Best Buy v. Blogger bruhaha

This post is just to echo the “support”:http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/11/best-buy-threatens-b.html from Xeni at “BoingBoing”:http:boingboing.net for their defense of Scott Beale’s “post”:http://laughingsquid.com/improv-everywhere-best-buy-blue-polo-shirts/ at “Laughing Squid”:http://laughingsquid.com/. It looks like Beale has been served with a cease and desist letter for commenting (just commenting mind you) on an alleged trademark infringement by the group “Improv Everywhere”:http://www.improveverywhere.com/. They are apparently selling t-shirts that resemble Best Buy uniform shirts but have cleverly substituted their own group name in place of the Best Buy logo (pictured below). I love it when the internet community mobilizes against this sort of silly protectionist garbage. Power to the people!
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WikiYou: great idea, bad execution

http://www.wikiyou.com is the self-proclaimed "unauthorized biography of every person on earth." An admirable idea since Wikipedia editors can be real assholes about peoples' "noteworthiness." Still, go to the front page of WikiYou and you immediately run into usability problems. The only option is a search bar--very zen/Google but altogether unhelpful. Also WikiYou is an excellent demonstration of what happens to wiki-pages that aren't properly policed. Check out "Sandra Bullock":http://www.wikiyou.com/p/Sandra-Bullock/4299 to see what I mean. Random symbols, bad grammar, no citations, it's a big mess. I suppose there are worse things out there to complain about it, but I hate it when a good idea gets screwed over by crappy execution. Perhaps they should take some notes from "yesterday's article":http://duenos.net/article/333/NASAHowcoolisthat about NASA's killer "homepage":http://www.nasa.gov/.

Real Life Spider-man


I don’t know where I’ve been all these years to have not heard about a real-life, rebellious, epileptic, and most interestingly, French Spider-man that suffers from permanent vertigo. After having checked over “Yahoo’s Week in Photos”:http://duenos.net/article/215/YahoosWeekinPhotos, I came across the picture and caption you see above detailed in “this article”:http://www.enjoyfrance.com/content/view/153/36/. Upon further investigation, this urban arachnid does this thing all the time and not only has “an official site”:http://www.alainrobert.com/ but he’s got a “wiki”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Robert, too. Well there go my dreams of becoming the world’s first non-mutant Spider-man. Shucks. Then again, if you’re a traditionalist that’s into the old-school Spider-man, kick back and relax while listening to “this website”:http://friends.cgnet.com/hhhh/misc/spidermansong.html.

High-Pitched Ringtones


This is an old story but there’s a chance you missed it so here I go again: To stop teenage loiterers, Welsh inventor Howard Stapleton invented a device that emits a very high frequency sound that older people simply cannot hear. The tone sounds like a mosquito buzzing in your ear and so was called The Mosquito. For more about the science and the story behind the invention, check out the very good “Wikipedia page”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito on the subject.
Of course no good deed goes unpunished and the teens have struck back by using the same frequencies as alert tones on their mobile phones, thereby avoiding turning their phones off in class. A minor victory, but still an annoyance for teachers I’m sure.
If you feel like trying out the tones for yourself, the best place to download them seems to be “here”:http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/. You can download a whole range of frequencies and use the highest one you can hear. Be warned though, one day that frequency will fall away and you won’t hear your phone anymore.

NASA: How cool is that!

Is anyone else bothered by NASA having its own channel on basic cable? I could understand it if there were educational programs being shown most of the time or maybe displaying a live web cam of the Space Station or looking through the eyes of the Hubble telescope, but that’s not what it shows. Undoubtedly you probably just flick past it on your way to TBS or some other channel, not even seeing it.
Well, a friend of mine sent me a link to “this article”:http://mashable.com/2007/12/02/nasa-social-network/ about NASA’s new collection of social networking tools called “MyNASA”:http://mynasa.nasa.gov/portal/site/mynasa and it begs the question, what is NASA selling? Government web sites are supposed to be badly programmed, ugly and uninformative and “NASA.gov”:http://www.nasa.gov/ is so totally not. It’s slick, informative and dare I say fun. All the information you could want is right there in an easy-to-use format with interactive features, news feeds and a pretty decent “kids’ club”:http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html . Seriously, this site will make you fall in love with space all over again. “NASA”:http://www.nasa.gov/
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Brad Pitt and others to sustainably rebuild New Orleans

Maybe it’s too little to late, but as Mr. Pitt said in his phone interview with the New York Times, “they’re coming up on their third Christmas… people are needing to get back in their homes.” Pledging $5 million himself, as well as commissioning 13 sustainable designs from nationally recognized architects, Brad Pitt sees himself as leading the way to a green reconstruction of the 9th Ward.

Some of the designs are really out there, like this grounded houseboat from Morphosis but the overall concept is really inspiring. As Pitt says, “[sustainable architecture] has got to work at all levels for it to be viable.” For more information see the “NYT article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/arts/design/03pitt.html?ei=5070&en=4b9e4ced218a43ab&ex=1197349200&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1197326187-q3D9zEgGaQtTs1Wxz/ZmRw or the Flash-bloated “homepage”:http://makeitrightnola.org/index.php

Cash for Poop

Oberlin College has a new program going on right now that might be the perfect way to make a little extra something on top of the usual check from the ‘rents. Apparently every time between now and Friday that you poop in the Adam Joseph Lewis Center (Environmental Studies building) the department will give you a quarter. The money is to be distributed at the “Low on Cash, High on FIber Bash” on Friday night.
Lucky enough to be there? Here’s a “link”:http://www.oberlin.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/events/calendar.pl?display=college&which=&s=&_e=18442

Is it Crawfish or Crayfish?

http://www.mackers.com/crayfish/, an entire site dedicated to the lobster's little cousin. Species information, recipes, pictures, jokes and more! Just one of the tender morsels to be be found at the Crayfish Corner: * A guy walks into a restaurant, sits down to order, and asked the waiter does he serve crayfish. The waiter says yes. The guy says 'I'll have a pizza'. He points to a chair and says, 'and a plate of chips for my crayfish friend here.'

Street Fashion


Number “35”:http://www.askmen.com/specials/2007_top_49/scott-schuman-35.html in “AskMen.com”:http://www.askmen.com/ ‘s “Top 49 Men”:http://www.askmen.com/specials/2007_top_49/ list, Scott Schuman is a man of the people. Or at least as much as someone in the fashion industry can be. Scott has found a way to use his love of photography and his fashion experience to bring the world’s sense of street chic to the masses. His blog, “The Sartorialist”:http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/, is a well of inspiration as to what the cool people actually *are* wearing and is very much a joy to browse with pictures from Paris, China, Manhattan and more. I highly recommend a visit.