Finding Cool Stuff

Ron Paul On CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer 1-6- Ron Paul

2008-01-23T22:32:00.000-08:00

The Evolution of Mario

2008-01-23T22:26:00.000-08:00

Obama's Iowa Victory Speech

2008-01-23T22:23:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter to the Sci-Fi Channel

2008-01-23T22:17:00.000-08:00

Dearest Sci-Fi,

Why are you not way more awesome?

Don't get me wrong, when you're good—like with Battlestar Galactica or Eureka (and I'll even give you credit for Doctor who, despite that being a BBC show you just imported)—you're a phenomenal destination network. But let's be honest here, there's not a lot of "good" on your schedule. The Stargate franchise is stale, Flash Gordon (left) is a derisible, stillborn remake, and ECW Wrestling is…wrestling! (And I swore an oath never to speak of Who Wants to Be a Superhero again.)

The thing that infuriates me is that you have so much potential. We're living in the Age of the Geek, where pop culture has finally come around to our way of thinking. Where the most-watched shows on TV are geek-nip like Heroes, Lost, and Bionic Woman; where we buzz about movies like Pan's Labyrinth, Spider-Man, I Am Legend, and Iron Man. The audience could not be more primed for this material, so why are you offering them Ghost Hunters International and crappy "original movies" like Mansquito?

Again, why aren't you more awesome? After the jump, some friendly advice.

Why aren't you adapting more classic sci-fi texts—like you did with Dune—into miniseries events? (Ones that, hopefully, will fare better than Tin Man.) Where's the Foundation saga, or Ender's Game, or Footfall, or The Man in the High Castle, or The Forever War?

Why aren't you engaging today's premiere purveyors of genre material and giving them ten episodes to do whatever the hell they want? I'd watch contained, BBC-style series from folks like Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow, Warren Ellis, Charlie Huston, Neal Stephenson, or China Mieville. The names alone would attract viewers by the truckload. And even if what they produced were failures, they'd be interesting failures—marked by reaching too far, instead of not far enough.

Why don't you try a daily sci-fi soap opera? Airing late at night, so people could actually be home to watch it—or DVR it. Why can't the same kind of serial storytelling that's worked for 50 years on shows like General Hospital be marshaled to create compelling science fiction? (Actually, I've got to give Evan Narcisse a tip of the hat for this one. Because I'm just that kind of bloke.)

Mark Harris was right when he said that science fiction needed to ditch the nostalgia if it's going to reclaim its integrity. Lucky for those of us who love sci-fi that there's a whole network devoted to it. I just want them to fulfill their mandate.

Imagine that. (No, seriously. Get to work imagining.)

Hardest game ever?

2008-01-23T22:15:00.000-08:00

RIAA Website Wiped Clean by “Hackers”

2008-01-23T22:03:00.000-08:00

Apparently the RIAA is so busy suing consumers that they forgot to hire a decent programmer. With a simple SQL injection, all their propaganda has been successfully wiped from the site.

It started out on the social news website Reddit, where a link to a really slow SQL query was posted. While the Reddit users were trying to kill the RIAA server, someone allegedly decided to up the ante and wipe the site’s entire database.

The comments on Reddit are only speculation so far. Based on the username, which was apparently “webReadOnly”, it might not have been setup correctly, or someone could have found another way to delete the content form the site.

Another possibility is that the website has some sort of database flood protection that disables new connections, or perhaps the RIAA themselves removed the content temporarily. The latter seems unlikely, as a better solution would be to take it entirely offline to fix the bigger problem. While they could fix a small vulnerability like this in a matter of seconds, the chances are it’s not an isolated problem.

As pointed out by Haywire, playing around with the urls a bit can return some funny results. It is pretty easy to make the RIAA link to The Pirate Bay for example.

For now it sure does look like all the content has been wiped from the RIAA homepage. Let’s hope they have backups, or not.

Update: After a few hours the RIAA restored the site. They seem to have fixed the vulnerability, but we have saved some screenshots.
Update: They didn’t fix it all, this still works.

RIAA website without content

RIAA supporting The Pirate Bay

Error?

Olbermann Vote Ron Paul

2008-01-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

The Ten Most Obnoxiously Overquoted Movies

2008-01-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

Nothing makes a great movie suck like people quoting it day in and day out for months at a time. It's the go-to route used by individuals who aren't clever enough to come up with their own material, made worse by them thinking (thanks to the select few that laughed at their referencing) they've suddenly become the most hilarious stand-up comedian since George Carlin. Hey dipshit - they were laughing at the actual line, not your "sensational" joke-telling abilities. In fact, you probably butchered it. It was a sympathy laugh. They all secretly hate you. You're considered one big fucking joke. Even your psychiatrist thinks you should kill yourself. Also, your wife/girlfriend/hand is cheating on you.

And all because you wouldn't stop quoting movies like these...

10. OFFICE SPACE

These three characters in "Office Space" are hilarious, but lets be honest, they're also unlikable and annoying. So just when you think there's nothing more aggravating than people quoting the same fucking movie over and over, this movie becomes popular and now people are quoting three alternatively irritating characters from the same fucking movie over and over. Meanwhile, I just stand back, stare aggressively, and clench my fist, waiting for the right moment to go postal and start shouting, "I'll show you a fucking O-face, you cocksucking motherfucker!!" I have learned the courtrooms are not fond of this response.

Other overused quotes:

* "If things go well I might be showing her my O-face. 'Oh... Oh... Oh!' You know what I'm talkin' about. 'Oh!'"
* "Sounds like somebody's having a case of the Mondays."
* "So, Peter, what's happening? Aahh, now, are you going to go ahead and have those TPS reports for us this afternoon?"
* "Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler..."
* "'PC Load Letter'? What the fuck does that mean?"
* "I'll tell you what I'd do, man: two chicks at the same time, man."
* "Did you get that memo?"

