Yummy Wakame Weblog
Archive: May, 2006
You sunk my Pirate ship!
Pirate Bay took the fall today when the man put them on ice. Er, that is, Bit Torrents just took a big hit as one of the premier distributors of free illegal software has been forced to close its site.
“In the morning of 2006-05-31 the Swedish National Criminal Police showed a search warrant to Rix|Port80 personnell. The warrant was valid for all datacentres of Rix|Port80 and was directed at The Pirate Bay. The allegation was breach of copy-right law, alternatively assisting breach of copy-right law. “ – PirateBay.org
Celluloid
We, as youthful, up-and-coming, paying consumers, the generation that will usher in the transition from pocket protectors to six-shooter cell phones, need to make it very clear where we stand on getting things for free. And I’ll be the first to say it, “we like it.”
Music once cost too much money, so we made a way for it to be free. The industry took notice and now you can buy a song for $1. Internet cafes were charging $5 / hour to sit down and use their computers, we didn’t like it, and now competition has driven half the coffee shops in my area to give WiFi away for free to incent customers to stop in for a drink. And thanks to Google, my email, maps, datebooks, 411 and (in San Francisco) Internet connection are all free. Say something, get noticed. Flappers, beatniks, hippies and punks have all done it before us, and now it’s our turn to involve ourselves in a cultural revolution, one that works to eliminate the idea that you pay to wear a company’s ad on your shirt or buy a movie ticket and have to watch commercials before the show.
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Some facts about South Africa you may never have known
When people ask where I come, a few will say, “I really wish I knew more about South Africa. I feel silly that Nelson Mandela is one of the greatest men of our time but I dont know much else about the place, exept that there was once a thing thing called apartheid. Did I pronounce that right?” Which is cool. At least they’re interested.
Inevitably I watch people pull the standard ‘oh, how unfortunate for you’ face while they ask, “Is the crime really as bad as people say it is? I don’t think I’d want to go there”.
The other day I got asked, “I should probably know this but… is South Africa still segregated?” also, “Aah South Africa! So can you speak Afri-cans? That’s like the language the africans there speak?” and “Do some schools there have electricity?” Oh and my favourite, “Mandela? Hmm no… never heard of it.”
No wait, I take that back. I once met someone in a chatroom who took a look at my profile pic and declared, “Why do you pretend you’re white in your profile when you actually come from South Africa?” Another person told me he’d never heard of South Africa and then asked me where it was.
Now I realise that I’m not from not the World’s Greatest Country and Im not at all surprised that people know so little about it when they’ve never been there and probably only seen one documentary about it on TV… but with sooo many South Africans all over the world (we’re a plague of curious world travellers descending on every country), it won’t be long before you’re being served at the bar by one of us or work across a desk from one… and if she’s cute you’ll want to impress her with your vast knowledge about her silly little country…
So with just a tiny further ado, here are some cool new emeging facts coming from the New South Africa – FYI: the current president who took over from Mandela after he retired is Thabo Mbeki, and the ruling party is the ANC. Also Afrikaans is one of the 11 many official languages of South Africa. Afrikaans is spoken by all races and ethnic groups in South Africa and much has been done in recent years to promote varieties of this language that were suppressed during the years of Apartheid. Close to 6 million speak Afrikaans as their home language out of 40.6 million South Africans. (more…)
Atlantis Paradise Island
Wowee this must have been an expensive site to build! Amazing use of Flash.
Fahr far away…
Bob, Nathan and I having a braai around lake Erie – we found a nice private spot all to ourselves away from the main beach area on the edge of a dam filled with bluegill and bass. A man-made fahr started from twigs, 10 kebabs, some hotdogs, 3 braaied sweetcorn and 3 six-packs between us = good times!
Bob builds his hotdog while I prepare the kebabs (mushrooms, red onions, red peppers, dried apricots, squirty honey) (more…)
Officers discover sex-slave cult
BBC News: “A sex slavery cult based on a series of 1960s science fiction novels has been uncovered by police in Darlington.”
The group, called Kaotians, follow the Chronicles of Gor novels which depict a society where women are dominated. Up to 350 followers regularly meet in pubs and clubs around the North East, in an area from Berwick to York.
Kaotians are a splinter group of the Goreans, which base their beliefs on novels written by American university professor John Norman.
The books are set on the quasi-medieval planet of Gor, which has a caste system and uses women as slaves.
There are an estimated 25,000 Goreans worldwide.
Protect the Western Arctic Reserve From Big Oil
The Western Arctic Reserve, also known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, is the largest tract of unprotected, relatively pristine public land in the United States. The 23.5 million-acre reserve is home to imperiled polar bears, seabirds and one of the densest populations of nesting raptors in the world. Its shores and lagoons harbor beluga whales, seals, walruses and other marine mammals. The BLM is accepting comments on a planning document that sets the stage for oil and gas leasing in the western Arctic for decades to come. Help save this national treasure by telling the BLM to protect the Western Arctic Reserve from dirty fossil fuel development »
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