Some interesting stuff I found online.

10.31.2003

The Bush Boomlet - The economy just had a great quarter. Does that really mean it's booming? By Daniel Gross
Windfalls of War - The Center for Public Integrity Winning Contractors
U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls of Post-war Reconstruction
WASHINGTON, October 30, 2003 %u2014 More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush%u2014a little over $500,000%u2014than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.

10.29.2003

Canada's Blog Site : Blogs Canada
Bush in 30 Seconds Create a TV ad that tells the truth about George W. Bush.

Sick of the propaganda being beamed at you from the current administration's media mavens? Here's a new way to fight back: Enter MoveOn.org Voter Fund's political ad contest. You don't have to be formally trained in the art of filmmaking, just ready, willing and able to create an ad that tells the truth about George Bush.
eclecticism > Even Microsoft wants G5s
Wired 11.11: VIEW Stamping Out Short People:
Growth hormone is just the start of human enhancement
By Gregory Stock
News Analysis: The Outlook: Bush%u2019s Urgent Task: To Calm Public's Growing Impatience

10.27.2003

ExtremePumpkins.com - Extreme Pumpkin Carving
NewsHour Extra: China Opens World's Largest Dam -- June 18, 2003
Wired News: Is the Cure Worth the Cost?
Chuck's Blogumentary: DISSECTING DEAN'S INTERNET STRATEGY

Yahoo! News - Top Stories Photos - AP
Another great photo...

Yahoo! News - Top Stories Photos - AP
MOTHER NATURE IS PISSED....


In this satellite image, plumes of smoke caused by wildfires are seen moving off the coast through Southern California on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2003. The fires have grown to more than 208,000 acres, destroying 500 homes in densely populated suburbs and have caused at least 11 deaths. Fires burning are, at left left, Simi Valley and Moorpark; center, the combined Grand Prix and Old Fire, north of San Bernadino and Rancho Cucamonga/Ontario; bottom right, the Scripps Ranch fire in the San Diego area. AP Photo/US Forest Service via NASA (news - web sites))
ICv2 News - Fox News Threatened to Sue The Simpsons
Search in Iraq Fails to Find Nuclear Threat (washingtonpost.com)

10.25.2003

My Ikea Collage The other day I found a huge stack of Ikea catalogues in the lobby of my apartment building. It sort of bugged me because "Like everyone else, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct."

So, in response to this I decided to pick up one of the catalogues and analyze what was being sold. To my surprise I found some particularly ironic, shocking and disturbing slogans printed in bold lettering in the catalogue. These include : "Power and Control", "coordinated necessities", "why thinking differently makes a big difference", "Open to work, close to relax", "affordable dreams (5X)"...

So I decided to make my own Ikea Catalogue from cutouts from this one catalogue I picked up. You can see it here...
Boston.com / News / World / Europe / Tough Icelandic "Iceman" grabs shark to save men

10.24.2003

Wired News: Yo, Mr. CEO, Get Our Point Now? THIS IS SO RAD...
Seeing Double: Astronomers Amazed at Two Huge Sunspots
Videography - The Daily Video Resource HD for the Masses: JVC's JY-HD10 Camcorder...
Chuck's BlogumentaryThe new home of Chuck Olsen on the weeb...

Yahoo! News - Sports Photos - Reuters
One sex offender supporting another...

10.23.2003

Wired News: Hollywood's Cold War on Swapping
News Selling you a new past

You've eaten a chocolate bar and you didn't really like it. Can a commercial afterwards persuade you that you did? 'Memory morphing' could be a powerful weapon for advertisers. But, asks David Benady, will they dare use it?
ABCNEWS.com : Bush Heckled by Australian Parliament This is (amazing...)


During Bush's speech, two Green Party senators jumped to their feet and shouted war protests at Bush. They were ordered removed from the chamber but sat and refused to leave. One of them, Sen. Bob Brown, shouted "we are not a sheriff," a reference to Bush's recent description of Howard.



"I love free speech," Bush said to laughter.