9. MONTY PYTHON (all of them)

Yes, actually, I did expect the Spanish Inquisition. Maybe if you didn't use the quote so goddamn much, I wouldn't have.

Other overused quotes:

* "I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
* "It's just a flesh wound."
* "We are the knights who say... NI!"
* "What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

8. WEDDING CRASHERS

I'm going to conduct a test to see whether or not you're qualified to quote "Wedding Crashers".

Part 1: Do something that's as funny as this...

Oh, too bad. You already failed.

Other overused quotes:

* "What'd you do with them? Motorboat? You play the motorboat? You motorboatin' son of a bitch! You old sailor you!"
* "I don't even know what the fuck a quail is!"
* "Mom! The meat loaf! Fuck!"
* "Are you kidding me? I love crab cakes! They're phenomenal!"
* "I felt like Jodie Foster in "The Accused" last night."
* "You shut your mouth when you're talking to me!"

7. Anything with SAMUEL L. JACKSON

I think we can all agree, Samuel L. Jackson is the baddest motherfucker alive. His ability of taking an otherwise mundane sentence and injecting it with a level of such ferocity is incredible. And it's all thanks to two little words. If used incorrectly though, those two little words can be deadly to a movie buff's ears. They can turn something that was once completely badass into something that is, quite frankly, completely gay. This gayness stems from an inability to capture the awesomeness that is Sam "the mutha fuckin' man" Jackson. Think you're up to the task? You're not. Don't even bother trying. You'll just fail at it like you do everything else in life. Motherfucker.

Other overused quotes:

* "Say what again. SAY WHAT AGAIN! I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker! Say what one more goddamn time!"
* "English, MOTHERFUCKER! Do-you-speak it?"
* "I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!"
* "AK-47. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes."
* "Hey, all brothers don't know how to use guns, you racist motherfucker."
* "Oh now that's low, even for a white motherfucker like you."

6. THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN

You know how I know you're gay? Because you won't stop quoting the same fucking joke over and over again.

Other overused quotes:

* "She was a ho... for sho."
* "AHHH, Kelly Clarkson!"
* "You know how I know that you're gay? You have a rainbow bumper sticker on your car that says, 'I love it when balls are in my face'."
* "I'm starvin'... let's get some fuckin' french toast!"
* "You're puttin' the pussy on a pedestal."

5. ANCHORMAN

"Great Poseidon's trident of racial injustice!"
"By the ball sweat of Hades' dank nether regions!"
"Holy man-dolphins of the Utah state tax commission!"

See? I can do it too. It's not that hard to come up with your own variations of Will Ferrell schtick. You just have to be as random as possible and end almost everything with an exclamation point.

For example, if you were at a party and the keg ran out, you could say (in the most Ferrell-like voice you have), "This alcoholic beverage has been a temptress to my taste buds, and now she's abandoned me for her brother-in-law like the pirate whore she is. Oh cruel irony! Why must you encompass my love in such rainbow-shaped bowls of heartache and frustration!?"

Or, you could choose not to look like a jackass. Just stop imitating him full stop. He may be funny when he does it, but you're not.

Other overused quotes:

* "I'm in a glass case of emotion!"
* "I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly..."
* "You're so wise. You're like a miniature Buddha, covered in hair."
* "It's a formidable scent... It stings the nostrils. In a good way."
* "I ate a big red candle!"
* "I would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party. The... party. With the... with the pants. Party with the pants."
* "Loud noises!"
* "I love lamp."

4. The AUSTIN POWERS Series

This one has been especially painful to endure, because finding ways to contribute "Yeah, baby!" to a conversation is quite possibly the easiest thing in the world. Thus, even the dumbest of the dumb were doing it. The context didn't even matter. If somebody said something you agreed with, a piss-poor imitation of Mike Myers would follow.

This was made even more popular because it allowed people to narrowly escape looking like a fool by changing an intelligent conversation into a "humorous" one. For example...

Smart Person #1: I find the latest news of this injustice egregiously underdeveloped.
Smart Person #2: Quite right. The esoteric nature of the crimes leads me to believe the government is creating a factually false pretense intended to elude the citizens.
Smart Person #1: How about you, what are your thoughts on the matter?
You: ...uhh... Yeah, baby, yeah!

This of course would then lead to outbursts of laughter from everyone around you, as the topic would quickly change into a discussion about your amazing comical prowess and undeniable wit. Success!

(Note: I apologize on behalf on my poorly constructed "smart person" talk. I just strung a bunch of words I looked up in the thesaurus together in hopes of forming something remotely intellectual-sounding. I don't even know if what I wrote makes any sense.)

Other overused quotes:

* "Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
* "I demand the sum of... ONE MILLION DOLLARS."
* "Do I make you horny? Randy? Do I make you horny, baby, yeah, do I?"
* "Who throws a shoe? Honestly! You fight like a woman!"
* "Zip it!"
* "Well, listen up, sonny Jim: I ate a baby. Oh, aye, Baby: the other, other white meat. Baby: it's what's for dinner."
* "I'm dead sexy."

3. BORAT

Is your name Sacha Baron Cohen? No?
THEN SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH.

Other overused quotes:

* "My name-a Borat. I like you. I like sex. Is nice!"
* "I like to make sexy time!"
* "This suit is NOT BLACK!"
* "Do this have a pussy magnet?"
* "What's up with it, vanilla face?"
* "Gypsy! Give me your tears! If you will not give them to me, I will take them from you!"

2. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

This movie could've earned itself a nice little cult following among respectable movie buffs. Instead, thanks to Hot Topic and douchebag teeny boppers, it will forever be known as the film that led to countless beatings on the playgrounds against bandwagon hopping bitches who wore "Vote for Pedro" shirts and would never shut the fuck up about num-chucks and tater tots. If you were one of those kids, kindly fuck off. You're not allowed to read my blog anymore.

No seriously, go away.

