I´m feeling kinda special that I’m the one

Another hilarious video from Mutha Mae: The Delivery Room.

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Aw you think you're funny

Funny video where comedians talk about potty training. Check it out, pass it on, digg it up, man!

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downloading mp3s from file-sharing sites

The release of new movies/music on different days in different countries has always rankled me. Particularly when the difference window is on the scale of months or even years. That was a strategy that was workable, if idiotic, in the days before widespread broadband internet access. In this day and age it's archaic at best and outright absurdist in the context of digital deliveries. If an album comes out in the UK on Tuesday and is available for download from various outlets (iTunes UK, Amazon UK, HMV) then delaying it's availability in other countries is untenable. I can't even buy media from iTunes UK without a credit card tied to a UK physical address, I can only buy physical media from Amazon US as an import at $20 for a single disc and $35 for the extended album. Alternately a quick google search returns over 17,000 hits for '[album title]' +.zip. For an album that's been available for now just over 24 hours. And the first two pages of links are all working unique links. Even if only 1% of the 17,000 links are valid and non-duplicate, that's 170 sources to get the album for free simply because Sony doesn't realize that it's no longer 1978. Which largely explains why they have lost every platform battle they've engaged in since the walkman...

"I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet," said Sony Pictures Entertainment chief executive officer Michael Lynton. "Period."

Were I an investor in Sony, I would be clamoring for this guys resignation. That sort of thinking is endemic across all lines of their business. Yes I'm picking on Sony. While other media companies are entirely clueless and often actively hostile to the internet Sony is by far the most committed to this viewpoint and have worked hard against innovation for decades now.

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Cut copy

When I bought the iPhone I didn't get the hubbub about no copy/paste function. My old phone didn't have it so what was the big deal? It is, of course, now the feature I'm most looking forward to in the upcoming 3.0 release.

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Wish they weren't on MySpace always typing 'bite me'

I got the following in my inbox and figured “Ah, I’m getting ‘someone has a crush on you’ spam in Chinese. That's pretty cool.”

有人想跟你明确关系

Someone think to follow you clear relations (you3 ren2 xiang3 ming2 que4 ni3 guan1 xi4). The only bit I wasn’t familiar with was the guan xi.
I recently installed Pera-kun extension, which does individual characters but doesn't do phrases that well, and since my hanzi is still very very elementary ( I recognized only four characters ) I got only the gist of it. Google translate made it more clear, that this was actually an invite from a Facebook like site in China. I have three friends in China who use that email address, so now I have to navigate creating an account on a site with no English on it in order to confirm the connection (better translation is: Some people like to make it clear the relationship between you two). The site is “Happy Network”.

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If I acted less like me would anybody hear me

Random bits

The Atheist Community show has a great fallacy model they use to discuss various fallacies that consists of three jars. One contains a bunch of dice, the second contains nothing, and the third contains invisible supernatural transcendent dice. I'm pretty sure I could make a killing selling jars of supernatural transcendent [noun].

I've also been mentioned once again in the Sunday's Supplement podcast, which I'm quite pleased about. This is roughly the level of celebrity that I aspire to. Interestingly they also offer a product very very similar to the invisible supernatural transcendent dice: Placebonics. In which you send them a check for 80 quid and then take a deep breath.

And apropos of nothing else, a snippet from a conversation with Dirty Gale

[14:07] Rev Matt: See one of the things I worry about when people talk about direct human-computer-cell phone interfaces and all that sort of thing is the likelihood of accidentally calling someone just because you think of them is very high, I suspect there will be all sorts of awkward things like that happening and constantly disrupting everyones lives.
[14:08] Rev Matt: I'm not worried about the destruction of human nature or the artificial intelligence taking over the world, I'm worried about accidentally calling an ex-girlfriend at 3 in the morning because I happened to hear a song that reminded me of her.

I'm listening to the first live performance of Barenaked Ladies without Steven Page. Changing singers isn't like changing guitarists or drummers, it's immediately obvious what's missing. That said it's still a good live performance and plenty of funny ad-libbing. It's different and will take some adjusting to. I am looking forward to the new album as well though I'm not a big fan of Kevin Hearn's vocals and he appears to be doing most of the stepping in for the parts that used to be done by Page.

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You can see them out to dinner with their piggy wives

A roundup of porcine wonderment.

Effect Measure touches on the awful sick leave policies in the U.S., which Zuska expands upon with reference to Barbara Ehrenreichs' deeply disheartening Nickel and Dimed.

Nick Anthis nicely delves into the drug resistance of H1N1.

Isis rightly scolds MRU for poorly chosen branding of informational resources.

Tara Smith does her normal brilliant clearing up of some misconceptions.

The Young Australian Skeptics have a great flyer explaining that homeopathy will not cure or prevent swine flu and will, in fact be more likely to kill you if you choose to use it rather than actual medicine.

Rebecca Watson helpfully reminds us of the proper pronunciation of virus names.

And what would a plague be without plague movies?

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