Rolodex still exists

I was pretty astounded recently to come across the company rolodex, yes they still exist and they have cool stock photos of trendy business people using a physical rolodex right next to a laptop.

But what is Rolodex now that the focus of their brand obsolete?

Rolodex is the organizational authority when it comes to innovative, easy-to-use products for the home, office and in transit. [source]

To be fair Rolodex was probably innovative in 1958; as far as I can tell it improved on the wheeldex (shown below) by adding knobs on the side and having two rings instead of one.

But what do they say about innovation?

We are revolutionizing the way you organize your workspace and home life to help bring balance back to your world. [source]

Okay, lets check out their products ... super, they make a laptop stand. 

My favorite part: this stand is rated to hold any laptop up to 15 pounds.

A new paper

I just had a paper, "Photon sorting in the near field using subwavelength cavity arrays in the near-infrared" (based on some of my dissertation work, and lots more excellent work by Isroel Mandel and others) accepted for publication in Applied Physics Letters. The paper is open access, which means the full-text PDF version is available for free.

The idea behind this paper is similar to one we published last year. This structure that we designed and made:

can spectrally and spatially split incoming radiation into different holes in the metal:

Unlike the previous structure, where the incident energy is almost entirely absorbed, this one transmits the light through. Additionally, the other one worked at microwave wavelengths; this device operates at near-IR wavelengths, which is much harder to pull off.

For the rest of the info, read the paper!

I. M. Mandel, et al., "Photon sorting in the near field using subwavelength cavity arrays in the near-infrared," Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 251116 (2013).

Pacman Credit Card

Well I finally have a new credit card design. I colored it in last night - have yet to see if it will get rejected when I try to use it ...

My last credit card design seems to have made a few rounds:

It was on Tumblr:

http://miltnr.tumblr.com/post/29890586416/jonathan-lansey-is-awesome

9gag (this is a very prestigious website JKLOL):

http://9gag.com/gag/aAYdg9p

and it got like a million comments when this facebook page shared it:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=574399525914760

Close call

This is the closest we've been to empty:

I suspect we could've made it another good 10-15 miles, honestly.

Why T-Mobile is awesome

We Lansey brothers aren't usually the type to push commercial products up here on the blog but I have recently been so happy with +T-Mobile  that I want to tell you all about it. And I promise they didn't pay me anything to say this.

Earlier this year they did away with the "lock you in" style contracts that the mainstream telcom providers use to keep people on their expensive plans. It is SIM-card based so I bought a pretty good phone on ebay for cheap and it works... but the main reason T-Mobile is awesome is that if you have an unlimited data +texts plan in the states then you have:
Unlimited International Data and Texts
Imagine this, you cross the border and get a text from T-Mobile with these sweet sweet words

"Welcome to South Korea, Unlimited web included as part of your global coverage" ... "Unlimited text incl with your global coverage."

I had a layover of only a couple of hours Incheon but in that time I found out what the currency was worth, read the Wikipedia page about the city and observed my exact position and local area with GPS.

With unlimited data you can hop on a random bus in a random city and know that you can Google for directions back, find hotels nearby or book a flight. The experience of international travel has fundamentally changed to one of previously unimaginable convenience.

Thank you T-Mobile!

Backwards Hebrew sign

There's a new gas station on Route 4, that for some bizarre reason feels the need to thank their customers in Hebrew:

They clearly just fed "Thanks for your business" -- "תודה על העסק שלך" into Google Translate, but the text direction got flipped. Fortunately, this isn't quite as permanent as some Bad Hebrew Tattoos, but I was still amused. (There's a "Welcome" sign on the way in with the text backward as well, but it's hard to take that picture decelerating off the highway.)

Shenzhen 1

Here are some pictures from Shenzhen