Other overused quotes:

* "You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills."
* "Do the chickens have large talons?"
* "Don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day."
* "A freakin' 12-gauge, what do you think?"
* "A liger. It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed."
* "I caught you a delicious bass."

1. 300

It was funny when the trailer came out. It was funny when the movie hit theaters. It was still pretty funny about a month after that. But for fuck's sake, it's been almost a year!

GIVE IT A REST ALREADY. Honestly, this is MADNESS!

(...Don't you dare fucking say it... I will kill you.)

Other overused quotes:

* "Tonight, we dine in hell!"
* "Give them nothing! But take from them, everything!"
* "MORE AGGRESSIVE YELLING. RAWR."

iPod - The Pirate Bay Edition

2008-01-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

Megan Fox Dropping H Bombs!

2008-01-18T15:01:00.000-08:00

Paris Hilton loses inheritance

2008-01-18T14:56:00.000-08:00

PARTY princess Paris Hilton is $60 million out of pocket after her billionaire grandfather - appalled by her jail term for drink-driving offences - axed her inheritance.

Family patriarch Barron Hilton was already embarrassed by his granddaughter's wild behaviour - notably when her home sex video was leaked on the internet.

But the 79-year-old considered her 23-day sentence last month the last straw.

"He was, and is, extremely embarrassed by how the Hilton name has been sullied by Paris," says Jerry Oppenheimer, who wrote a biography of the clan called House Of Hilton.

"He now doesn't want to leave unearned wealth to his family."

Hilton senior, the only member of the family left with a sizeable stake in the huge hotel chain, has let it be known that he intends to donate to charity the $2.4bn he will gain from this month's sale of the company to private equity firm Blackstone.

The money will go to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the charity set up in the name of the founder of the family business.

American Idol- Renaldo Lapuz Audition HQ

2008-01-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

THIS is how you deal with lazy police

2008-01-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul Supporters Make History with $6 Million Online Haul

2008-01-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul made history Sunday by raising $6 million in online contributions in 24 hours, breaking the record for the most money raised by a national candidate in a single day, and potentially putting Paul on track to surpass the fourth quarter fund raising of all of his competitors in both parties.

"I just think it's extraordinary," says Anthony J. Corrado, a campaign finance expert and professor of government at Colby College in Maine. "In my view, I expect that Ron Paul will raise more money than any other candidate this quarter. At this point, his main competition will be (Mitt) Romney's checkbook."

The effort was organized entirely by volunteers online.

The figure catapults Paul's presidential campaign over its $12 million fourth quarter fund raising goal to $18 million. Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign spokesman, says that the money will be spent buying more television advertising in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. The cash will also pay for advertising in Florida and California, and hire hundreds of people to canvas and organize supporters on the ground in Iowa. "We need to keep going, we have limited time," Benton says.

The $6 million number beats the 2004 record set by Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who raised $5.7 million after he gave his nomination speech. The fund raising is all the more impressive because Paul is relatively unknown among rank-and-file Republicans, trailing in offline polls, while Kerry's record was set after he became the official Democratic nominee.

Paul's grassroots fund-raising boost now gives him a leg up and pulls him out of the ranks of lower-tier candidates by giving him the ability to spread his message across more traditional media, says Corrado.

"What he has done is establish himself as a major candidate, and he's no longer a fringe voice," says Corrado.

The record fundraising boost, as well as an associated blimp advertising project, has in addition earned the candidate attention at a time when the media is focusing on newspaper editorial endorsements. Republican rival John McCain this week-end won endorsements from the Des Moines Register as well as the Boston Globe.

The mass-donation day was spearheaded by Paul supporter and Florida music promoter Trevor Lyman, who also organized a November 5th drive that brought in $4.3 million in 24 hours. Both efforts underscore the increasingly powerful role of the internet as an organizational force and communications medium for grassroots political supporters.

The Paul campaign reports that more than 58,000 people contributed on Sunday, December 16th, which was the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

Of those 58,000 people, almost 25,000 were first-time donors, the campaign says. The 58,000 makes up a base of individuals of 118,000 people who contributed to the Paul campaign in the fourth quarter.

The median donation was $50, Benton says.

"One of the most important things Ron Paul does, which I think is a service to all of us, is to bring back on the table a lot of ideas that the MSM and most candidates treat as off the table," says Zephyr Teachout, a visiting assistant law professor at Duke University who directed internet organizing for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

Corrado says that Paul's message has spread virally through people e-mailing their friends, and that message defies traditional party boundaries. He predicts that Paul will have more days like this as the election goes on, because the funding will force the media and the public to pay more attention to Paul's message.

"It's a message of fiscal conservatism combined with his opposition to the war that has allowed him to traverse the middle ground between the two parties," Corrado says.

Update: Trevor Lyman explains in a YouTube video how the "money bomb" concept came together on a Manchester, New Hampshir street corner.

iPhone unlocked: AT&T loses iPhone exclusivity

2008-01-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

It's high noon, Apple and AT&T -- we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible: right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It's all over, guys.

The iPhoneSIMfree.com team called us up to prove their claim that they cracked Apple's iPhone SIM lock system, and prove it they did. (No, we don't have a copy of the unlock software, so don't even ask us, ok?) The six-man team has been working non-stop since launch day, and they're officially the first to break Apple's SIM locks on the iPhone with software. It's done. Seriously. They wouldn't tell us when and how they would release it to the public, but you can certainly bet that they'll try to make a buck on their solution (and rightly so). We can hardly believe the iPhone's finally been cracked. No, scratch that -- we just can't believe it took this long.

Again: we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com's software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the US. Read on for details and links to our video, and check out the gallery of images below.

Paul Raises More Than $3.5M in One Day

2008-01-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $3.5 million in 20 hours.
Paul, the Texas congressman with a Libertarian tilt and an out-of-Iraq pitch, entered heady fundraising territory with a surge of Web-based giving tied to the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day.

