a land line.

My favorite part about the Hotspot@Home feature is that it quells my irrational fear of blowing my minutes on tech support. I'd recommend it to anyone with a similar fear or simply interested in phone service sans the land line.

Hotspot@Home requires a $39.99/month or greater monthly service plan and runs an additional $19.99 a month on top of that.

– Brian Copeland

T-Mobile's Crappy Flash Site [TheOnlyPhoneYouNeed.com]

After that last post, I don't want to think that I'm unwilling to wallow in needless consumption, middle phallus upturned to a sternly disapproving Mother Nature. When this world is nothing but dust I will ride across the glowing landscape on this Hello Kitty sportbike.

(I love that there is a Roman rune for "male" on the side, just in case you might mistake the owner for a female.)

Hello Kitty Motorcycle Honda NSR [KittyHell.com]

Piers Fawkes called this week's Consumer Electronics Show "an orgy of poison." I chose not to attend because it seemed to be a waste of my resources and extraneous to doing my job: sifting out interesting products from the manifold junk.

But beyond of the wasteful redundency of CES, does my job—this site—do more harm than good? By showcasing items that can be purchased, do I give you tacit approval to purchase them? Am I creating buyer's lust where there was none before? Should it be my responsibility to worry about your spending habits? Does the person who prints the catalog take responsibility for all of the products inside?

In the ideal, every gadget would be completely benign to the environment and economy of the planet, remain functional for generations as artifact not bauble, and serve to enhance our culture and interaction with the rest of the species.

Of those goals, the materials impact is the one most readily addressed and most critical to our current environmental crisis. We can stand to have multiple iterations of poorly designed gadgets if each one can be reabsorbed into the closed system of the worldwide production chain. And it's why I am most interested, at least intellectually but also politically and perhaps emotionally, in materials science and cradle-to-grave recycling programs.

I buy plenty of crap I don't need. My horse is not so high. Yet I am making an honest effort to remove extraneous items from my life. (Not just gadgets, although those tend to be the bulk-forming insolubles of my collection.) I hope to encourage you guys to do the same, while at the same time showing you lots of things you can purchase. It's mixed up.

My hope is that edited correctly, a gadget blog can serve two positive functions for readers: to give you a voyeuristic overview—window shopping—of the state of the art in such a way that you don't feel the need to actually buy anything; to discourage you from buying almost everything highlighted in the first place. I'm reminded of what Allan Chochinov said about the value of impractical design concepts, how they were useful in seeding ideas to the design community without the restrictions that come with real-space production. I try to do something similar, although almost everything I write about is actually in production, its impact already real.

Until rapid prototyping print-your-objects-at-home devices are commonplace, turning gadget blogs into literal catalogs (wait until those "Read" hyperlinks turn into "Print This"!), I guess that's about as much justification as I can muster. I'm just not sure what to do to make the companies who produce these items realize how important it is for them to make this industry healthy so that they have the time to continue to perfect their designs.

Excuse my rambling, but I continue to wrestle with all this but rarely put it down in writing—which is dumb, because you guys always help me clarify and course-correct my thinking. Maybe we should do a whole series next week on "owning objects"?

Today on Modern Mechanix we looked at a predecessor to the ubiquitous clock radio: the phonograph alarm clock. No electricity needed, it's powered by a crank. Looking for a better way to feed your hens? Build them a giant merry-go-round, or you could try decorate them with this photo transfer kit. We learned how war movies were made in the 30's and that staying at home is very dangerous. Also check out this rather uncomfortable looking bike with "natural airlines" and an article with a very poorly chosen photo and headline.

While I share NOTCOT's worry about the lack of wireless security—and will add my own quibble about someone's inability to reach down and flip a physical switch—the Belkin Conserve surge protector with its wireless switch is a cute concept. Six of the ports on the power strip are turned off when you flick the remote switch, while two stay on for things like alarm clocks or routers. And because the switch has a magnet in the back it can be hung up nearly anywhere, making it as convenient as possible.

