a Faux Pas

The United States and Antigua have been in a bit of a fight.  It started off with the US disallowing online gambling for sites based in Antigua (which is completely legal there).  Antigua, upset that the US allows its own internet gambling, argued their case to the WTO.

The [WTO] agreed with Antigua that it had no effective trade sanctions against the United States other than to suspend its WTO obligations to the United States in respect of copyrights, trademarks and other forms of intellectual property. Antigua now has the right to produce counterfeit copies of Hollywood movies, Microsoft software, or whatnot to satisfy the judgment.
(via TheRegister).

So what started as a tiff around gambling, has opened the door for legalized pirating of Music and Movies.

zookz.com is the first Antiguan-based company to exploit this loophole by offering unlimited downloads of music or movies for $9.95/month, or both for $18.95/month.  Get your hard drives clear and your bandwidth free, you need to strike while the iron is hot, because you can bet that the US will try to close them down.  If you sign up before August 15th, you get a free month of movies for buying their music plan… excellent.  The biggest con is that they do not have a queue system in place yet, so everything must be downloaded one at a time.  A small price to pay.

As a bonus, here are some additional links.

Allofmp3.com was a fantastic Russian-based music site (Russia doesn’t recognize our copyright law).  However, here are the best alternative, yet dodgy pay sites: http://mp3sparks.us/?p=13.

The best singular MP3 downloading site? Amazon.com’s DRM-free music and cheaper than iTunes.  They may just take over Netflix as well.

The best all-you-can-download MP3 site?  Zunepass, which allows you to keep 10 songs per month and unlimited downloads for $14.95/month.

- Downloading like a madman, AFP

The BBC reports on an interesting new study in psychology.

Hundreds of wallets were planted on the streets of Edinburgh by psychologists last year. Perhaps surprisingly, nearly half of the 240 wallets were posted back. But there was a twist.

None of the wallets contained money, but had special contents to see how it would affect their return rate.  It turns out, there were significant differences.  Those that contained baby photos were returned 90% of the time!  Different photos were placed in the clear window of the planted wallets containing either a smiling baby, cute puppy, a happy family or a contented elderly couple.  There were also wallets depicting recent charity donations and finally a control wallet.

40 wallets were planted in each category and placed randomly in busy public places.

The baby photograph wallets had the highest return rate, with 88 per cent of the 40 being sent back. Next came the puppy, the family and the elderly couple, with 53 per cent, 48 and 28 respectively. At 20 per cent and 15, the charity card and control wallets had the lowest return rates.

The takeaway?  Put baby pictures in your wallet whether you have them or not.  We’ve provided an example for you in this post.

- You’re welcome, AFP

I hope you have a few hours to spare.

Slate.com has hit the nail on the head.  What’s popular these days?  Mocking a narrow slice of life and devoting a webpage to it.

Coined Single-Topic Blogs (or single serving blogs), these slices of life use crowd-sourcing to collect pictures (with captions for effect), comments, statuses… anything; some have even received book deals.

You may have already heard of some of the bigger ones through word of mouth:

• Textsfromlastnight.com Forward your embarrasing or dissapointing texts, get laughs.  Too many to list.
• Fmylife.com Write a sad/funny story about your life with FML at the end.  Simple.
• failblog.com The quintessential collection of all things we fail at.  A picture or video with the word: Fail. Examples are here.
• Awkwarefamilyphotos.com Obvious… Some of my favs.
• thisiswhyyourefat.com Brought us classics like the McGangbang.

But, these were not the first.  Remember back when you first heard about LolCats from icanhascheezburger.com?  Started by the web zealots at 4chan.org, it chronicled the best pictures of cats with the most ridiculous misspelled captions (lolcatspeak).  4chan (started by moot in 2003) has been responsible for some of the most juvenile and hilarious events of crowd-sourcing on the net.  They’ve been credited with the creation/popularization of internet memes like lolcats, rickrolling, Anonymous’ war against Scientology, even rigging Time Magazine’s Most Influential Person voting through hacks.