Fawkes was a British mercenary who failed in his attempt to kill King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. He also was the model for the protagonist in the movie "V for Vendetta." Paul backers motivated donors on the Internet with mashed-up clips of the film on the online video site YouTube as well as the Guy Fawkes Day refrain: "Remember, remember the 5th of November."

Paul's total deposed Mitt Romney as the single-day fundraising record holder in the Republican presidential field. When it comes to sums amassed in one day, Paul now ranks only behind Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, who raised nearly $6.2 million on June 30, and Barack Obama.

Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said the effort began independently about two months ago at the hands of Paul's backers. He said Paul picked up on the movement, mentioning in it speeches and interviews.

"It's been kind of building up virally," Benton said.

The $3.5 million, he said, represented online contributions from more than 22,000 donors.

Paul has been lagging in the polls behind Republican front-runners. But he captured national attention at the end of September when he reported raising $5.2 million in three months, putting him fourth among Republican presidential candidates in fundraising for the quarter.

Paul as of Monday had raised $6.3 million since Oct. 1, more than half his goal of $12 million by the end of the year, according to his Web site.

Paul advocates limited government and low taxes like other Republicans, but he stands alone as the only GOP presidential candidate opposed to the Iraq war. He also has opposed Bush administration security measures that he says encroach on civil liberties.

Woman tries to buy all of the iPhones at a store and gets owned.

2008-01-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

This woman brought $16,000 to try and buy all of the iPhones at a store in Dallas to sell them on eBay. She pays a guy $800 for his first spot in line. Once the AT&T store opens, she is told there is a limit to how many she can get! The guy walks away with free iPhone.

Apple unveils $1,799 ultra-thin laptop

2008-01-17T05:26:00.000-08:00

Apple has unveiled the world's thinnest laptop, called the MacBook Air. The computer, which is 0.76 inches at its thickest point, was unveiled at an event in San Francisco. "We're dying to get this international as well," said Mr Jobs, saying it would rollout worldwide later in the year. Of the laptop, Mr Jobs said: "It's an amazing feat of engineering."

It does not have a CD or DVD drive in order to save space. "It was built to be a wireless machine," he added. The laptop will compete with a range of portable devices, from companies such as Sony, Dell and Asus, which are already building so-called sub-notebooks, designed to be lighter and more mobile.

The machine goes on sale in two weeks and costs from $1,799 in the US and comes with either an 80 Gigabyte hard disc drive as standard or 64 Gigabyte solid state drive for an added $999. Apple worked with chipmaker Intel to produce a smaller version of its Core2Duo processor for the laptop.

Barack Obama Pt. 1

2008-01-16T22:51:00.000-08:00

Jon pulls some headlines wondering if the presidential candidate is prepared for election insanity.

This is Sparta!!!

2008-01-16T22:48:00.000-08:00

Watch your step.

Safari on Windows

2008-01-16T22:34:00.000-08:00

Now your favorite web browser is also the fastest on the Mac. With page load speeds that outperform every other major browser on the Mac, Safari for Leopard also introduces a few new features to the mix.

Browse like the wind.

The fastest web browser today, Safari loads and draws pages up to 3 times faster than Firefox 2 and up to 5.5 times faster than Opera 9. And it executes JavaScript up to 2.7 times faster than Firefox 2 and up to 2.6 times faster than Opera 9.1 What does all that mean for you? Less time loading pages and more time enjoying them.

Clip it.

Now you can turn any web page into a Dashboard widget. Click the Web Clip button next to the address field in Safari and select exactly what you want your new widget to display. Then click Add, and Safari sends your Web Clip widget to Dashboard, where you can view it alongside your other widgets. You can even customize its border using built-in styles on the back of the widget. Your Web Clip widget is “live” and will update as frequently as the page from which it came.

Surf securely.

Safari protects your personal information when you surf the web on a shared or public Mac. Go ahead — check your bank account and .Mac email at the library or shop for birthday presents on the family Mac. Safari also uses strong 128-bit encryption when accessing secure sites such as your bank or an online store, so you can transmit account and payment information with confidence.

Find inline.

Type a word into the new Find banner below the Bookmarks Bar, and Safari shows you the number of matches and brightly highlights matching terms while dimming the rest of the page. So you can view and browse every instance — in an instant.
Pick up the tabs.

With tabbed browsing in Safari, you can open and switch between multiple web pages in a single window. Drag and drop your tabs to rearrange them, open one in a new browser window, or merge all your current windows into one tabbed window. Safari resizes each tab depending on the number you have open. You can bookmark a set of tabs or revert to the tabs that were open when you last closed or quit Safari.
PDFs at your service.

The new PDF controls in Safari let you zoom in and out, save a PDF file, or open one in Preview — all from the comfort of your browser.

Resize at will.

Maybe the text field you’re typing in is a bit too small to read. Or maybe you just have a lot to say. Either way, Safari lets you resize text fields on any website, just by grabbing the corner of the field. Resize a field and the web page reflows to make room.

The iPhone is a piece of shit, and

2008-01-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not going to get an iPhone, quit emailing me about it. I'm not getting one because I already have a phone that's better: it's called the Nokia E70, it's the pinnacle of human achievement, and I love it more than my family:

You've probably never heard of the E70 because Nokia's marketing team is busy finding every last dick in the universe to suck, so I'm going to do their job for them and tell you about this product. And no, I'm not being paid to do this. I'm just tired of the iPhone fanboys shooting huge sticky wads and high-fiving each other (literally) over their stupid cellphones.

First of all, the E70 has a full keyboard, not some shitty stripped down, tap-and-pray smudgy piece of shit. Nokia uses a technology that's even more advanced than the iPhone's tap screen, allowing you to actually feel the keys you press as you're pressing them! The technology is called "tactile response," and it allows you to do things like dial a phone number without staring at your screen like a shit-chucking ape. In fact, every other cellphone ever made has this technology, sometimes called "buttons."