There are six separate channels the Conserve can be flipped to to prevent interference, but that won't do much to stop accidental or malicious disconnects of your power by someone with another unit.

BELKIN CONSERVE SURGE PROTECTOR [Notcot]

That didn't take long. Sony BMG has announced they will be selling their catalog in DRM-free MP3 on the Amazon Music Store, making Amazon the first retailer to have all four major labels on board.

Amazon to sell Sony BMG songs free of copy curbs [Reuters]

Previously: Sony BMG Sort of Drops DRM [BBG]

• Videogames – For some reason Wal-Mart is letting you pre-order a bunch of games for Wii, 360, and PS3 for well under the MSRP, including Super Smash Bros. Brawl for $20. [Slickdeals]

• Flash Memory Cards – Newegg has tons of SD, MicroSD, SDHC, microSDHC, and Compact Flash cards on sale. [Slickdeals]

• Cake, Lies – If you have an Nvidia videocard in your PC or laptop you can get a demo of Portal. [SteamPowered.com]

• Computer – Refurbished HP Pavilion AMD 2.8GHz 5600+ Desktop Computer for $485. [Woot!]

The "RoomWizard" from office supply company Steelcase is designed to make booking conference rooms easy, as well as alert passersby that a meeting is in progress. You can schedule an upcoming meeting right from the RoomWizard's touchscreen or have the unit sync up with your Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook server.

The functionality seems useful, but prices appear to be over $2,000 a pop, which is a daunting amount of money for a little networked touchscreen. I suppose that's what happens when you position something as high-tech office furniture and not a consumer good.

Product Page [PolyVision.com via Macromatic via OHGizmo]

This awesome promo clip for the upcoming "Bloody Omaha" special on the BBC (narrated by Top Gear's Richard Hammond) shows how three designers used small cameras, hand-held greenscreens, and an armada's worth of technical know-how to recreate the Allied storming of Omaha Beach.

(Thanks, Matt!)

Toolmonger has discovered the "ATAX," which they suggest would be the perfect gift for the last man on Earth:

You can either use it as a knife or lash it to a stick and use it like an axe. The high-carbon steel main blade measures 4-1/2″ with the tool’s overall length coming in at 5-1/2″. With the various metrics laser-etched on the blade, you can tell time (like with a sundial), measure angles, and judge distances. With some slingshot tubing, you can turn the ATAX into an arrow launcher for hunting game. The micarta handle conceals a small storage area for various survival items like matches and twine and MacGyver brand paper clips.

The ATAX costs between $150 and $200.

What Do You Get The Last Guy On Earth For His Birthday? [Toolmonger]

Paul Pape is offering these Mii-shaped chocolate treats for Valentine's Day, shipped in a Nintendo Wii-shaped box. The figures aren't based on your own Mii avatars, but that's fine. I'm sure they'd cost more than $15 if they did.

Catalog Page [PaulPapeDesigns.com via Boinkology via YumSugar]

From the Washington Post/AP:

Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time. ... In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

Too bad it's too late to work this into season five of The Wire.

FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills [WashintonPost.com via Crime Scene KC]

I was looking through some old paperwork and found my original Wing Commander blueprint for the Hornet fighter (as well as a copy of "Space Piston Magazine" from Space Quest IV). I started to scan them in before realizing, Hey, I bet the internet is more on the ball than I am.

Lo, and behold: a full set of fairly high-resolution scans of all four blueprints, including my all-time favorite, the Scimitar Medium-Class Fighter.

I used to love the Wing Commander series. I built an entire cockpit for myself out of a refrigerator box, wired up a few non-functional switches and placed the whole thing over my computer so I could play in darkness. I even taped a faux heads-up display to the clear face mask of my Photon helmet (a Laser Tag knock-off) and tore out the padding on the side to wire in headphones.

