An appeals court upheld a verdict to clear Jon Johansen, a 20-year-old Norwegian, of DVD piracy charges on Monday, dismaying Hollywood studios who cluelessly claimed that the decision would encourage hackers
In the midst of a film industry crackdown on digital movie piracy, filmmaker Robert Greenwald is urging rampant, unauthorised copying of his documentary criticising the Bush administration’s reasons for invading Iraq The 56-minute film, Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War, concludes that President Bush and his team distorted intelligence data and misled the American public ahead of the March invasion that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein
The Ekip, a pita-bread-shaped, stubby-winged, wheel-less, unmanned ship that weighs in at 500 pounds. For more than two decades, engineers at a former Soviet aerospace plant have been toiling on a drone aircraft that looks a whole lot like a prop from Plan 9 From Outer Space
The Canadian Copyright Board has ruled that Canadians can legally download peer-to-peer music files, although uploading them is still illegal. So long as music is being recorded purely for personal use, and not being sold, rented, or otherwise disseminated to other people, its use is legal. It does not matter whether the source of the recording is a pre-owned track, a borrowed CD, or a track downloaded from the Internet, the board said. The combination of the latter two rules means that recording a CD for a friend is illegal, but handing the CD to the same friend and letting them make a copy for their own use is legal
The lovely Feòrag sent me an amusing story this morning. It seems that having obnoxiously plastered their flag everywhere, Americans are upset to note that Canadians have a flag too and that they are sporting it to avoid being mistaken for Americans.
Canadians should be careful not to appear
boastfulto Americans, who are insecure because of the war in Iraq and admit they are annoyed by northerners showing off the red maple leaf on their luggage when they travel…
A country that wraps everything in the flag, to the point of condemning their own countrymen as unAmerican if they dare to suggest that slapping the American flag on a toilet seat cover may be just a tad tacky, dare to have a go at their neighbours for using a sticker on their luggage. You have the laugh at the double standards. Funnier still that it has taken them this long to notice the maple leaf on Canadian luggage.
Unfortunately Americans have a well-earned reputation as obnoxious tourists, even within their own country. They are loud and opinionated, and while sometimes they have every right to be, mostly they just embarrass themselves, those around them and generate some really bad karma that is likely to bite the next unfortunate American tourist who follows along in their wake.
At one point my cousin was conducting tour groups where you take a bunch of tourists on a 4WD type bus, bounce them through the bush and point out interesting things. She used to bring back stories of US tourists that always made me wonder why they travelled abroad and how they survived to adulthood.
One particular pair, we’ll call them George and Martha, highlighted the closemindedness that is a frequent complaint of the breed known as the ugly American. The object being pointed out was a Banksia, a tree with particularly large and hideous seed pods. Instead of listening to the tour guide, George loudly informed Martha, and the entire bus, that the tree had a tumour. No amount of explanation to the contrary was to be entertained. No doubt, George and Martha’s friends and family back home now believe the Australian bush is full of trees with tumours.
It’s travellers like the loud and ignorant George and Martha who have forced Canadians to arm themselves against pissed off tour guides and harrassed foreign citizens. Even the cannier US travellers will pretend to be Canadian when abroad to avoid being mistaken for the ill mannered morons who have sullied the name of their country with their appalling behaviour whilst overseas.
When you’re overseas, you’re not just on holiday, you’re also an ambassador for your country. If you behave like a complete wanker, the people you deal with are going to believe that your behaviour is an example of how you would behave at home and be very wary of dealing with your countrymen in the future. So don’t be surprised if your neighbours are just as embarrassed by your behaviour in public and take steps to be recognised as Canadians.