This keyboard will not only stomp your colon, but the colons of distant relatives of the human species such as lagomorphs, and hypothetical colons of children you haven't even had yet. Want to type a backslash? No problem. Ampersand? You bet your ass. On an iPhone, you have to press an additional button that opens up an alternate keypad that will allow you to type numbers and punctuation. So typing something as simple as elipses (...) requires you to tap your finger 9 times. Enjoy your phone, losers! People like me who have shit to do will stick to a keyboard that doesn't have its lips wrapped firmly to the user-interface equivalent of a throbbing dong:

When the iPhone was first announced, CEO Steve Jobs spewed enough BS to cover a football field full of babies 3 feet deep in bullshit, which sounds cool because he could have potentially murdered a football field full of babies, but he passed on this opportunity by introducing the phone instead. He claimed that the phone was three devices in one: an iPod, a phone, and an "Internet communications device." Oooh, an Internet communications device?! AWESOME!

It's not three devices in one any more than my laptop is you morons. Using Jobs' loose definition of what constitutes a separate device, technically my laptop can be considered 8 devices in one:

# A clock
# A calculator
# An "Internet communications device"
# A phone (I can make voice calls with my modem)
# A pornographic media storage device
# A video player
# A word processor
# And an "iPod" (see below)

There's no such thing as an iPod. The word "iPod" is a marketing tool for a hard drive with software that plays mp3s. Yeah, doesn't sound so sexy now, does it you chimps? And an "internet communications device" is officially the douchebaggiest way of saying "it has a browser." So actually it's just a phone that plays mp3s and has a browser. SNORE.

The Nokia E70 not only plays mp3s, video, has a full browser and Wi-Fi, IMAP and POP3 email, and Google Maps, but you can even run terminal software to telnet or SSH into remote servers. What that means in non-geek is that my phone is invincible. I can literally do anything. I can reboot my web server if I want, and sometimes I do just because I can:

All of this power from a phone that's over a year old, and it only costs $360. Even the browser kicks ass:

Here's a non-biased, side-by-side comparison of some key features of each phone:

There you have it: the most objective comparison of two cellphones ever made. I think I'll take the rest of the afternoon off and copy and paste text on my cellphone because I can.

2,748,268 people who bought an iPhone hadn't heard of the Nokia E70 until now because Nokia's marketing team is too busy tossing salad to get the word out.

Rep. Ron Paul

2008-01-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

Jon preps Ron Paul for the Republican debate with some snappy zingers

Policeman vs. Fireman

2008-01-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

A cop and a fireman who can't get along and just happen to be puppets

Notice anything about the top 10 wii games? (pic)

2008-01-15T23:13:00.000-08:00

IGN <3 Mario

George W. Bush and the Dance

2008-01-15T22:46:00.000-08:00

U.S. President George W. Bush and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum watch children perform during Bush's visit to the Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House in Dubai January 14, 2008. The house serves as a Museum of Historical Photographs and Documents of the Emirate of Dubai.

Terrell Owens crying!!

2008-01-15T22:40:00.000-08:00

Terrell Owens crying after losing to the Giants in the divisional playoff round.

Nailed Mercedes - A Cool Advertisement

2008-01-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

A full size Mercedes car is being nailed to the ceilings in one of Moscow airports now. It attracts sights from the people coming through the airport’s lobby and always question arises if it’s safe to walk right under in - or it might occasionally fell on your head? Well, some say that this is not real Mercedes but is made of plastic instead, but if it so then this should be a very precise copy, because all the smallest details, like brake discs etc are perfectly visible.

Apple MacBook Air hands-on, with multitouch!

2008-01-15T22:24:00.001-08:00

Russian couple reunited after 60 years apart

2008-01-15T22:11:00.000-08:00

When Anna Kozlov caught sight of the elderly man clambering out of a car in her home village of Borovlyanka in Siberia, she stopped dead in her tracks, convinced her eyes were playing tricks.

There, in front of her, was Boris, the man she had fallen in love with and married 60 years earlier. The last time she had seen him was three days after their wedding, when she kissed him goodbye and sent him off to rejoin his Red Army unit.

By the time he returned, Anna was gone, consigned by Stalin’s purges to internal exile in Siberia with the rest of her family as an enemy of the people. They left no forwarding address.

Frantic, Boris tried everything he could to find his young bride, but it was no good. She was gone.

Now, more than half a century later, they were reunited, an extraordinary coincidence leading them both to return to their home village on the very same day.

“I thought my eyes were playing games with me,” Anna said. “I saw this familiar looking man approaching me, his eyes gazing at me. My heart jumped. I knew it was him. I was crying with joy.”

Now 80 years old, Boris had returned to visit his parents’ grave. As he stepped out of the car, he looked up to see Anna standing by her old house, where they had lived for the few days after the wedding.

“I ran up to her and said: 'My darling, I’ve been waiting for you for so long. My wife, my life...’”

They stayed up all night, talking about everything that had happened to them and the cruel circumstances that tore them apart. They met when he was secretary of the Young Communists and had to make a speech in the village.

Afterwards, she was standing there in a circle of friends, but he had eyes only for her. Her father had been purged by Stalin before the war for refusing to work in a collective farm, but Boris did not care. She was too beautiful for words. “I loved her and would always defend her,” he recalled.

So the romance blossomed. When he came home from the front, she was always there, waiting. In 1946, they married. It was a hasty wedding; there was no time for anything else and they could not afford anything grand in those hard years after the war.

Three days later, he had to return to his unit. “We kissed goodbye - but I never expected we wouldn’t see each other for more than half a century,” Anna said.

A little while later, the state caught up with her. Like her father, she was branded an enemy of the people and forced with the rest of her family into internal exile in Siberia.

“I threatened to commit suicide rather than go because I couldn’t live without him,” she said, “but in the end I was forced to go. It was the most miserable time of my life.”

On his return, Boris was distraught. “She was always waiting for me when I came home, but this time there was no sign of her,” he said. “Nobody knew where they were, or what had happened to Anna. That’s how we lost any track of each other”.

