Daily Show writer explains writers’ strike — if digital content isn’t worth anything, how come Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion?
In this youtube clip, Daily Show writer Jason Rothman delivers an hilarious monologue about the Writers’ Guild strike against the studios, who claim that they can’t compensate writers for digital media because no one knows how much this stuff is worth. The clip delivers a Daily Show-style montage of coverage from the $1 billion+ Viacom lawsuit against YouTube, including clips of Viacom’s CEO talking about how digital content is worth tons of money and getting paid is the name of the game. The clip includes a nice guest appearance from Daily Show correspondents, too.
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robpongi
Meet Rob Pongi (sometimes known as Evil Pongi) an american, doing something different in Japan. Sometimes he’s chillin with some sexy and beautiful Japanese women enjoy a very exciting Tokyo dance party! Other times he translates North Korean soap operas into english for our edification. He just finished his first Hollywood movie, and he’s very proud of it. Join his fan club here. You can watch all of his videos here.
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Man wins physics (maybe)
An exceptionally simple theory of everything has been released by a snow and surfboarding physicist. String theorists are grumpy feeling it doesn’t have enough dimensions to be a proper theory. Others question and discuss. In it’s favour – it’s pretty! 10 Mb Quicktime
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A Look Back at Jon Stewart’s Greatest Gay Moments.
“There’s a whole lotta gay going on in the brand-spanking-new archive of The Daily Show video clips.”
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US intelligence honcho channels Orwell, redefines privacy
Donald Kerr, the US Principal Deputy Director of Intelligence, has decided to kill privacy. He says that human beings can no longer expect governments and companies not to spy on them; instead “privacy” will now mean having the right to expect that governments and companies won’t tell other people what they learn when they spy on you.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information…
He noted that government employees face up to five years in prison and $100,000 in fines if convicted of misusing private information.
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Cross-border car shopping in overdrive
Wow, we shoulda gone south…
The number of vehicles being bought in the United States by Canadians has exploded since the loonie shot even with the U.S. dollar, new figures show, even as a growing number of carmakers here dangle cash goodies to buyers to prevent cross-border shopping.
Canadians imported 24,873 vehicles north in October alone, according to figures provided this week by the North American Automobile Trade Association, a trade group of vehicle importers and exporters. That’s a 68% increase from September, when the loonie matched the greenback for the first time since 1976.
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You like the sauce?
Fire Roasted Salsa. Chipotle Salsa. Pico De Gallo. Salsa Verde. Five Green Salsa. Orange Salsa. Apple Salsa. Cucumber Salsa. Yogurt Salsa. Rosemary Salsa. Bean Salsa. Conejo En Salsa De Chocolate. Roasted Poblano and Coconut Salsa. Monterey Jack Salsa. Salsa Negra. Mango Salsa. Holiday Salsa. Artichoke Salsa.
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Need some inspiration for turning up for work?
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Get ready to octorock
The only interactive Zelda overworld map you’ll ever need. (Flash)
unless you’re doing the second quest. Found at the ever-useful vgmaps.com
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Understanding the WGA Writer’s Strike
As the Writer’s Guild of America strike wears on into its second week, it seems appropriate to remember why they’re striking in the first place. If you ask me, the terms seem almost too reasonable. But in the defense of the studios, I’m sure the businessmen involved have gotten used to spending those millions of dollars, and wouldn’t want to see them go. Now that Broadway has shut down in allegiance to their Hollywood compatriots, things are looking grim for anything to be resolved without more financial bloodshed.
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Grow your own
Stop paying ridiculous prices for your cigarettes, cigars or pipe tobacco, growing your own tobacco, by growing your own tobacco, you can smoke for about $10.00 a week or less. Surprisingly, not many people know that’s it’s perfectly legal to grow your own tobacco for ones own consumption.
Tobacco is a member of the Solanaceae or nightshade family. This family includes tomato, pepper, eggplant, Irish potato, and a number of other plants. Tobacco belongs to the genus Nicotiana, and almost all commercial tobacco is of the tabacum species. The Nicotiana rustica species was commonly used by American Indians and may still be used for ceremonial purposes in some areas. Many homeowners wish to grow a few plants of tobacco in their yard or garden for ornamental purposes or for personal use. Tobacco plants are usually no more difficult to grow than many other garden plants.
