timouse

New Rule: Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless you're a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout?

that's my favourite

...these tools are also being promoted as ways that companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet. For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to "meter individual subscriber usage by application," as individuals' online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing" and "where the subscriber resides."

so really, this all stems from a consortium of big bandwidth providers who now want to make billing easier by keeping track of what you're up to, which has the added bonus of them knowing what you're up to, and will no doubt inform someone if you're up to anything that isn't enriching them.

they also claim that they can selectively allow or delay traffic by what they call "deep packet inspection," so the video on demand data that's making them money doesn't have to queue up at a router, while the bittorrent traffic or the video from the Greenpeace website get pushed aside.

this technology will no doubt make its' way here, and the cable guys will probably get on board so that they can use more of their copper and fiber to make them money

As Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig has long noted, it is government regulation of the phone lines that helped make the Internet today's vibrant, diverse and democratic medium.

But now, the phone companies are lobbying Washington to kill off what's left of "common carrier" policy. They wish to operate their Internet services as fully "private" networks. Phone and cable companies claim that the government shouldn't play a role in broadband regulation: Instead of the free and open network that offers equal access to all, they want to reduce the Internet to a series of business decisions between consumers and providers.

what a great read...thanks for posting this! thanks to mr vonnegut and phorbesie i have a new signature

what a very humble man he is...and witrh everything he knows and thinks about, still optomistic (in his own way).

Next time I go to a bar I'm bringing my own pint glass.

That's a good angle - though it might ignite the same sorts of difficulties that people would run into bringing their own reusable containers or plates for burgers at fast food places. I wonder if you said you had some crushing neurosis that prevented you from drinking out of glasses other people drank out of that they'd have to accept it.

Otherwise' date=' if they're using the language of "pints", it should be based on a universal standard, or they're guilty of something.

[/quote']

sadly, supplying your own dishes and cutlery is prohibited by your local health department. as far as volume goes, sneak in a graduated cylinder and measure one next time.

in the meantime,

cheers!

meh.

this is supposed to be happenning this time of year. the fact that we have had spring-like conditions since new years is really unsettling' date=' and at the moment, nothing makes me happier than seeing the giant honking snowflakes flying around out my window [/quote']

I hear ya, Tim; it's been unsettling for me too, and I don't mind some snow. It's just the big all-at-once storms and the inclusion of the freezing rain that gets me...especially when I'm due to drive to Toronto later today, back to Hamilton tomorrow around noon, back to Toronto tomorrow night, and then on the bus back to Hamilton Monday afternoon. Balls.

if it's any comfort, look at it from a systemic view. the freezing rain will prepare a base for snow, which is essentially slow release groundwater for next summer.

niffermouse and i are off to a party in waterloo tonight, and i'm not looking forward to the drive, but on the upside, i've got snowtires on the mousemobile and no time deadlines to really worry about, and the plows will be out eventually.

bring it on, i say!

meh.

this is supposed to be happenning this time of year. the fact that we have had spring-like conditions since new years is really unsettling, and at the moment, nothing makes me happier than seeing the giant honking snowflakes flying around out my window

... the rarely seen, evil side of timouse.

indeed. i have to put the comment in context. my grandma is a lovely woman with a very well-deleveloped sense of irony. she totally got the humour of it...incidentally, she was thrilled when she met niffermouse, and gave us her wedding ring for jennifer to wear.

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and

cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the

same thing to them at funerals.

i once said (totally in jest, and absolutely taken that way) to my grandma, after being badgered about the same thing, "when are you going to fall and break your hip? all of your friends are doing it!"

she stopped badgering me

I also use the Simpsonism "embiggen" regularly; as in "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."

(I also use the logical corollary, "ensmallen".)

excellent. those are both refectly cromulent words. you have not lost your perspicacity...

I've used the word "cromulent". No one's ever called me on it. (I've seen a couple pensive looks, but that's about it.)

you are embiggening the vocabulary of your colleagues

it's really hard to be a car owner these days. i remember hearing an interview with Utah Phillips where he said that he gave up his car after the first Gulf War, stating that he couldn't bring himself to own something that "ran on blood."

it seems like all of the oil oompanies are doing unbearably nasty things in the course of daily business.

from what i've gathered over the last few years...

Esso/Exxon-Mobil: ignoring Kyoto, generally making obscene profits and not giving much thought to life after oil.

Royal Dutch Shell: running roughshod over indigenous people, most notably in Nigeria. when Ken Saro-Wiwa, writer and native Ogoni activist, spoke out about Shell's decimation of his people, he was killed. not like shell bragged about it or anything, but Ken's family has publicized ample links between shell and mr saro-wiwa's death. shell is at it again in Nigeria, puling the same crap on another indigenous tribe.