In their new village, Anna’s mother resolved that the girl should remarry. She told her that Boris had remarried. “She said he had forgotten about me - that’s why no letters came.

“I didn’t believe it and I longed for him so much. But one day I got back home from work at a timber plant and my mum had burned all his earlier letters, poems and pictures - including our wedding photographs.

“She told me this other man was coming to meet me - and that I should go out with him, and if I was lucky, he’d marry me. I burst into tears and rushed into the yard. The world turned black for me. I wanted to die and I got a clothes line and went into the hayloft intending to hang myself.

“My mother came in and slapped me in the face and told me not to be so stupid. She persuaded me to go out with this man, Nefed, and gradually he and my mother persuaded me that this was where my future lay.”

Boris, too, finally gave in and re-married. He became a writer, penning a book dedicated to the woman he’d married as a young soldier but only ever spent three nights with.

In time, their respective spouses died. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Anna was once more able to travel home. Then came the chance reunion. “I felt the same when we met last year,” Boris said. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Yes I had loved other women when we were separated. But she was the true love of my life.”

He suggested they marry again. Anna resisted, but says he talked her round. “What’s the point, I said, we can just live together they rest of our lives? But he insisted. I never thought I’d be a bride at my age but it was my happiest wedding.

“Since we found each other again, I swear we haven’t had a single quarrel. We’ve been parted for so long and who knows how much is left for us, so we just don’t want to lose time on arguing.”

Best Street Party Ever - Parents Yet To Find Out

2008-01-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

IQ Test for Blondes!!!

2008-01-15T21:53:00.001-08:00

Test 1

Test 2

Test 3

Test 4

Test 5

Test 6

Test 7

Chinese Technology

2008-01-15T21:45:00.000-08:00

Street Cleaner Machine...

Today`s Picture

2008-01-15T03:15:00.000-08:00

Loyal to the End (PIC)

2008-01-14T06:24:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul: A New Hope

2008-01-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

Carmen Electra

2008-01-14T00:16:00.000-08:00

Wow...

I don't answer to the state

2008-01-14T00:09:00.000-08:00

Big Spring High School Kid gets detention for using firefoxg Hig

2008-01-13T23:41:00.000-08:00

Man United vs Newcastle [6-0] Premier League - 12th January

2008-01-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

Polar Night and the fantastic Aurora Borealis Phenomenon

2008-01-13T23:04:00.000-08:00

Auroras (Polar Lights; or aurorae, sing.: aurora) are natural different colored light displays, which are usually observed in the night sky, particularly in the polar zone. Some scientists therefore call them "polar auroras" (or "aurorae polaris"). In northern latitudes, it is known as the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. It often appears as a greenish glow (or sometimes a faint red), as if the sun were rising from an unusual direction. The aurora borealis is also called the northern [polar] lights, as it is only visible in the North sky from the Northern Hemisphere. The aurora borealis most often occurs from September to October and from March to April.

The World First Digital Camera

2008-01-13T22:43:00.000-08:00

This camera was created in 1975 by Kodak as the first world digital camera. the camera has 4Kg weight with a 0.1 Mega p. sensor; Recording of a black-white photo on it have bee lasted 23 seconds.

Parted-at-birth twins 'married'

2008-01-13T22:27:00.000-08:00

A pair of twins who were adopted by separate families as babies got married without knowing they were brother and sister, a peer told the House of Lords.

A court annulled the British couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord Alton said.

The peer - who heard of the case from a judge who was involved - said the twins felt an "inevitable attraction".

He said the case showed how important it was for children to be able to find out about their biological parents.

Details of the identities of the twins involved have been kept secret, but Lord Alton said the pair did not realise they were related until after their marriage.

'Truth will out'

The crossbench peer, a former Liberal Democrat MP, raised the couple's case during a House of Lords debate on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in December.

"They were never told that they were twins," he told the Lords.

"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation."

He told the BBC News website that their story raises the wider issue of the importance of strengthening the rights of children to know the identities of their biological parents.

We are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves
Pam Hodgkins
Adults Affected by Adoption

German couple's love
Incest: an ancient taboo

"If you start trying to conceal someone's identity, sooner or later the truth will out," he said.

"And if you don't know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur."

Pam Hodgkins, chief executive officer of the charity Adults Affected by Adoption (NORCAP) said there had been previous cases of separated siblings being attracted to each other.

"We have a resistance, a very strong incest taboo where we are aware that someone is a biological relative," she said.

"But when we are unaware of that relationship, we are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves.

'Incredibly rare'

"And of course there is unlikely to be anyone more similar to any individual than their sibling."

Mo O'Reilly, director of child placement for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, said the situation was traumatic for the people involved, but incredibly rare.

"Thirty or 40 years ago it would have been more likely that twins be separated and, brought up without knowledge of each other," she said.

Today, however, adopted children grow up with a greater knowledge of their birth families - and organisations try to place brothers and sisters together.

If that were not possible, the siblings would still have some form of contact with each other.

"This sad case illustrates why, over the last 20-30 years, the shift to openness in adoption was so important," Ms O'Reilly added.

Cool Advertisement for a Telescope

2008-01-13T22:08:00.000-08:00

Chinese Products.

Comcast could receive $1.77 Trillion fine

2008-01-12T22:08:00.001-08:00

Remember October's news of Comcast throttling Bit Torrent traffic? The debacle not only created a firestorm of bad press for the nation's largest cable provider but also re-ignited the nationwide debate about Net Neutrality. We had numerous signs that Comcast was inhibiting our use of this legal and legitimate file transfer protocol, but to have the AP catch them red handed was icing on the cake.

To add to our pleasure, we learned today that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has finally taken notice of Comcast's indiscretion as well. According to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a group of consumer advocates and legal scholars have asked the commission to look into Comcast discriminating against specific types of data (read: Bit Torrent). The groups have also requested the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 per affected subscribers. In case you were wondering, at last report, Comcast has 9.1 million subscribers.

