It has begun. Robots have began their invasion. Luckily, you’re safe. That is, if you own a dog. We fear the robots will soon adapt.
… from Neatorama
For those of you not following this story. The Pirate Bay is a torrent search engine based in Sweden. What gets peoples panties in a bunch is that sometimes people upload torrents for copyrighted content. Take a look at a sample of the content that is searchable. I know… makes me sick too. Certain entities in the United States — and other locations — have a problem with them and continue to try to shut them down — unsuccessfully.
The problem is that none of the illegal content is actually hosted on the Pirate Bay servers. A torrent file is just a map to where to get the content that can be understood by special programs. For some reason those idiots in Sweden think this isn’t illegal since The Pirate Bay isn’t actually letting users download illegal content themselves. For comparison, here in the States, you will be drawn and quartered for sharing torrent files. Comcast is even slowing down BitTorrent traffic.
But since what The Pirate Bay does isn’t illegal in their country — no matter how much the MPAA/RIAA beg — they will be set free to pirate another day.
… from The INQUIRER
I just know a great idea when I see one. Take the product above as an example. It just screams, “Good idea!”. One part iPod and speakers and one part sub-woofer inside fragile Chinese-styled vase.
To better explain this product here is a work of fiction describing how we think it came to be:
The Disgruntled Designer
by Cory
“My job sucks. I just work on Apple iPod docks ALL day”, the designer thought to himself as he left his desk, “I need some snacks.”
The designer stood at the vending machine trying to decide between snacks. Will it be the Donettes or the Snickers? Just then an idea hit him like a ton of Donettes…
“It’s perfect”, he whispered to himself.
The designer arrived back at his desk and quickly went into sketching mode.
“It will have all the class of a taxicab crown air freshener, stupidity of most iPod docks, and the type of design that those iPod freaks have become accustomed to.”
He walked into his bosses office with the concept in hand.
“What am I doing? I’m going to lose my job.”, he thought, but quickly reconciled, “Oh well, what the hell, this job sucks.”
No matter – after a few short moments his boss loved the idea and they bumped it right into production. And that product was the iPod dock and Chinese-styled vase sub-woofer.
The end.
… from DVICE
You thought you knew what the term marketing meant? Think again. The American Marketing Association didn’t like the definition and is changing it.
The term marketing is now to be defined as:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
I guess they’ve been seeing how much free publicity all these new-aged marketers are getting and want in on the action. We wonder if this means all those marketing degrees are going to be null and void now that it doesn’t even mean the same thing? I knew there was a reason I didn’t go to college.
… from Neatorama
It’s time for burning man again… Another year of the overpriced bastardized version of what was, the original burning man. Last year I looked into attending and nearly died when I saw the astronomical ticket prices.
This year burning man will set you back at least $250 but probably upwards of $300+. What exactly is all that money for? You don’t really provide anything. I’m in a fucking desert.
Maybe the extra change is to pay overtime to all the law enforcement agencies patrolling the event? Not one, but five different law enforcement agencies are at burning man.
Instead of attending burning man we will be setting fire to a large bush in our backyard. Tickets start at $2.75.
Read the article for a step-by-step account of the ordering process. It will leave you on the edge of your seat.
… from Geek Gestalt @ CNet News
A slew of companies IBM donated some patents to the world in an effort to save the planet. In the same way brakes can’t stop a speeding locomotive before it hits a staled car on the tracks these patents won’t help in changing the current path the planet is on. Hey IBM! Go back to being suits you damned dirty wippies (wannabe hippie, Copyright bitches). We don’t need your charity.
From the article:
Dr John E. Kelly, director of IBM Research, reckons the “free exchange of valuable intellectual property will accelerate work on the next level of environmental challenges.”
Hopefully, then, there’s a patent in there for a device to pull poor people out of stinking flood waters, alter the flow of water around the planet’s oceans and turn fresh desert into green fields.
We <3 you, Inquirer.
For doing the right thing just because everybody’s doing it:
… from The INQUIRER
Take a look at this alarm clock hack. Some might say this is simple tomfoolery. And those some are the bleeding heart liberals out there. This video is nothing more than a glimpse into Canada’s secret plans to take over the good ol’ US of A.
What the hell is this guy talking about, you might ask? I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.
- Canada’s timber industry has been gaining steam in recent years. NAFTA hasn’t hurt. This has had a ripple effect of slowly increasing the value of the Canuck dollar.
- The price of a barrel of oil has risen and now suddenly Canada has vast oil reserves 2nd only to our close ally, Saudi Arabia. WTF Canada? Where were you during the 80’s? You are trying to bleed us dry.
- And now this shifty-eyed, hockey-loving, beer-swilling Canadian is showing off his alarm clock. Obviously they are creating these things for their citizens so they can get a jump on the day and slowly surpass us on every front. That can be the only logical conclusion that any intelligent human being could arrive at.
Damn Canadians.
… from Laughing Squid
A new computer virus has started to appear and it steals your bank information. We didn’t really read the story from the BBC because it is super long. Though we didn’t read it, we are pretty sure the virus comes as an attachment to an email purporting to be of a kitten falling asleep or some other nonsense.
The individual will be overjoyed that such a video exists and immediately attempt to download it only to realize it is an application, and not a video. The individual will think to themselves, “That is weird”, but run the program anyways hoping to see a lovable kitten. The program will install a virus and they will die.
The virus is suposedly from a Russian Virus-writing-group-for-profit and it installs to the MBR and steals your bank information. If you don’t know what the MBR is then you are probably infected.
For Russians:
… from BBC News
We feel sorry for the poor sap who was probably damn near suicidal over creating this. Dreaming to write a big childrens book — maybe the next Hungry Caterpillar even. Then one day, out of the blue, he got the call from the MS Marketing team.
“Will you write a childrens book for us?”, they proposed.
“No”, the idealistic author thought, “I have had enough of the horrible marketing techniques — and now children!”.
“We will pay you enough money to kill your own mother.”, the marketer continued.
“Yes”, the jaded author thought, “it will get my name out there and maybe actually educate someone about servers in the home.”
The end.
Oh… I couldn’t leave without saying this.
“When mommy and daddy love each other very much, the daddy wants to give the mommy a special gift.” Anal. Not funny? We also have pearl necklace and donkey punch. Better? No? Fuck you.
… from Gizmodo
I always knew that domain name registrars were a shady bunch. It has long been known rumored that certain domain registrars would register your domain name when you search for it. This is the reason I never search for domains until I am certain I am going to register them, if available.
And here comes news that Network solutions is guilty of this. From the article:
Network Solutions would track what domains people were searching for. With this actionable intelligence in hand, it would quickly purchase those domains and park them. When an interested party went back online to purchase the domain, they would discover that Network Solutions had already registered it. Of course, Network Solutions was willing to sell it to them for a fee. This fee was more expensive than other competing registrars typically offer. Alternatively, if the interested party did not come back online to purchase the domain within five days, Network Solutions would simply take advantage of I-CANN’s refund policy and void its own registration. No cash out of their pockets!
So the question is: Is this a service that Netsol provides, or some sneaky underhanded doings? We’re leaning towards the latter especially if they really do indeed charge an extra fee. At the time of writing this I cannot verify the fact. The internet truly is a new wild west.
For domain registrars in general
… from SEOmoz