REM

Remee Lucid Dreaming Mask flashes before your eyes

The Remee Lucid Dreaming Mask is worn like a regular sleep mask, but it has built-in LEDs that flash in patterns. The idea is that the sleeper recognizes the lights as visual anomalies, realizes he is sleeping, and then takes control of the dream.

The LED patterns and delay times before the lights trigger will be customizable through a Web site. There's also a dimmer control so the LEDs don't wake you up by blaring through your eyelids.

Remee isn't the first lucid dreaming mask, but it's cheaper than existing options like the $190 REM-Dreamer. Remee … Read more

The 404 817: Where we sleep great and lose weight (podcast)

The Sleep Doctor Michael Breus is back in the studio answering your questions and telling us about his new book, "The Sleep Doctor's Diet Plan: Lose Weight through Better Sleep." We also have two copies of the book to give away, so be sure to follow The Sleep Doctor and The 404 on Twitter, mention both of us in a tweet, and you'll be on your way boosting your metabolism, decreasing your hunger, and increasing your energy and willpower through a good night's rest!

We always have plenty of questions to ask the doctor while he's here, and the chatroom helps us out today with questions about what foods to eat before hitting the sack, the effects of alcohol and smoking on sleeping, the benefits of temperature-sensitive mattresses, and more! Wilson's also taking a sleep diet challenge as well, so look out for Dr. Breus on the show six weeks from now to check up on his performance!

The 404 Digest for Episode 817

The Sleep Doctor's Diet Plan: Lose Weight through Better Sleep." The Nap-a-latte works every time. How to sleep anywhere! Too much sleep may accelerate cognitive aging. Air traffic controllers sleeping on the job: is it really their fault? Dr. Breus recommends the Sleep Smoothie. Check out Dr. Breus's line of temperature-regulated mattresses at Sleepy's!

Episode 817 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The mystery of the disappearing Zune music

The Zune forums are alive with complaints that a bunch of music has suddenly disappeared from Zune devices. The reason: it appears that Microsoft has pulled a bunch of music from the Zune Marketplace. If users downloaded this music to their devices via the subscription-based Zune Pass service, then it apparently disappeared when they synced their device. (I'm talking about subscription-based "tethered" downloads, of which users get an unlimited number per month. The Zune Pass also offers 10 permanent MP3 downloads per month, and those downloads have not been affected.)

I'm not a Zune Pass subscriber, … Read more

Simple birthday reminder

Birthday Reminder is a simple program that reminds users of important birthdays. There's not much to it, but it does provide birthday reminders as promised.

The program's interface is sparse, consisting only of a space to enter a name and birth date. There's really not much else to do, and the built-in Help file confirms this by saying, in essence, "Enter birthdays and the program will remind you of them." The only preference that can be set is for when the reminders appear; users can choose anytime from three days before the birthday to the … Read more

System-wide shutdowns

RemShutdown provides system administrators or other authorized users with a way to shut down all or select computers on a network. It's easy to operate, but system experience is a must.

This program has a very simple interface with quick buttons to add or delete computers from the list. All that's required to set up a computer is its IP address. This screen also lets you enter a delay time before computers shut down, but it's only in seconds, and we would have liked the ability to delay in increments of hours or days. A small field … Read more

The 404 214: Where everybody hurts...sometimes

Justin feels blue before the show, but a group hug and a little well-placed bromance sets him right. It's a touching prelude to what is perhaps the 404's raunchiest show ever! In other news, NASA combats space depression with virtual therapy, the Army reads terrorist tweets, and a shocking number of sex addicts are women. Also, please don't trust your GPS navigator too much. Check out The 404's exclusive scoop on Mac's newest OS--it's tight and supports multitouch functionality!

Dan the Mantern here. On today's show we discuss a timeless question that doe-eyed youths have asked their parents for ages: "What happens when you fart in space?" Apparently, letting one loose in an infinite vacuum can have much more dire consequences than one might believe. Farting inside of a space suit can be dangerous, if you try to let the stank out while doing a space walk. Unfortunately, the likelihood of a well-time fart inside the space station becoming a source of DIY zero-gravity propulsion is low, according to one Canadian astronaut. Finally, check out this dramatic interpretation of a space fart from Disney's 1997 classic Rocket Man.

EPISODE 214 Download today's podcast … Read more

Did the R.E.M. Web campaign lead to higher sales?

R.E.M. fans (like me!) and music-biz folks interested in exploring new ways to use the Web should check out the two-part series on Hypebot.com about the band's online campaign for its latest album, Accelerate.

The posts are written by Ethan Kaplan, the Warner Bros. vice president of technology who worked with the band to design a technology-intensive publicity campaign.

Highlights include:

Ninetynights.com, which included exclusive short videos of the recording process.

REMDublin.com, which evolved into a wiki-style collaboration between fans and resulted in fan-created videos scoring top-popularity spots on YouTube.

Two … Read more

R.E.M. offers 45 rpm vinyl

I have a theory about indie rock hipsters: you can tell how old they are by which R.E.M. album they say was "the last good one." Specifically, it was the last R.E.M. album that came out before they turned 22, the age at which most four-year college students graduate.

That puts me squarely in the Green camp. And in fact, while their next two albums made R.E.M. a household name, with songs like "Losing My Religion" (from Out of Time) and "Man on the Moon" (from Automatic for … Read more

Where we can't keep our eyes open

EPISODE 93

Michael Breus joins us, author of Beauty Sleep and thesleepdoctor.com. We basically sit and bask in his sleep wisdom. Want to know how long is long enough, or how much is too much? Listen to Michael, he knows what's up. One of our most informative shows ever.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

R.E.M. PR firm rips off Improv Everywhere, then apologizes

Update (3:52 pm): This story got the name of the R.E.M. video wrong. It's fixed in the text below. Additionally, there's new comments from Improv Everywhere founder Charlie Todd below.

After reading Tuesday night on Laughing Squid that a new R.E.M. video had been posted by the band's publicity firm on YouTube that seemed to blatantly rip off Improv Everywhere's now-famous "freezes," I wrote to the culture jamming collective's founder to get his take.

"I did not know they were making this video and was not involved … Read more