We don't really think Comcast will be forced to fork out the projected $1.77 trillion, but we do hope they get scraped through the mud on this one. They completely disregarded their entire customer base and should receive far more than just bad press as a result of this. If you are a company and you're going to filter network traffic, be transparent and disclose it up front. If not, be ready to pay up to Mr. Martin.

PETA Killed 97 Percent of 'Companion Animals' in 2006, According to VDACS

2008-01-12T22:05:00.000-08:00

An official report from People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), submitted nine months after a Virginia government agency's deadline, shows that the animal rights group put to death more than 97 percent of the dogs, cats, and other pets it took in for adoption in 2006. During that year, the well-known animal rights group managed to find adoptive homes for just 12 pets. The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is calling on PETA to either end its hypocritical angel-of-death program, or stop its senseless condemnation of Americans who believe it's perfectly ethical to use animals for food, clothing, and critical medical research.

Not counting animals PETA held only temporarily in its spay-neuter program, the organization took in 3,061 "companion animals" in 2006, of which it killed 2,981. According to Virginia's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), the average euthanasia rate for humane societies in the state was just 34.7 percent in 2006. PETA killed 97.4 percent of the animals it took in. The organization filed its 2006 report this month, nine months after the VDACS deadline of March 31, 2007.

"Pet lovers should be outraged," said CCF Director of Research David Mrtosko. "There are thousands of worthwhile animal shelters that deserve Americans' support. PETA is not one of them."

In courtroom testimony last year, a PETA manager acknowledged that her organization maintains a large walk-in freezer for storing dead animals, and that PETA contracts with a Virginia cremation service to dispose of the bodies. In that trial, two PETA employees were convicted of dumping dead animals in a rural North Carolina trash dumpster.

Today in Southampton County, Virginia, another PETA employee will face felony charges in a dog-napping case. Andrea Florence Benoit Harris was arrested in late 2006 for allegedly abducting a hunting dog and attempting to transport it to PETA's Norfolk headquarters.

"PETA raised over $30 million last year," Martosko added, "and it's using that money to kill the only flesh-and-blood animals its employees actually see. The scale of PETA's hypocrisy is simply staggering."

CEA's take on CES Gizmodo prank: Banned!

2008-01-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

In reaction to "Gizmodogate," the gadget blog's prank of shutting down flat-screen displays on the show floor and during demos at CES (see Bloggers behaving badly), the conference's organizer, the Consumer Electronics Association, sent me this statement:

We have been informed of inappropriate behavior on the show floor by a credentialed media attendee from the Web site Gizmodo, owned by Gawker Media. Specifically, the Gizmodo staffer interfered with the exhibitor booth operations of numerous companies, including disrupting at least one press event. The Gizmodo staffer violated the terms of CES media credentials and caused harm to CES exhibitors. This Gizmodo staffer has been identified and will be barred from attending any future CES events. Additional sanctions against Gizmodo and Gawker Media are under discussion.

1 of 9 - Fox News South Carolina Republican Debate 1/10/08

2008-01-12T22:00:00.001-08:00

Listen

2008-01-12T21:59:00.001-08:00

Chávez pide sacar de lista de terroristas a Farc

2008-01-12T21:58:00.001-08:00

First Sunday Red Carpet Event

2008-01-12T21:51:00.000-08:00

10 People who Look Like Video Game Characters

2008-01-11T12:36:00.000-08:00

Frickin' hilarious pairing of game characters and their real world look-alikes. My favorite is Carrot Top.

LEFT: Blanka (Character from the Street Fighter series, monstrously huge, most likely insane)

RIGHT: Carrot Top (Comedian, monstrously huge, most likely Insane)

LEFT: Claude (Grand Theft Auto II & III's protagonist and badass killing machine)
RIGHT: Freddy Rodriguez (played Planet Terror's protagonist who was also a badass killing machine)

LEFT: Daxter (Character from the Jak and Daxter series, used to being a more central character's bitch... I mean sidekick)
RIGHT: DJ Qualls (Actor, also used to never being anything other than a sidekick)

LEFT: Dhalsim (Character from Street Fighter series, was once a pacifist prior to competing in the Street Fighter tournament, comes from India)
RIGHT: Gandhi (Spiritual leader, also hails from India, and was one of the world's most famous pacifists)

LEFT: Dr. Wily (Character from the Mega Man series, hates Mega Man)
RIGHT: Christopher Lloyd (Played Doc from the Back to the Future series, hates when people mess with the space time continuum )

LEFT: Kratos (Heavily armored pasty-faced warrior who blasphemes God on a regular basis)
RIGHT: Galder (Ditto.. except he also plays lead guitar in the black metal band Dimmu Borgir)

LEFT: Larry Laffer (Character from the Leisure Suit Larry Series, pervert )
RIGHT: Dennis Kucinich (Democratic politician, could possibly be a pervert)

LEFT: Link (Central character in the Legend of Zelda series, an elf, and looks like a girl from a distance )
RIGHT: Orlando Bloom (Played an elf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, knows how to shoot a bow, and is also quite feminine)

LEFT: Sheeva (Unnaturally muscular female fighter from the Mortal Kombat series, has 4 arms)
RIGHT: Chyna (Aside from not having 2 sets of arms, this onetime pro wrestler is equally as disgusting and unattractive.

LEFT: Wario (Forgettable antagonist from the Mario series, sports a wacky mustache)
RIGHT: Gene Shalit (Forgettable critic who also sports a wacky mustache)

Top 5 things I saw in America which, freaked me out

2008-01-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

I’m back from my vacation down in the United States, and will return to blogging with regularity as soon as possible.

To celebrate my return to this frigid, yet comparatively sane country, I felt it worthwhile to relay a list of five items which I saw during my travels which the locals thought was perfectly normal (I presume), but which freaked the heck out of me as a Canadian.

