Archive for July, 2008
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Old People Are Fun
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 18, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Friday, July 18th, 2008The Beige Site. For everything you need to know about old people.
If that headline intrigued you, either get out your reading glasses or go to View>Text Size and click “increase”. There. Now that you can read this, I just want to make the observation that you never see stuff about old people on the web. Why? Well, the web is for young people, and young people, for the most part, are too busy friending people on MySpace and watching bottle-rocket-in-the-butt videos on YouTube to be bothered about silly things like old people. The problem is, someday you’ll be old, so you better learn about what it means. The Beige Site contains a wealth of information about old people, including: what is an old person? where can I find one? and how much does one cost ? Not sure if you’re an old person? Then take the test .
GOP Suing Its Only Friends?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 18, 2008 by admin in Politics
Friday, July 18th, 2008The GOP threatens Cafe Press with lawsuits for letting its users promote the GOP.
Hey Republicans! You’re doing it wrong! In the latest example of “just-not-getting-it”, the GOP is apparently threatening to sue CafePress for allowing its users to repurpose the various trademarked GOP images such as the red-white-and-blue elephant and the letters “GOP”. The irony, of course, being the preponderance of images that are IN FAVOR of the GOP. Why would you want to sue your free marketing team? They obviously don’t have any money, I mean, who buys anything from CafePress? Next thing you know, they’ll be suing kids for drawing pictures of Dumbo and reading Horton Hears a Who
Tired of High Gas Prices? Make Your Own!
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 17, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Thursday, July 17th, 2008The oil industry rigs prices, why shouldn’t you?
In keeping with yesterday’s theme of make-your-own sign, today we have the make your own gas station sign. Enter the prices you want and a message of your own and the page creates an Exxon gas station sign for you. Enjoy.
Should The RIAA Sue The U.S. Military?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on July 16, 2008 by admin in Music
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008Should songwriters benefit from the use of their music as torture?
What do Rage Against the Machine, Neil Diamond, the Bee Gees, Christina Aguilera & Bruce Springsteen have in common? They’re all forms of torture, at least in the hands of the American military. I’d grant Christina Aguilera this status all on her own, but there is, as they say, no accounting for taste. Mother Jones has compiled the Torture Playlist, a selection of songs used by the military to induce sleep deprivation, “prolong capture shock” (great band name!) and disorient detainees during interrogations. The Groundswell Blog has created a sticker to help raise awareness (at least awareness that there’s a Groundswell Blog), so you can print them and stick them on CD’s at your local record store. I’m not sure what that will accomplish, but the stickers sure are clever, huh? People keep raising the question of whether the artists are receiving the appropriate royalties for the U.S. Military’s use of their songs, but I’ve wondered for some time if anybody’s paying royalties to that poor guy standing on the box.
Blowing Up Buildings Is Fun, But…
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 16, 2008 by admin in Clean & Green
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008An amazing alternative to blowing up buildings: lower them a floor at a time.
The Kajima Corporation of Japan has a very cool method for demolishing buildings. Instead of the implosion method commonly used to bring down buildings, they do it one floor at a time, by inserting computerized supports as they dismantle the first floor, and literally lowering the building one floor at a time as they demolish. The benefits: saves time and space, pollutes the air less, and makes material recycling easier. Kajima calls this the daruma-otoshi method, after an old Japanese game in which players knock out stacked pieces of a doll one-by-one without toppling the doll. See the time-lapse video below.