Google schools NZ on why terminating accused infringers is bogus

An interesting article from boingboing about Google's position on take-down notices with some stats regrading their legitimacy.

He wants to sell us miles, the same way the phone company sells minutes

Back in October I introduced you to a guy named Shai Agassi, who wants to build the infrastructure needed to power electric cars.

Here's an interview with the man.

It's a bold, complicated plan, but a few countries have signed up and in Canada, Ontario's premier seems up for it. Watch this space......

The best kind of printer jam

Here's an awesome video called Printer Jam.

This would be the first video I've ever seen where printer noises are used as a form of music.

Can you get all three correct?

Alright trivia geeks:

1. How long does it take for the Earth to revolve around the Sun?
2. Did the earliest humans and dinosaurs live at the same time?
3. What is the approximate percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water? Bonus question - what percentage is fresh?

Here's what freaked me out - 21% of adults can answer them all correctly. Courtesy J-Walk blog.
(I have placed the answers in comments)

Verizon..... you've got money... we've got nerve

From the I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it for myself file: If you don't make at least 12.5 minutes of long distance calls, Verizon is assessing some home phone customers a $5 per month "shortfall charge." Verizon says that the charge helps pay for maintenance of the network.

Mmm hmm. Because it's not like they don't already charge you for the use of the network.

Pretty soon your phone bill will look similar to your other utility bills in its granularity. There'll be:

• The line access fee
• The line maintenance fee
• The copper replacement rider
• The fibre to the door upgrade fee
• The high speed internet's clogging our werkins fee
• The long distance access fee
• The long distance usage fee
• The 911 access fee
• The pole climber's retirement fund contribution
• The dial tone fee
• ...

Chatty jury

The internet is having unexpected consequences in the most unexpected places now. Not so much the existence of the internet, but the portable, stealthy, modern means of accessing it.

Such as when you're on a jury. Cases are regularly being compromised and in some instances - thrown out due to inappropriate tweeting, blogging and Facebooking of court activities.

An Ernest offering.

I bet it has more to do with California than Colorado

Check this out.

In the state of Colorado, the water that falls on your property in the form of rain - isn't yours to keep. That's right, collecting rainwater from your roof is against the law. It belongs to "farmers, ranchers, developers and water agencies that have bought the rights to those waterways."

Just think homemade poutine... but with garlic

Gravy cheese oven fries with roasted garlic.

Just let that soak in for a minute.

Are you drooling yet?

OK then, here's the recipe.....

Awkward.....

Sometimes you get a little dyslexic with your typing in Microsoft Word and sometimes Word's built in spell checker makes a suggestion that is hardly appropriate.

Like when you totally mess up categories and it suggests cat orgies.

Click!

You're walking along, minding your own business, when you stumble across a red cord dangling from the sky.

What do you do? What happens next?

This year's crop of cars...... a bit boring

I went to the Calgary (new car) Auto Show this past weekend. I came away a bit disappointed.

First of all, if I have to pay an entry fee, there better be some vehicles there that I couldn't find at your average dealership. I want to see concept cars! Regrettably, there was one. I don't count cars that will actually be on showroom floors within 6 months, as some car companies were labelling pre-production samples as 'concepts'. Uh..... no.

Second, I was totally uninspired by this year's crop of vehicles in general. Coming from a Honda / Acura fan boy, I found their styling to be uninspiring. Darlene even commented this weekend that the newest Accord model looked like a Ford. Ha! Take that Honda. Their new Insight hybrid looks like it will be easily eclipsed by the new 2010 Toyota Prius. The new Acuras have far too much chrome, especially on their front grilles.

There was one car I saw that actually turned my head - the new Audi A4 Avant wagon. Lots of power, loads of torque from a 2.0 litre turbocharged gasoline engine and all wheel drive to boot. It's a bit pricey ($50,000), but almost every auto journalist said it was worth the price. Sitting inside it, I almost forgot how much I like my 2004 TSX.

I hope the car scene is more exciting when I'm in the market for my next car.....

I figured expecting the other person to pay would've been one

A poll was done with 3,000 people asking what they thought were faux pas on a first date. The results:

1. Clicking fingers at the waiter
2. Adding salt to the meal before tasting it
3. Getting drunk
4. Licking the plate clean
5. Burping
6. Picking teeth with fingers
7. Licking the knife
8. Slurping soup
9. Talking about sex or bodily functions
10. Not leaving a tip

I think I might have been guilty of numbers 2 and 5 - keep in mind I would have excused myself after 5.

Lawsuit limerick

There was a young lad from Kentucky
Whose purchase turned out to be unlucky
He bought an iPod
It burned his young bod
And the award would suit him just ducky

Yeah..... I just made that up. OK, so if they win the lawsuit, the family gets $225,000 for an isolated incident involving a second degree burn from an exploded battery. The lawsuit also describes the Apple store employees as having "acted with actual malice and committed intentional, reckless, wanton, wilful and gross acts."

Thanks to Ernest for the catch.

Well... they were portable-ish

Hey kids!

Just think, this is what cell phones used to be like.....

Yeah.