Several other lawmakers wore white arm bands to protest the Iraq war but remained silent.

10.22.2003

Apple - Mac OS X PANTHER!!!
Wired News: Big Screens Open Windows on World An Austrian firm is developing a giant video-conferencing system that will be deployed in public spaces in London and Vienna next year, allowing people in the two cities to meet and talk eye-to-eye.
Plants In Motion
Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins (washingtonpost.com)

10.18.2003

Community Services The Changing City. Vancouver in 1978 and 2003

10.17.2003

iTunes Music Event Mr. Jobs then used iChatAV and an iSight video camera to rap live with Dr. Dre in Los Angeles, U2�s Bono in Dublin, and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger in London. It should be noted that Jobs switched platforms to accomplish this feat: �Gotta use a Mac for that,� he explained.
Pics Worth a Thousand Protests
Another super slick IPOD ad These are so awesome.
Hell froze over Itunes for Windows

10.16.2003

The Apple Store (U.S.) The innovative Belkin Media Reader for iPod lets you store more than tunes. It gives you a great way to transfer images from your digital camera to your iPod. Now you can take more pictures and not worry about running out of space in your digital camera.

10.15.2003

Wraiths Code red missions These urban explorer kids and some places around Vancouver they have gotten into...
Infiltration: Taking the Plunge Pool crashing at hotels and stories about going places your are not supposed to...
Wired News: Data Faster Than Speeding Bullet

10.14.2003

DIRECTORSLABEL.COM IS COMING SOON
Palm Pictures presents the first three installations in an ongoing series highlighting the work of filmmakers who have helped re-define music videos and filmmaking over the last decade. Each volume features music videos, shorts and commercials hand-picked by the directors, exclusive audio and video commentaries from featured artists and collaborators, unreleased shorts and documentaries and much more. A 52-page companion book including photographs, storyboards, treatments, drawings and interviews comes with each specially packaged DVD.
straight.com - Vancouver news & entertainment
B.C. Liberals Hit Straight With Million-Dollar Fine
By�Dan McLeod
The Georgia Straight is faced with the biggest threat in its 36-year history.

Following a visit from a provincial-government auditor, the Straight has been stripped of its status as a newspaper under provincial sales-tax legislation and assessed fines and penalties that will total more than one million dollars by year's end. This fine must be paid immediately and can only be reversed through a difficult and expensive appeal process that could tie us up in court for several years to come.

At the same time, community newspapers that are dumped on doorsteps unsolicited and laden with so many advertising flyers that a big elastic is often needed to hold them together are still considered official newspapers and therefore exempt from this legislation. Is it any coincidence that the owners of most of these papers are friends of the B.C. Liberals?

The Georgia Straight thus becomes the only newspaper in Canada to be classified as less than a newspaper under provincial legislation. No other newspaper need fear such a threat. Because of the Straight's uniqueness, the Liberals have found a way to target us without affecting any other paper in the province. In other words, this has all the earmarks of a witch-hunt.

Appeals of the crushing million-dollar assessment must first go to the Minister of Provincial Revenue. Chances of success at this stage are very slim, so our best chance for any justice is to take the matter to the B.C. Supreme Court. The Liberal minister, however, has the power to hold up the matter for months, even years. By that time, the Georgia Straight could be out of business.

The ruling harks back to the Straight's beginnings, when we were prosecuted frequently under a wide assortment of trumped-up charges. In 1967, a crusading mayor and chief prosecutor conspired to use the city licence department to close down the paper. When that attempt was overruled by the Supreme Court, they had us thrown in jail for criminal libel, a charge that had only been used twice in the history of Confederation. And on and on it went, until the harassment ended around 1972.

Using the Revenue Ministry to close down a newspaper is a ploy well-known to political leaders such as Gordon Campbell. For example, it is documented that Richard Nixon used the IRS to harass political opponents. As the only independent newspaper in Vancouver--and, indeed, the only local newspaper that consistently publishes articles critical of the government--we find this move not only discriminatory in the extreme but a politically motivated attempt by the government to silence one of its harshest critics.