These days the topics are getting even narrower.  Slate’s twitter roundup produced some more that you may not have heard of, or have just heard of:

• Thereifixedit.com Simple fixes to everyday problems.
• latfh.com Look At This Fucking Hipster has some gems like this, or this.  NSFW Bonus: lookatthishipsterfucking.  Not linked on purpose..
• petswhowanttokillthemselves.com So sad.  So cute.
• fupenguin.com Yea.. you tell that animal who’s boss.
• lovelylisting.com Bad real estate listings, funny photos.  Bonus: The Chair updates.
• cakewrecks.blogspot.com Exactly that.  Some are just gross awesome.
• asleeponthesubway.tumblr.com I’ve been guilty of this one.
• stuffwhitepeoplelike.com Well I like this too.  Does that count?
• happiestpeopleever.tumblr.com Ironic.
• stfumarrieds.tumblr.com Mocking married peoples’ status.
• owltattoos.blogspot.com Because owl tattoos kick ass.
• theyahooanswers.tumblr.com People ask the darndest things.
• sexypeople-blog.com More irony
• unicornwolflazersfuckyou.tumblr.com Um, what?
• whythefuckdoyouhaveakid.com Excellent question.
• lasercats.tumblr.com Cat plus laser eyes.

The “Fuck Yeah” category:

• fuckyeahcilantro.tumblr.com Celebrating cilantro in spite of all you haters.
• fuckyeahryangosling.tumblr.com
• fuckyeahannehathaway.tumblr.com.
• fuckyeahanimalswithcasts.tumblr.com
• fuckyeahvans.tumblr.com
• (many more aren’t included because they aren’t funny.  Sorry fuckyeahpuppies.tumblr.com and cuteoverload.com.  You’re relegated to fuckyeahfuckyeahs.tumblr.com)

The Slate author Farhad Manjoo has even started his own tumblr account to keep track of the STBs called lookatthisfuckingtumblr.tumblr.com.  Still in its infancy, we’ll see if it takes off with the stiff competition from fuckingcurated.tumblr.com.

Some more bonuses just because they’re interesting:

• stealourideas.tumblr.com
• moviesinframes.tumblr.com
• I’m getting tired.  Find the rest on your own.  If you have any more, list them in the comments!

- Think I’d let you leave without a bonus? AFP

Never seen a swimming, diving deer?  What a coincidence, neither have I.  In

2007, however, a scientist found the remains of an animal that was said to be an ancestor to whales.  A stretch, yes, but apparently they have similar anatomical features.  And plus, that picture looks like a whale, right?  Riggght.

The species divurged and 35 million years later the whale is well known and all we had was a fossil from India.  That is until last year when scientists were finally able to confirm what had long been related by locals.

Observers saw a mouse-deer swimming in a forest stream. When the animal noticed the observers it submerged. Over the next hour, they saw it come to the surface four or five times, and maybe more unseen. But it often remained submerged for more than five minutes at a time.

Later in 2008, the scientists were able to return with a camera to document

the phenomenon, and it was reported by the BBC.  And there you have it.  Undeniable proof that whales are deer.  Look, they even have the same noses.

-AFP

CNBC has reported about a new kind of tourist attraction: Pirate Hunting.  Some groups have set up operations off the Somali coast to attract rich people with a thirst for danger.

Really though, this is just an excuse to kill people.  For sport.

Not to say that the pirates aren’t bad people.  In 2009 alone, there have already been 31 successful hijackings and are currently holding many ships awaiting ransom.  The pirates take hostages, the pirate hunters merely kill.

[P]assengers are paying about $5,700 a day to patrol the waters off Somalia in heavily armed private yachts, hoping to attract the attention of pirates. Then, when the bad guys get close, the badder guys open fire with grenade launchers, machine guns, and rocket launchers.
(via CNBC)

If you have the money and want to commit legal murder, the opportunity has just presented itself.

- Happy hunting, AFP

Frédéric Bourdin is a liar.

A French serial imposter with a list of offenses so long it boggles the mind.  In search of the love he didn’t received as a child, he repeatedly assumes the identity of orphaned children.  In 2008, The New Yorker had the opportunity to interview Bourdin in which he revealed an intriguing past of deception.  At 23 years old he convinced an American woman that he was her lost 16 year old son and as a 31 year old, assumed the identity of a 15 year old schoolboy.

