All of us here at CrunchGear are fairly angry at the way NBC has treated you, Conan. So here’s our offer: if you and the peacock decide to part company (and you really ought to, provided the network takes care of your staff and everyone else who moved from New York to Los Angeles, and provided you walk away with some fat cash), we’d like to offer you an internship. That’s right: Conan O’Brien, CrunchGear intern. That has a nice ring to it, no?

Just ask Jimin what it’s like to be a CG intern. Since I don’t know where Jimin is right now, I’ll give you a preview: have you ever wanted more USB thumb drives than you know what to do with? CG interns get them in spades, since that’s how companies give you product images and whatnot from live events. (I personally took home something like 10 USB thumb drives from last week’s CES.) What you do with these USB thumb drives after you copy over the data is your business—maybe you’d like to paint President Obama’s face on them and sell ‘em in Union Square in New York? That’s your call.

All of this assumes, of course, that NBC doesn’t consider interning for CrunchGear to be a competing job. You’re going to have a few months of non-compete time, right, before you (hopefully!) get a show at another network? Spend ‘em here with us, you’ll have a blast. We’ll make jokes in the official CrunchGear Chat Room.

So Conan, if you’re thinking of a way to sit out your non-compete time, the door is wide open for you here at CrunchGear.

As laser pointers go, you could do far worse than this little keychain Lightsaber. I mean think about it; if your job requires you to use a laser pointer, then you might as well have a cool one. And at $15, it’s not like this is a huge monetary investment. As an investment in your social standing amongst your peers, though, this thing ought to pay off in spades.

Choose from Darth Vader or Darth Maul versions, available at ThinkGeek.

Features include:

• Working red dot laser pointer
• The force
• Highly detailed scaled replicas
• Batteries included
• Pew pew pew!

Those are the actual features listed on the product page. Very nice.

Star Wars Lightsaber Laser Pointer [ThinkGeek]

Every poker player wishes they could know what cards they are going to be dealt before putting their chips into the pot. An odds calculator can help you do just that. The calculator helps you to evaluate pot odds by determining the strength or weakness of all possible hands. In this article, we’ll look at how calculators work and how they can help you become a poker winner.

There are separate odds calculators for poker available that include Texas Holdem, Heads up Holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, 7 Card Stud, and 7 Cards Stud Hi-Lo. Odds calculators can be especially helpful for Holdem novices. If you get a hand that you’re not sure about, say pocket aces, then simply plug in several starting hands against pocket aces and the calculator will evaluate your advantage. Knowing the real odds can help you to determine what to do with the hand.

An odds calculator is very easy to use because it works much like a typical mathematical calculator. For example, say you are holding a pair of queens, one in spades and one in diamonds, and you suspect your opponent is playing his ace high. If your opponent is playing an ace high, with an eight kicker (say the ace of hearts and the 8 of hearts), then the odds are in your favor pre-flop and you have a 67.5% chance of winning with a pair. Yet once the flop happens, a reversal of fortunes can happen! If the community cards include the 7 of hearts, 10 of clubs, and the 6 of hearts, then your opponent now has a flush draw and an inside straight draw. The calculator can help you to quickly adjust your Texas Holdem strategy so that you don’t lose too much money, as you will need to decide if you want to fold or play on to see the turn and river cards.

If you play online Texas Holdem, then there are odds calculators that function in real time and start calculating the odds and provide suggestions at the online poker tables as soon as you receive your hand. These poker odds calculators come equipped with several advanced features that could be used once the players are familiar with the basics. These programs can run along with the online poker tables in a small window on the screen and you can drag it anywhere you want. There are hundreds of online poker rooms that enable the use of such poker odds calculators in real time and where you can also take advantage of online poker bonus codes.

Texas Holdem is a game of skill and chance but an odds calculator can significantly improve your chances of walking away from a poker game with cash in your pocket. The calculator can be a critical part of your poker strategy. However, it’s best to use the tool prudently when playing in a live game because other players will be watching. You may inadvertently be giving “tells” that could cost you money. Seasoned players who know how to read their opponent’s body language may fold if they believe the odds are in your favor.

I like to think of poker odds as a metaphor for life and business. For example, my early years playing poker and backgammon got me accustomed to having faith in the law of large numbers. This in turn translated into me having a good mindset when it came to business – and especially pay per click marketing – which still gets sold as the answer to everyone’s money problems through products like Maverick Money Makers.

Honestly, you might want to improve your poker skills first!

By Andrew Liszewski

You have to really love your local radio morning personalities to shell out $350 for a radio these days, even a sleek designer model like this one. But if you’ve got a thing for vacuum tubes, the Jonas Damon 2B Ltd. Edition radio’s got them in spades… well 3 at least, and they’re viewable from the back so you can stare in awe and wonder while they “broadcast signals in big, warm, radiant sound.” Other features are pretty limited though. You can get an AM/FM tuner of course, and if you’ve completely converted to MP3s there’s also an aux-in jack for connecting your iPod/Zune/the rest.

[ Jonas Damon 2B Ltd. Edition Vacuum Tube Radio ] VIA [ Better Living Through Design ]

We all know about Jay Leno’s collection of old cars. More interesting for gadget geeks is that he relies on a 3D scanner and printer to keep his antiques in tip-top shape.

Jay Leno and his NextEngine 3D Scanner. Courtesy Popular Mechanics

Need a replacement part for a decades-old or exotic car? All Jay Leno does is get the part he wants to replace, and use a 3D scanner to convert into information his 3D printer understands. He then waits a few hours while the printer reproduces a plastic facsimile. After printing’s done (which can take as long as 33 hours), Leno checks if the newly-fabricated plastic part fits as a replacement properly. Once everything checks out, the plastic is used to create a mold to create a real (usually metal) replacement.

The gadgets in use? The NextEngine 3D scanner and the Dimension 3D printer. Priced at $3,000 and $15,000 respectively, it’s clear that the Jay Leno way requires lots of money—which he probably has in spades anyway.

Source

Post from: The Gadget Blog

By Andrew Liszewski

Is there anything you can’t get in a can these days? Seriously though, I’m truly thankful to be living in a time where technology has allowed us to compress and contain everything from that new book smell to realistic smoke in an easy-to-use nozzled metal cylinder.

And let’s face it, nothing takes a party from yawn to memorable like some pseudo-realistic smoke effects, which this provides in spades! Each can’s got about 5-minutes worth of the non-toxic water vapor and vegetable oil ’smoke’ spray, which will supposedly hang in a room for about 2 hours without setting off your smoke alarm.

[ Smoke Spray In A Can ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]