A trucking company which hauls all manner of freight throughout the deep south of the U.S. which calls itself a “Christian company” (the very idea of which seems as bizarre to me as a “Christian dog”) and which requires that its trucks to carry religious and political messages. The messages I saw included:

It’s not a choice, it’s a child
and
God loved us so that he gave his only son.

A breakfast creation in upstate New York called “Stuffed French Toast”. What does “Stuffed French Toast” entail, you naïve non-American might ask? It’s French Toast (which, keep in mind is cooked in butter) stuffed with bacon, eggs and processed cheese (which they proudly call ‘American processed cheese’, I presume, to distinguish it from real cheese which could, after all, be French and/or offer unAmerican nutritional content). But here’s the kicker: on top of your “Stuffed French Toast” cooked in butter, you will find… a square of butter.

A massive billboard in South Carolina just outside of Georgia which read:
“Victory is great, but honor is greater. Defend your Southern heritage.”

A letter to the editor pasted proudly on a business door in Key Marathon, Florida by the business owner discussing how immigrants today are a disgrace to immigrants from the start of the 20th Century. The letter details how people need to read history because in 1901, when the business owner’s grandfather came to the country, he didn’t ask for any government handouts like modern immigrants are asking for. So modern, non-English-speaking immigrants are greedier than the immigrants from 100 years ago and thus do not recognize the value of hard work and don’t appreciate why America is great. (I’m not concocting a straw man here, this is, as best as I can recall, the structure of the argument). Apparently, nobody told the letter-writer that in 1901 NOBODY got government handouts (other than cheap land which WAS aimed at immigrants) because there weren’t significant government social programs until after World

War II.
I guess the purpose of the letter was for other people to read history, not for the letter writer to read history.

Casa D’ice, a restaurant located near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which features political messages as their signature claim to fame. Among the political messages they put up under their restaurant’s name and proudly reproduced on their website include:

2008-01-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

Top 10 Google Search Tricks

When it comes to the Google search box, you already know the tricks: finding exact phrases matches using quotes like "so say we all" or searching a single site using site:lifehacker.com gmail. But there are many more oblique, clever, and lesser-known search recipes and operators that work from that unassuming little input box. Dozens of Google search guides detail the tips you already know, but today we're skipping the obvious and highlighting our favorite obscure Google web search tricks.10. Get the local time anywhere What time is it in Bangkok right now? Ask Google. Enter simply what time is it to get the local time in big cities around the world, or add the locale at the end of your query, like what time is it hong kong to get the local time there.9. Track flight status Enter the airline and flight number into the Google search box and get back the arrival and departure times right inside Google's search results.8. Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and more Google's powerful built-in converter calculator can help you out whether you're cooking dinner, traveling abroad, or building a PC. Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro). For the geekier set, bits in kilobytes (155473 bytes in kilobytes) and numbers in hex or binary (19 in binary) are also pretty useful.7. Compare items with "better than" and find similar items with "reminds me of" Reader Adam taps the wisdom of the crowds by searching for like items using key phrases. He writes in:Simply search for, in quotes: "better than _keyword_"Some example results:Results 1 - 100 of about 550 English pages for " better than WinAmp".Results 1 - 57 of 57 English pages for " better than mIRC".Results 1 - 100 of about 17,500 English pages for " better than Digg". (Wow. Poor Digg.)The results will almost always lead you to discovering alternatives to whatever it is you're searching for. Using the same concept, you can use this trick to discover new music or movies. For example, " reminds me of _someband_" or "sounds like _someband_" will pull up artists people have thought sounded similar to the one you typed in. This is also a great way to find good, no-name musicians you'd probably never know of otherwise.Examples:Results 1 - 88 of 88 English pages for " reminds me of Metallica".Results 1 - 36 of 36 English pages for " similar to Garden State".Results 1 - 66 of 66 English pages for " sounds like The Shins".Just get creative and you'll, without a doubt, find cool new stuff you probably never knew existed.6. Use Google as a free proxy What, your company blocks that hip new web site just because it drops the F bomb occasionally? Use Google's cache to take a peek even when the originating site's being blocked, with cache:example.com.5. Remove affiliate links from product searchesWhen you're sick of seeing duplicate product search results from the likes of eBay, Bizrate, Pricerunner, and Shopping.com, clear 'em out by stacking up the -site:ebay.com -site:bizrate.com -site:shopping.com operator. Alternately, check out Give Me Back My Google (original post), a service that does all that known reseller cleaning up for you when you search for products. Compare this GMBMG search for a Cruzer 1GB flash drive to the regular Google results.4. Find related terms and documentsOk, this one's direct from any straight-up advanced search operator cheat sheet, but it's still one of the lesser-used tricks in the book. Adding a tilde (~) to a search term will return related terms. For example, Googling ~nutrition returns results with the words nutrition, food, and health in them.3. Find music and comic books Using a combination of advanced search operators that specify music files available in an Apache directory listing, you can turn Google into your personal Napster. Go ahead, try this search for Nirvana tracks: -inurl:(htmhtmlphp) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wmamp3) "Nirvana". (Sub out Nirvana for the band you're interested in; use this one in conjunction with number 7 to find new music, too.) The same type of search recipe can find comic books as well.2. ID people, objects, and foreign language words and phrases with Google Image Search Google Image search results show you instead of tell you about a word. Don't know what jicama looks like? Not sure if the person named "Priti" who you're emailing with is a woman or a man? Spanish rusty and you forgot what "corazon" is? Pop your term into Google Image Search (or type image jicama into the regular search box) to see what your term's about.1. Make Google recognize faces If you're doing an image search for Paris Hilton and don't want any of the French city, a special URL parameter in Google's Image search will do the trick. Add &imgtype=face to the end of your image search to just get images of faces, without any inanimate objects. Try it out with a search for rose (which returns many photos of flowers) versus rose with the face parameter.What's your favorite ninja Google search technique? Tell us about it in the comments.