Over the years, Bourdin had insinuated himself into youth shelters, orphanages, foster homes, junior high schools, and children’s hospitals. His trail of cons extended to, among other places, Spain, Germany, Belgium, England, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Bosnia, Portugal, Austria, Slovakia, France, Sweden, Denmark, and America. The U.S. State Department warned that he was an “exceedingly clever” man who posed as a desperate child in order to “win sympathy,” and a French prosecutor called him “an incredible illusionist whose perversity is matched only by his intelligence.” Bourdin himself has said, “I am a manipulator. . . . My job is to manipulate.”
(via The New Yorker, Printable Version)

Now Bourdin is now married with a child and living in France.  When asked if he would change with these new circumstances, he replied bluntly, “No, this is who I am.”

These days you can find Bourdin through his comically wacky Youtube page under the username FrancParler in which he posts “more mature” content than his previous Youtube page that hosted this gem:

(via Gawker)

One of the most celebrated articles in the last century was published by Esquire Magazine in the late sixties by Gay Talese.  At the time, Frank Sinatra was an aging superstar that despised the media for their incessant badgering and belittling.  What’s the big deal about a 50 year old dating a 20 year old?

However the public may have been looking at it, Frank clearly did not run his life by the established rules of dating.  The French were able to put together a formula for the “perfect woman.”  Half your age, plus seven; but I digress.

Talese’s portrayal of Frank as a man battling personal and public demons hit the newsstands like a freight train.  With a new style of writing that was later coined New Journalism (a term that Talese detested), the author painted a picture of his life as real as if you were there and afforded the average man the opportunity to get to know Frank Sinatra.

He was able to do all this without a single interview; in fact, the story became a story, because he couldn’t get the real story from Frank to set the story right.  You follow?

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold is an incredible example of journalism that has been read, studied and discussed now for over 50 years.  As the excerpt below explains, Frank with a cold could bring the world to a standstill.

Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel–only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence, and it affects not only his own psyche but also seems to cause a kind of psychosomatic nasal drip within dozens of people who work for him, drink with him, love him, depend on him for their own welfare and stability. A Sinatra with a cold can, in a small way, send vibrations through the entertainment industry and beyond as surely as a President of the United States, suddenly sick, can shake the national economy.
(Esquire, printable version)

- Swimming in those blue eyes, AFP

Levin and son

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to prove exactly how much you’re worth to your employer?  Three economists, Jeremy Bulow, Jonathan Levin, and Paul Milgrom, have done just that by manipulating (legally) the wireless spectrum auctions and getting a deal a THIRD cheaper than their competitors – essentially saving their company $1 billion.

By following the advice of the economists, the group was able to purchase wireless coverage for the United States for $2.4 billion, while their major competitors ended up paying $3.5 billion for the same spectrum in the same auction. Thus, their advice was worth more than $1 billion to their clients.
(Levitt, Freakonomics blog)

The economists wrote up their process for beating their competitors in an academic paper hosted by Stanford (they are academics, after all) in which they detail all their secrets.

- Future billionaire, AFP

Like the next person, I love a good heist story.  Earlier this year, a Wired reporter had the opportunity to sit down with one of the conspirators of the Heist of the Century and what resulted was one of the most entertaining reads of the year.  Discovery.com had it ranked as the second greatest heist in history, granting the top spot to DB Cooper’s legendary haul.  However, the Antwerp Diamond Heist is not only one of the most interesting and intricate heists in recorded history, someone finally shed some light on how it was done.

“The loot was never found, but based on circumstantial evidence, Notarbartolo was sentenced to 10 years. He has always denied having anything to do with the crime and has refused to discuss his case with journalists, preferring to remain silent for the past six years.

Until now.”

Full Wired Article (printable)

-Most secretively yours, AFP

My Dad Saved Me, and I Killed Him.  How about that title to bring your back down from your Father’s Day high.  This article is short, interesting and depressing.

Have some fun!