It is also a direct attack on all the arts and cultural and business life of the city. The Straight is appealing to arts and entertainment organizations, nonprofit groups and charities, as well as small-business owners, to speak out against this decision and help by swearing affidavits in our defence if and when it comes time to take the government to court. If a court battle does ensue, we intend to fight vigorously and to the bitter end.

The need to fight this battle would stop now if we were to abandon our Time Out listings guide. This we refuse to do. The guide is a free public service that is based on one of this paper's founding principles: to encourage and foster the growth of a healthy and lively arts and cultural scene in our city.

By successfully closing the Straight, Gordon Campbell will have destroyed the only independent media outlet left in this city. He can then take credit for finishing the job that his namesake mayor, Tom Campbell, began more than 36 years ago. It appears that driving our province's social structures into a ditch is not good enough for the premier. Now he must silence the only newspaper that dares to criticize his mean-spirited policies. Making him accountable for his actions is our journalistic duty, even though our very existence is at stake.
Wired News: Will It Fly? Apple Tunes on PCs
Wired News: Turn That PC Into a Supercomputer
Slashdot | Dell $38m Supercomputer [not] More Costly than VT's G5s
Tony Hawk's Underground This game looks so sick. Check out the put your "face in the game" feature. Get a pic of yourself and map it to the body of a skater. Thats just one of a ton of new rad features.
Big Cats Kept as Pets Across U.S., Despite Risk
Want to hack a copy-protected CD? Hit the shift key.

10.12.2003

new super slick IPOD commercial
BBC World Home Page Video of that G5 Supercomputer...

10.09.2003

iTunes auction treads murky legal ground Update to the Ebay seller who wanted to sell a song he downloaded from the Itunes store.
Apple to launch iTunes for Windows next week
Napster launches, minus the revolution | CNET News.com
WiFi - SM: feel the global pain
ASIMO : Movies Check out this wack robot. Im goin to a media demo of its capabilities tomorrow.
$87,000,000,000.00 A Little Perspective on $87 billion.

10.08.2003

Stoked oh yah. I remember watchin Gator! He was badass!
PANTHER rocks

10.07.2003

New Playstation
The World Rock Paper Scissors Championships So funny, some guy in a bathrobe wins it... Sick..
Lick Me, I'm A Macintosh / What the hell is wrong with Apple that they still give a damn about design and packaging and "feel"? Apple sure goes out of its way to design killer stuff - even the PACKAGING!
Home-made SegwayThis dude decided to build his own Segway, from scratch. Looks like the Segway isnt the marvel of tech we thought it was.
Backfire Ignites Dog, Dog Sets Grass Fire One of the more bizarre news stories I've seen recently.

10.06.2003

Frank the Tank Game So sick...
Frank the Tank Game So sick...
The "Terrorist" training camp that the Israelis just bombed in Syria was abandoned 7 years ago according to a local guy...
Survey of non-hosted blogs... Just some stats on free blogs... like this one...
Bass Station This is the coolest thing ever: The most ghetto fabulous WiFi HiFi yet: an old school boom box called the Bass-Station that's been refitted with 802.11b, a 120GB hard drive, and an MP3 decoder, and that is controlled using a web browser. Besides being able to play MP3s, it can also stream audio to other devices in its local area network, double as a file-server for file-sharing. Sure to come in handy for our next breakdancing battle.
White stripes - hardest button to button Michel Gondry's latest video. So killer.
the Degree Confluence ProjectThe goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here.
A unique picture of the world, in 16,146 frames
Pilots Practice How to Down Hijacked Jets What a messed up world we live in now.
Roy gets attacked Tigers are not meant to be caged up and made to perform 8 times a week.

10.03.2003

How to win an election Get photo op with Kitten. "The "kitten-eater" news release was definitely the turning point in the campaign for both the Tories and the Liberals." Absolutely ridiculous.
119,400 votes for Green party

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