Get Them While They're Blue [WCNews.com]

Today on Modern Mechanix we looked at a very odd paddle wheel plane and an belt-driven transport system that makes the city of the future look like a Disney ride. Do you remember when LA Gear stormed the market with their light up shoes? Turns out they were only 60 years late to the party. Around the same time the women of Los Angeles risked life and limb in the new sport of mini-car racing. In 1952  Western Union premiered the Telecar, which allowed them to deliver telegrams via a car mounted fax machine. Lastly we learned about all of the intricate mechanisms necessary put on a stunning planetarium light show in the 1946 article "Machines that 'Destroy' the Earth.

This was one of the most clever promotions I heard of at CES: The people that make the Jawbone Bluetooth headset, one of the more readily lusted-after Bluetooth units, were giving away free ones for anyone who would trade in their old Bluetooth headset. Jawbone then recycled all the old ones.

It wouldn't have worked if the Jawbone wasn't a premium product in the minds of show-goers. The company got to write off several thousand dollars of inventory as promotional expense while at the same time forcing a bunch of presumably-more-influential-than-average tech nerds to sport their product.

Jawbone's Gallery of the trade-in [Flickr]

Here's the updated version of the TankChair, a mobile relaxation assault vehicle, with a lower center of gravity and more torque. While my first insipid instinct is to mock anyone who might actually need one of these due to my constant baseline fantasy that everyone in the world is fat, the impetus behind the TankChair is really sweet: a man built it for his outdoors-loving wife, whose legs were disabled in an accident.

You can buy a TankChair for $15,600.

Product Page [Tankchair.com via Crave.CNET.com]

A New Scientist contributor spotted a new pocket translator from Krown at CES that displays video clips of a person demonstrating how to use sign language for any of the 4,500 words stored inside. Seems like a great tool for both the deaf and those learning to sign.

It's not on Krown's page yet, but New Scientist says it'll be around $180 when it launches later this year.

CES highlights [New Scientist]

Ah ha! I'd heard about Fujitu's "corn-based laptop" at CES, but I'd also heard that they had to combine the polylactic acid resin (PLA, or "the corn part") with petroleum-based polymers to create the outer shell of the laptop. But Inhabitat answered something that some of the PR folk I had talked to via email did not: the petroleum polymers can be removed from the PLA housing for recycling, making it reasonable to suggest that this could offer a step forward for electronics recycling.

Now if they could figure out a way to make the greenboards green. Why doesn't corn do a better job as a transistor?

FUJITSU UNVEILS LAPTOP MADE FROM CORN [Inhabitat]

Fred Vogelstein's piece in Wired about the story behind the iPhone is distracting me from my RSS sifting this morning, but he's dug up some really interesting nuggets about the development and impact of the device (even if those details remain unconfirmed by Apple or AT&T).

For instance!

• "Engineers, frazzled from all-night coding sessions, quit, only to rejoin days later after catching up on their sleep." There ought to be a name for that, like "Take this nap and shove it."

• "Meanwhile, about 40 percent of iPhone buyers are new to AT&T's rolls, and the iPhone has tripled the carrier's volume of data traffic in cities like New York and San Francisco." I enjoy any anecdote that highlights the literal limitations of networks, making it easier to think of them as something with finite resources, not nebulous services without limit.

• "Now, in the pursuit of an Apple-like contract, every manufacturer is racing to create a phone that consumers will love, instead of one that the carriers approve of."

• "Even the iPhone's hardware and software teams were kept apart: Hardware engineers worked on circuitry that was loaded with fake software, while software engineers worked off circuit boards sitting in wooden boxes."

The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry [Wired]

Dutch designer Jo Meesters has made this collection of vases and water pitchers made from cast-off waste paper mixed with epoxy and polyurethane. That might affect the ability for these to be recycled again, but I'm actually less interested in them for their environmental impact and more for their rough-edge look.

They aren't on sale, but apparently he just molded the materials around existing vessels, so you could probably cook up something similar yourself.