If you’re based in Denmark you can call TeleDanmark directory service on 118 and get them to do google queries for you. So now you can avoid harassing your friends in front of computers and pay your monopolistic telco $2 instead
The Kyoto protocol is dying a death of a thousand cuts. Last week, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the US, reiterated that it wants nothing to do with the only international agreement designed to save the world from runaway global warming. The European Union, Kyoto’s main promoter, revealed that most of its members will miss their emissions targets. And Russia once again seemed to be on the point of wrecking the protocol completely. But there is a plan B, called contraction and convergence, which has been gaining ever more influential converts
Sydney is regularly voted one of the world’s best cities to live in, but a new environment report has warned its affluent lifestyle is ecologically unsustainable. The 2003 environment report on New South Wales says Sydney residents are wasting millions of gallons of water, demanding ever more electricity and remain car obsessed, increasing greenhouse gas emissions. One of the best ways to help with sustainability is to sack all of the profiteering arsehole developers who, if not actually council members, have them well in their pockets
Almost half the Australian public agree with Mark Latham that the retarded monkey boy is incompetent and dangerous — via Southerly Buster
Bruce Simpson, the New Zealand man who built a cruise missile in his garage using parts bought off the internet to show how easily it could be done, claims the New Zealand government forced him to shut down his project after coming under pressure from the United States — via Die Puny Humans
Should the Internet come under control of the United Nations? That will be one of the most contentious issues at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva this week. Paul Twomey, the president of ICANN, found out what it feels like to be voiceless after being escorted from the meeting room
A high-speed Japanese train set a new record of 581 km/h, breaking its own previous record. The Superconducting Maglev had real passengers on board this time. They proved that the distance between Osaka and Tokyo can be covered in one hour’s time
The Fairfax run MyCareer site ran an amusing ad yesterday looking for an Opposition Leader: ‘The successful applicant for this excellent short-term executive position must be thick skinned, opinionated and willing to be stabbed in the back. Prior experience in this type of role, including head-kicking and some leadership skills an advantage, though not mandatory. This bright and energetic role model will receive a generous package that includes travel at taxpayer’s expense with the unlikely possibility of promotion in the near future. For immediate start, prefer debater with knack for circular arguments. Previous applicants will be considered.’ Mark Latham won and has immediately followed the tried and true Labor approach of toadying up to Howard
China has announced a government-funded project to promote an alternative to DVDs and attack the market share of the global video format. The rollout of the long-planned project, known as EVD, or enhanced versatile disc, was timed to coincide with the beginning of what China calls the golden sales period — known elsewhere as the Christmas shopping season
Gertrude Jones didn’t want flowers or cards when she died. She wanted to get rid of the retarded monkey boy. The 81-year-old woman’s obituary asked that memorial donations be given to any organisation that seeks the removal of President Bush from office
. And people across the country are following her wishes
Three dozen protesters howled and prowled the sidewalk outside the Alaska Board of Game meeting in Spenard on Monday, hoping to raise enough ruckus to stop the board’s planned resumption of aerial wolf kills. Nevertheless, the Game Board today is expected to authorise the first aerial predator control program in Alaska in more than 15 years, using a new state law that allows private pilots to participate
The British Library is a government-owned library that legally has to hold a copy of every book, pamphlet, map, journal, newspaper and piece of sheet music published in the UK. That law has changed and now the Library will be able to collect non-paper resources, such as web sites, electronic journals, CD-ROMs and microfilms. Obviously, the library won’t be archiving everything in these categories, but will be keeping resources of national, historical or academic interest
The kerfuffle over Bob Brown‘s heckling of the President is by no means over. The speaker Neil Andrew wants to find someone to punish for the sin of letting the world see what actually happened in the Australian Parliament
The Norman Lindsay Gallery held their Celtic Festival today and I went along to help with spinning demonstrations, mostly because I’ve never been their before.
It started raining on the trip up the mountains and was pretty heavy by the time we hit the turn off at Faulconbridge. That was when I noticed what I thought was blossoms across the lawn that had been knocked off the tree by the heavy rain. I wasn’t flowers, it was hail.
Got to the gallery and managed to find the other member of our group, who’d managed to get the gazebo up before more hail hit and was sheltering under it. I’ve heard the term hail the size of golf balls, but this is the first time I’ve seen it.
Needless to say we decided to forego spinning in the rain, but did have the chance to have a look around the grounds and gallery. Not a fan of Norman Lindsay’s paintings and sketches, but I do like his sculpture and there’s a lot of it in the grounds.
Nice place and, under better circumstances, it would have been a great day out. If you are in the area and a fan of Norman Lindsay it’s well worth dropping by.
Reporters Without Borders has just published its second world press freedom rankings. Forget Laos, Burma and North Korea — they don’t want to know. Cuba is also cited for locking journalists up. Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands are the freest places for journalists to operate, tying for the number one spot. Australia is a shameful number 50
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