Ain't just the Chinese who have a monopoly on bad English

Sri Lankan packet with an English name that would go down reeaaall well in the Western world.


Courtesy of Indi Samarajiva's fantastic flickr collection.

Television viewers to be bluejacked

Sajjad texted me twice yesterday on the subject of an Indian-Muslim-bluejacking-stalker who's been bluetoothing him weird files.

Well, looks like television stations are getting in on the act:

"On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the network would, in September, mix posters with Bluetooth technology that will allow passersby to download clips of fall programs to wireless devices. Featured shows will include Shark, Smith, Jericho, The Class, and CSI."

So, Sajjad, I guess you're just going to have to get used to it :)

More from Clickz.

"This is one name that will stay in people's minds,"

They got that right.

Maybe Israel should re-evaluate its security alliances...

Oh to be a Hindu

If only Swedish Christians believed in this sort of stuff too....

You thought PETA was bad...

One exchange where PETA aren't the nutjobs:

'The work left me with an undercurrent of pigginess, unexpected fantasies of mergence and interspecies metamorphoses began to flicker into my consciousness.' "

Paid to be Profiled

At the end of his blog entry on counter terrorism, Becker poses an interesting idea:

I like the idea of paying those profiled for the inconvenience and time involved. Probably a manageable system could be worked out, and the pay might involve money, other forms of compensation, or both.

Surely a system where profiling is acknowledged and passengers who are victim to it are adequately compensated, would be a lot better than not acknowledging profiling, then profiling them anyway and forcing the aggrieved passenger to incur the costs that come with being profiled & delayed.

You can almost feel their frustration

Hat tip: Roflcake

Enemy of the State

For a guy who doesn't do much, Homer Simpson sure has been causing a lot of trouble in China. So much so that he is now BANNED. Would love to say that this was due to political comments like this, but instead it's for something a lot more bizarre: The Simpsons stole our jeaarrbbs!!

Apparently the Chinese animation industry is in a bit of strife with 80% of Chinese kids saying that they hate domestic cartoons and love foreign ones. So, they have chosen to further consign their animation industry to the grave by reducing competition & therefore reducing pressure on the animation studios to foster creativity. Then again, maybe creativity is something the Chinese government would be best not encouraging....

Brainless Bullies

Nanaia Mahutu, Naomi Hessling (Primary School Social Worker), & Megan Longman (Parentline).

All three of them (none of whom have probably picked up a videogame in their lives) are jumping on the newest political bandwagon: Videogame banning. As the Economist points out, Videogames are the perfect scapegoat for everything: videogame players are too young to vote, the videogame industry is not in the game of political pole greasing, and middle class white people really want to ban them.

The newest controversy is about Bully. A game where, according to Waikato Times (showing us why it has such a superb reputation forh accuracy) you assume the role of a bully and beat up nerds/prefects/and everybody else tat the Waikato Times so valiantly protects. Bannable material right?

Wrong, the New York Times, a newspaper that people actually read, played the game (it's called research.. and newspapers used to do it..) and outlines the ACTUAL story:

Rather than thrusting the player into the role of a tough, the entire point of the game is that bullies (noticeable at a distance by their distinctive white shirts) are everyone’s enemies. A player takes the role of Jimmy, a new 15-year-old student trying to navigate the complex social hierarchies of boarding school while earning respect from various factions like the nerds, the preppies, the jocks and even the teachers.

Standing up to and even fist-fighting bullies to stop them from tormenting geeks and other students is encouraged. Giving a smaller child a noogie or other gentle razzing is allowed, though not encouraged. Hitting a smaller child, a girl of any age or an adult is strictly forbidden. You can try it, but you will not get away with it. The dramatic, ton-of-bricks response from school security, complete with purposely boring punishments, is meant to be a strong disincentive.

In short: old-time adolescent high jinks like setting off a stink bomb are O.K.; serious delinquency and criminality are not.

What is most bizarre is that a simple google news search of 'Rockstar' and 'Bully' turns up the NYTimes article and a string of other articles like this, which means Nanaia Mahuta, Naomi Hessling, Megan Longman, and the Waikato Times would have had to have been exceptionally negligent in not finding it.

To top it off, Chief Censor Bill Hastings (not content to let all the others monopolise the market for idiotic comments related to this particular game) inserts this statement into the 'd:

"Rockstar had a reputation, with many of its other games being banned or rated R18"

Which is the equivalent of saying Miramax Pictures made She's All That which was a good PG film, so Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2 are likely to be enetertaining PG teen movies. At least he was careful enough to say 'many of its other games' because Rockstar's most recent release was Table Tennis....

Videogame publishers publish a whole range of games just like movie houses produce a whole range of movies. Which of course, you'd know, if you actually knew anything about the industry you were regulating. Maybe Mr. Hastings should nominate himself for a Ted Stevens award

The Open Company Test

Nolen has an interesting test for an 'Open' IT Company. 'Open' (things that everybody can access and no one can monpolise) is all the rage right now.

And why wouldn't it be, given it's excellent trackrecord thus far (Wikipedia, blogs, MySpace, need I say more?). If it wasn't something so norm-bustingly radical, 'openness' would be a corporate tablestake by now with corporates taking openness as a given and looking for the next big thing.

Question: could this test be expanded to blue collar industries?

The real Scarlet story

A no brainer really. When you think of actresses who both look like Marilyn Monroe and have more than two brain cells, Scarlett Johansson is your only option.

The real news story is that she's going out with potential Planet of the Apes extra Josh Harnett.

WTF? What's with loser dudes like Josh & brainless All Blacks toootally punchin above their weight all of a sudden?