Pulp by Jo Meesters [Dezeen]

Update: Jo writes to let us know they are on sale on his site, as long as you live in the Netherlands. Also: Picture by Ingmar Timmer!

• Laptop: HP Tx1000z Notebook Tablet with 12.1-inch touch screen for $804, plus shipping. ($400 off.) [Slickdeals] Similar Thinkpad X60 for $882, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Media Streamer: Slingbox Pro & Sling Media HD Connect Kit for $195, shipped. (About $30 off.) [Dealhack]

• Ice Cream: Buy one, get one free on Baskin Robbins sundaes with a coupon. [Bargainist]

• Monitor: Dell e248WFP 24-inch LCD monitor (1,920 by 1,200 resolution) for $375, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Fitness Gear: Today's Woot! is the Reebok Precision Trainer XT Heart Rate Monitor with Chest Strap for $25, shipped.

• Big Time! – The Neuros OSD gets a big ol' thumbs up from the New York Times. [NYTimes] (Thanks, George!)

• The C is for "Content" – CNET going through some management shake-ups. [SeekingAlpha.com]

• Whuuut? – NetNewWire (my RSS reader of choice) and FeedDemon are going free, ad-supported. NNW is awesome. One of my last hold outs in the "dedicated desktop app" space. [Newsgator]

From Bits blog at the New York Times:

Mr. Cicconi said that AT&T has been talking to technology companies, and members of the MPAA and RIAA, for the last six months about implementing digital fingerprinting techniques on the network level.

“We are very interested in a technology based solution and we think a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this,” he said. “We recognize we are not there yet but there are a lot of promising technologies. But we are having an open discussion with a number of content companies, including NBC Universal*, to try to explore various technologies that are out there.”

From the AP, describing the FCC's investigations into Comcast's packet shaping/filter/blocking of P2P traffic:

The Federal Communications Commission will investigate complaints that Comcast Corp. actively interferes with Internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday.

A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of data. Two groups also asked the FCC to fine the nation's No. 2 Internet provider $195,000 for every affected subscriber.

* Why does AT&T care what NBC Universal has to say about the way the AT&T network is used? Answer: They don't. But it lets AT&T play traffic cop instead of robber baron.

Todd Levin, chronicling every videogame console he has known, on the Atari 2600:

The joystick’s distinct shape provided me with hours of sophisticated entertainment, especially as I blindly turned the corner of sexual awareness. When Beth Rubenstein came over to “play Atari” in our renovated basement, our gaming would always quickly deteriorate into marathon sessions of hard, closed-mouth kissing—because tongue kissing was disgusting—followed by hilarious hijinks such as me chasing Beth around the weight bench with the joystick tucked between my legs, like Jane Gumb trapped in the world of Tron.

I’m not sure who would have been more disappointed to discover that last fact: my parents, who tried their best not to raise a pervert; or my brother and sister, who had no idea they were playing Activision’s Pitfall with my surrogate boner.

A Very Weird and Blocky Future [TheMorningNews.org via Kottke]

Today on Modern Mechanix we have 1947 article heralding the miracle of RF (radio frequency) heating, or to us, microwaves. These miraculous inventions include a microwave oven that's "smaller than a refrigerator" as well as a handy dandy Speedy Weeny hot dog vending machine. In 1929 paper milk cartons were a brand new invention, though one they hadn't quite gotten right since you had to cut off a metal cap to actually get at the milk. We also look at the 1939 debut of the recently retired Columbia cyclotron, a sci-fi looking Nazi robot leg, and a giant harmonica played by 7 children. Lastly, creative, anthropomorphic taxidermy was the latest fad in 1933.

Serious Eats' Erin Zimmer risked gullet and gut to sample a "F'Real Shake," some sort of gas station make-your-own milk shake machine.