Petro-Canada: started as canada's national oil company, and meant to be a block to unfair price gouging, pc seems to be the first on the block to crank prices up at the first whiff of instability in the world oil market. add to that dealings with a number of unsavoury governments in order to keep the oil flowing...

wheni buy gas, i try to find independent stations, but even then, they are buying their gas from a wholesaler, and it's likely come from one of the above companies. the only national company that doesn't seem to be truly evil is Sunoco. as a big american-based oil company, the likely truth is that they just haven't been caught yet and canada's suncor (oil sands recovery) is part of the sunoco group. suncor's claim to fame is polluting one barrel of water for every barrel of oil they extract from the tar sands. suncor is currently in negotiations to buy a conono/phillips refinery in denver, among others.

*sigh*

cromulent.

thank you simpsons!

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson --- I'm reading this right now, and its really cool! Bryson is usually a travel literature writer. This book (about 550 pages) is a dumbed-down history of science, creation, how things work, etc. Its full of short interesting biographies of these scientists and astronomers throughout the ages who made discoveries and had crazy lives. Its a good overview of Science and space and what science has been able to figure out so far, written in simple words.

good one, kev...bill bryson is a great writer. he's able to take reasonably complicated scientific concepts and make them understandable. and he's got a wicked sense of humour to boot.

he's written a couple of travel books that i really liked. one about travelling europe, one about hiking through the appalachians. highly reccommended reading!

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.

You'll never eat KFC again

And yes, my favourite quote from Bush's address--"Deep in the American character, there is honor, and it is stronger than cynicism. And many have discovered again that even in tragedy -- especially in tragedy -- God is near." Near to what?

well, bush is an End Times believer, and surrounded by them to boot. maybe god is near ready to come down and kick some ass and to address one of the original points of mr deeps' chronologically hopeful post, the guys perpetrating most of this horror on the world are by definition a fundamentalist regime. more than 70% of americans self identify as strongly christian, and much of the US leadership are full-on christian.

Lord Protect Me From Your Followers.

http://www.cometogethermusicfest.ca/

i love this form of justice.

i prefer angry mob justice myself

classic.

this one kills me...

8. Iraqi Farmers Threatened By US Mandates

"The people whose forefathers first mastered the domestication of wheat will now have to pay for the privilege of growing it for someone else. And with that, the world's oldest farming heritage will become just another subsidiary link in the vast American supply chain."

fuckers.

also, #9, about Iran and their oil trading currency plan - i had heard about that around this time last year when i read the transcript from a speech that a former weapons inspector gave at Washington U - makes a shitload of sense when you start to consider the timeline the US has been on with Iran, and the media marketing they've been using over the last 10 or so months.

some scary shit on those pages.

indeed. #8 was my favourite too

i've been reading and listening to a lot of Vandana Shiva lately, and she alternates between discussing terrible things happenning to the world's water and its' seed diversity. it amazes me that something as fundamental as seed for food crops has become a commodity. the root of all this evil seems to be in the way things are legally described. water, by being called a commodity rather than a basic human need, can be bought and sold for profit. native seeds, like water, are part of the commons and shouldn't be treated like consumer goods...and monsanto seeds are the ideal consumer good, people have to come back year after year and buy more, and they'll find you and sue you if you save seeds, a practice that's probably one year younger than farming

*cough cough* profiteering motherfuckers *cough cough*

nice one, hamilton.

and way to go nettwerk!

i understand that artists have to pay rent & buy groceries. i am happy to support live music and buy the cd's of bands i enjoy. what i oppose are what jello biafra calls "the satin baseball jacket types who work in a big record company office but claim to know what the kids want."

seems to me that the interweb could cut these guys out of the loop...maybe that's whey the're acting " so 1992" about the whole thing...

indeed, deb, three cheers for margaret the button lady. and huge cheers to all the people that made this happen...tonin & keri, you throw the best parties i've ever been to.

the sound was aesome upstairs and down thanks to eric and diesel doug, and the crowd was jumping and going all night...

well done everyone!!

i'm not bitter or complaining or anything, just thought it was a good quote

ad

agreed, and not at all meant as a poke, AD.

that quote is spot on. cycnicism is my milieu since shrub took office...world events get me bitter any cynical in a big hurry. my current cure involves a "new turn-off day" combined with folks i love and good music.

knowing that there are people out there who see the world the same way you do is eminently comforting. at its' best, that's sort of what this place is about

I'm guilty of this too, but thought I'd share a good Billy Bragg quote for y'all.

"I think cynicism is the enemy of anyone who wants to make the world a better place. In the end I think the most corrosive thing for the human spirit is cynicism. And you can't argue with a cynic. They have all the fucking answers."

AD

or as ghandi said, "complain about the change you wish to see."

no wait. that's not it....