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Such is life.
There are many Ned Kelly resources online for those interested in learning more about Australia’s most famous bushranger. For instance, Picture Australia also has many images of him while the State Library of Victoria has an online version of the Jerilderie Letter, a letter written (or perhaps dictated) by Kelly describing his view of his activities and the treatment of his family and, more generally, the treatment of Irish Catholics by the police.
Kelly had had originally written the letter to a politician known only as ‘Cameron’, but that correspondence was suppressed from the public and was not made public until it was published by the Melbourne Herald in 1930. If you found the version I lined to earlier hard to read, here is another site dedicated to that letter, with the text of the letter in both HTML and flash formats. The letter has inspired much debate about whether Kelly was truly an outlaw or a hero.
There is an excellent site dedicated to Kelly’s famous last stand at Glenrowan, and another good site which has collected most of the research on the evolution of the Kelly gang.
Here are some more sites you may find useful or interesting.
Timeline of the Kelly gang.
Another Ned Kelly biography.
More photos.
Ned Kelly’s stay at Beechworth.
And when you’re done with all of that, why not take a small quiz to see how much you’ve remembered!
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Double parking? Double taser.
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Corporate Magazines Still Suck
Happy 40th Birthday Rolling Stone. On this day in 1967, the first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published, and it came with a roach clip. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason It embraced and reported on the hippy counterculture during the late 1960s and 1970s, and its rise to fame was synchronous with such bands and artists as the Grateful Dead, Beatles, Doors, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. It is the magazine that trashed Eric Clapton, broke up Cream and ripped every album Led Zeppelin ever made!”
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Vintage Vertiginous Vaudevillian
Ben Dova the Drunk Daredevil, contortionist, Hindenburg survivor and one of the 10 most unfortunately named people on the internets.
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The unreleased 1998 documentary “Frat House”
In 1997, Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland created a film documenting the savagely brutal hazing rituals that take place during Hell Week at U.S. college fraternities. Frat House was completed and won the Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at 1998’s Sundance Film Festival, an award that was later rescinded. HBO was slated to air it later that year, but pulled it for reasons that remain debatable to this day. It has never seen an official release.
Frat House (60 minutes, Google video, )
Lawyers representing several fraternity organizations and frat brothers charged that Phillips and Gurland, among other things, staged events, recreated scenes, and that the frat featured in the most severe segments doesn’t pledge during the spring semester when the footage was shot.
In interviews, the filmmakers stood by their work, saying the only questionable matter was that some of the pledges were in fact already members of the fraternity.
In order to get a firsthand view of the happenings, Phillips and Gurland pledged and went through Hell Week at two northeastern U.S. schools. I’m not going to spoil the way it turns out, but it’s a compelling and interesting watch. Whether or not it was fabricated, the film is a horrifying and realistic exploration of a side of undergrad life that most of us happily avoided.
Todd Phillips had previously directed Hated: G.G. Allin and & the Murder Junkies and then went on to the big time, helming such… um… classics as Road Trip and Old School. Andrew Gurland went on to make Mail Order Wife, a verry well done and… well, fake documentary.
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School Shootings – not just a North American problem
At least eight people are dead in a shooting at a school in Finland. Apparently some are blaming Youtube, as the killer posted some videos of himself shortly before the attack. How to get inside the mind of kids who do these terrible things? Are they just “bad seeds” or are these killers created? Clearly marginalization and alienation play a role. Many would-be -killers seem to share these fantasies of grandiose mass spectacles , many psychologists think are inspired by their immersion in violent video games and movies. There’s still controversy over the idea that watching violent TV/video games/etc can make kids more aggressive, and if that translates to violent behavior. I’m curious how often nationalist and racist rhetoric is also often deployed by these kids and wonder why that is: The Finland shooter, Auvinen called himself a “social Darwinist” who would “eliminate all who I see unfit”.
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Throw the tourist from the train.
Throw the tourist from the train. Ejected from a train for refusing to stop taking pictures from the train. Well, for not stopping anyway; the refusing part is unclear. The nation is now secure.
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