Something like a DIY malt shop from the future, it lets you pick from a mini-freezer of ice cream cups (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or a limited-edition egg nog) and thickness settings (extra, regular or less thick). After dropping my vanilla into the sleek blue machine and choosing extra-thick, the cup levitated to a shake-making heaven. Some bzzt noises later, and it dropped back down to our mortal world.

Creamy and chalky-white, it wasn't much more sophisticated than McDonald's vanilla soft-serve, but very satisfying with all that buttercream and host of scary chemicals. Cellulose gum, maltodextrin, carrageenan and dextrose.

My favorite flavor of ICEE is maltodextrin. (Although I usually stir in a little from the xanthan gum nozzle for viscosity.)

Route 29 Roadtrip Highlight: F'Real Shakes [SeriousEats.com]

Why hasn't someone combined the 3d positional Wiimote controller from the Nintendo Wii and a—excuse me for being crass but I believe this is now the parlance—fucking machine? You've got three axis control plus rotational sensitivity. Seems possible. Once you had a one-to-one mapping of the Wiimote and the machine, you should be able to broadcast the positional data over the net without much problem. You might even be able to wire vibration feedback from the machine to be sent to the Wiimote.

Although this R/C ornithopter may be called the "BladeRunner iFly Vamp," Cryptomundo's Loren Coleman noticed it has a striking resemblance to the infamous Point Pleasant Mothman.

[Posthuman Blues via Cryptomundo]

The "Arantix" mountain bike from Delta 7 Sports uses an open lattice tube design made from carbon fiber and kevlar. They call the technique "IsoTruss."

From the press release:

Each Arantix Mountain Bike frame takes approximately 300 hours to build, as Delta 7 Sports workers weave single carbon fiber strands to create the open lattice IsoTruss structure of each frame tube. Each bundle of carbon fiber strands are wrapped with Kevlar and then baked at 255 degrees Fahrenheit for four hours. The ends of the baked tubes are then machined before being joined with molded carbon fiber lugs to make a complete frame.

The completed frame weighs just 2.75 pounds.

Delta 7 Sports plans on shipping just 200 Arantix bikes in 2008 with a price of $12,000 fully kitted out or $7,000 for the frame alone.

Product Page [Delta7Sports.com via Oh Gizmo via Popular Science]

Any day I can make even oblique references to the SR-71 Blackbird is a good day, but this model from "Lego Monster" makes today a full-throttle holiday. It's even got the dual cockpit.

Model Set [Flickr via The Brothers Brick]

Heineken and Krups have announced that they'll be bringing the "BeerTender," an at home keg system, for sale in North America. It will first be sold via Williams-Sonoma in March for $400, but in a strange turn it will be more widely available for $300 on April 1st from other retailers. (At least according to the Unofficial BeerTender USA Fan Site.)

My problem with the BeerTender is two-fold: first, Heineken sucks. There are other beer varieties available in Europe (including Affligem, which isn't bad), but I sort of doubt the U.S. will get the same variety. Secondly, because the BeerTender uses proprietary "DraughtKegs" that are internally pressurized, you can't fill up kegs yourself with homebrew or craft beer. It's unlikely that small craft brewers will offer their beers in a compatible form.

I'm all for draft beer at home. In fact, I'm planning on building a kegerator this year. But it pains me to think of how much good American craft beer could be purchased for $300. Even poured from bottles instead of a sleek countertop unit, it'd be better than a cold mug of tasteless Heineken.

P.S. The United States has the richest, most exciting beer culture in the world. (Belgium is grandfathered in for previous accomplishments.) Discuss!

P.P.S. I once had a multi-course dinner at the Amsterdam Heineken brewery (now a museum) in which a different small batch beer brewed by their brewmaster was served with each course. Some knockout beers. I know the average beer drinking buys crap beer, but when I know a brewery can do better it makes me hate their mainstream lagers all the more.

Heineken, Krups to Sell BeerTender in US [Physorg.com]

Rob Beschizza has spotted a curious thing at CES: several knock-off game consoles that accept actual game cartrid