Using your phone to hunt for food

One of the earliest iPhone apps I downloaded (for free) is Urbanspoon.

Sometimes you want to go out to eat but have no idea where you'd like to go. I've lost count of the number of times when I'll be straining to come up with a good idea for a dinner destination, but later in the week I'll drive by a place and say "Aww crap! We could have gone there for supper the other day...".

The Urban Spoon app for the iPhone can be used to find nearby restaurants. It makes use of the iPhone's accelerometer by allowing you to shake the phone to turn the dials like a slot machine. The 3 dials represent an area, a type of cuisine, and a price range. At first, each dial is unlocked, but you can lock down any dials to restrict what it searches for. So if you are interested in a particular price range but don't care about the area or type of food, you just scroll the price range dial to the value you want, lock that dial and shake the phone to get a random offering based on any area and any type of food. And yes, the app knows where you are, so you will get restaurants in your city.

You can even just browse restaurants closest to you, if the random slot machine offerings aren't to your liking.

Check out this iPhone ad showcasing the app in action.

Cues for Horation on CSI Miami

Funny flow chart for Horatio from CSI Miami.

Want!

Some guys took the electric motors out of their kid-sized 'Powerwheels' sized vehicles and souped them up just a little. Then they had some fun in the snow.

I am so jealous right now.......

More 1980s tunes in the playlist

I know I only posted a playlist full of 1980s songs back in November, but I was going through my collection and found some songs that all touched me in some way or another during that era.

So here we go again.........

I assume progressive means 'liberal'

Here's a (American) quiz that measures how progressive thinking you are.

I scored 297/400 while the average American scored 209.5/400.

How some muppets got their start

I found an article containing some of the back stories behind some of your favourite Muppet's characters.

This is how Darlene makes popcorn now

Word on the street is that microwaveable popcorn isn't very good for you because of the butter flavouring they use and the bag's inner coating.

But that doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying microwave popcorn. Buy some microwaveable popping kernels (organic if you prefer) and some brown paper lunch bags. You can line one side of the inside of the bag with butter or olive oil or coconut oil (or nothing). Put the side with the oil / butter facing the bottom and add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the kernels, maybe some sea salt or other spice, put the bag on a plate then nuke as you would a normal bag of popcorn from the store.

Funny in a macabre sort of way

From the author of 'Cat & Gnome' and 'Bigfoot - I Not Dead', Graham Roumieu, comes '101 Ways to Kill Your Boss'.

I flipped through this while in line at HMV and it was all I could do not to burst into maniacal laughter.

do it.... faster

Depending on how sick you are of Daft Punk's song, this little sound board could entertain you for a few minutes.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about - go to Grooveshark and type in harder better faster stronger and listen to the original.

"Give me 4"

Elmo interviews Ricky Gervais.

I love when Elmo looks at the director and says, "Where did you lose this interview?"

[late update] I just found out something about Ricky Gervais - he used to be the vocalist for a 1980s new wave group called Seona Dancing (pronounced shawna). Wicked.

Rent an electric scooter

Here's another short haul commuter idea from Australia. Instead of bikes, you grab electric scooters that are attached to a lamp standard. Use it for as far as you need, then return it to the next charger-equipped lamp standard.

I like it.

It qualifies as fair use... but you'd never know it

The music industry is still going crazy with asking YouTube to remove videos. Now even kids doing kids stuff to music isn't permitted.

According to statistics kept by YouTomb, there were twice as many videos removed from YouTube in January 2009 as in the entire previous year combined. The numbers are all more appalling because, thanks to Warner's reliance on YouTube’s automated, censorship-friendly Content I.D. tool, there is no reason to think that Warner even bothered to watch these videos to decide whether it actually objects them before blocking them.

Seriously folks, how much longer are we going to allow this crap?

This makes Penn angry

I certainly don't agree with everything Penn Jillette says (I watch his TV series 'Bullshit'), but I do agree with his stance on drugs.

Interview with Stephanie Norn of Loose Moose

This week I bring you my interview with Stephanie Norn. She may be one of the less experienced improvisers at Loose Moose, but she is no stranger to performing as you will see errr.... hear. This interview lasts almost 40 minutes, so sit back and enjoy.

I have to apologize in advance, as the iPhone recording does introduce a fair bit of noise to the sound - hopefully it's not too distracting.

Don't sue me bro'

A coalition of British musicians have formed to indicate their opposition to the music industry suing customers for alleged downloading of music. The group includes Annie Lennox, Robbie Williams, Peter Gabriel, while David Gray, Fran Healy from Travis, Pink Floyd's Nick Mason and Mick Jones from The Clash.

Long live the remix culture

My friend Bernie sent me this article, which offers another example of why remix artists should be embraced by the entertainment industry, not cued up for the next lawsuit. An excerpt:

"...Because, even in the face of bullying, obfuscating, and throat-clearing from corporations with a homemade timetable for evolution, more and more folks like Kutiman will just keep making and releasing stuff. Cool stuff, “illegal” stuff, niche stuff, and stuff that doesn’t require the benediction of a middle-aged executive in order to reach its precise audience with almost zero friction or overhead."