Ivan's weblog

My brother sent me these links:
Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades. The Onion, 2004-02-18.
Gillette ups the ante, unveils 5-blade razor. Reuters, 2005-09-14.

I haven’t posted in a while…

This is the most remarkable criticism I’ve seen for the latest Kansas board of education decision regarding “intelligent design": Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory

Yes, that’s right, thanks to the Moronic UK Justice System when it comes to Computer Security.

Coming up next: man gets convicted of trying to rotate the knob of a locked door by using his hand…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4291074.stm

Ok, this is not really news, and I’m not even sure if it’s true, but it sounds all too plausible. Coca-Cola had a campaign in 2001 for teaching restaurants how not to give (free) tap water to consumers. While it is obviously in the best interest of both the Coca-Cola company and the restaurant to sell as many drinks as possible, the weasel language is what makes it funny:

Water. It’s necessary to sustain life, but to many Casual Dining restaurant chains it contributes to a dull dining experience for the customer. Many customers choose tap water not because they enjoy it, but because it is what they always have drunk in the past. In response, some restaurant chains are implementing programs to help train crews to sell alternative choices to tap water, like soft drinks and noncarbonated beverages, with the goal of increasing overall guest satisfaction. Because of its own successful campaign against water, the Olive Garden has recently sent a powerful message to the entire restaurant industry — less water and more beverage choices mean happier customers.

See the screenshots from Coca-Cola’s website. It seems they took the page down after getting too much attention, so I can’t verify their accuracy.

For example, just take a look at bancomicsans.com - Putting the sans in Comic Sans.

“A group of French cleaning ladies who organised a car-sharing scheme to get to work are being taken to court by a coach company which accuses them of “an act of unfair and parasitical competition". (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1525590,00.html

“The BBC has been lambasted by classical music labels for making all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies available for free download over the Internet.” http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article298067.ece

The U.S. government is complaining about Mexico printing stamps with Memín Pingüín, a black cartoon character from the 1940s. What’s next, Japan complaining that the U.S. is printing stamps honoring scientists who helped build the atomic bomb?

How stupid can trademark lawsuits get? See this NY times article for an example: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/business/04stealth.html

The absurdity of stores such as Wal-Mart trying to enforce other people’s copyrights to avoid lawsuits prevents people from printing their own pictures:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/computing/personaltech/20050530-9999-mz1b30snap.html

At least some sign of something sensible:

Photographers used to take photos and then charge clients for copies of the images, he said. Now, more and more professional photographers are charging for their time spent taking the photos.

This is a very worthy contender for the silly news section: Man Arrested for Using $2 Bills at Best Buy

Is this really possible? I hate Dr. Pepper. I hate vanilla Coke et al. I hate cherry Coke et al. I don’t like diet soft drinks. Diet cherry vanilla Dr Pepper!? That’s beyond my wildest nightmares!

I found this drink is so outrageous that it is worth blogging about it, but before I did, I searched the web and found that others have already written better comments on the topic. Matt at matthearn.com says: Diet Cherry Vanilla Doctor Pepper (hereafter referred to by “DCVDP,” which can also stand for “Diseased Cat Vomit: Duck Poop,"…)

For an opposing view, see this post at everything2.

According to a formula that a a part-time tutor at Cardiff University pulled out of a hat, January 24 will be the worst day of the year:

The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January’s pay day - and T is the time since Christmas.

Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.

Yes, it’s possible, thanks to an interesting Japanese technique (don’t miss the video!).

I learned this from Dori’s blog. Thank you!

Robbers scared off by Playstation game get jail time

Everything you ever wanted to know about asdf! Don’t miss the asdf song.

Not that it is much of a suprise, but this story from April is entertaining nonetheless. Now I’m left wondering whether London Free Press is for real, and whether The Onion has published a story about it. :-)

NPR : A San Francisco Bookshop Shows Its Colors

A sandwich with the image of the Virgin was auctioned for $28,000. Just imagine how much you could get for the tiles from the Hidalgo subway station in Mexico City!