Frankly I’m not sure how I got into this, but apparently a bunch of weasels called ‘ReservationRewards’ has been plundering my credit card each month to the tune of $9 per month. I thought I might be alone until I found this blog post. There’s an online mob of enraged cardholders with exactly the same problem. I think I’m going to try to parse it to release a list of the companies who are in bed with these scammers. It’s looking like I got burned by Fandango in my case.

War of the Worlds is a new movie about aliens invading Earth. Tom Cruise stars in the movie. He believes in aliens as part of his cult religion, Scientology. So is this sort of like his Passion of the Christ?

P.S. Be sure to read the related Der Spiegel interview.

Apparently the makers of Sodaplay weren’t content to rest on their laurels. Check out Sodarace and make your own racin’ soda thingy.

David Hahn is my new hero. Well, sort of. He went to great lengths to build a breeder reactor in his back yard, and ended up with a Superfund site instead. He exposed himself to crazy amounts of radiation in his mission to create a reactor, and was emotionally devastated when the police stumbled upon his plan. Check out the link, it’s a great read.

Update:There’s a book, too!
Via mefi

Swim about two and a half miles. Then bike over a century (112 miles). Then run a marathon. Do all this in the same day, racing against over 1000 other people. Who came up with this madness? I asked myself this. Pastebomb from the Wikipedia article on the ironman triathlon:

The idea for the original Iron Man Triathlon arose during the awards ceremony for the 1977 Oahu Perimeter Relay (a running race for 5-person teams). Among the participants were numerous representatives of both the Mid-Pacific Road Runners and the Waikiki Swim Club, whose members had long been debating which athletes were more fit, runners or swimmers. On this occasion, U.S. Navy Commander John Collins pointed out that a recent article in Sports Illustrated magazine had declared that Eddy Merckx, the great Belgian cyclist, had the highest recorded “oxygen uptake” of any athlete ever measured, so perhaps cyclists were more fit than anyone. Cdr. Collins and his wife, Judy, had taken part in the triathlons staged in 1974 and 1975 by the San Diego Track Club in and around Mission Bay, California, as well as the Optimist Sports Fiesta Triathlon in Coronado, California, in 1975. A number of the other military athletes in attendance were also familiar with the San Diego races, so they understood the concept when Cdr. Collins suggested that the debate should be settled through a race combining the three existing long-distance competitions already on the island: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim (2.4 mi./3.85 km), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 miles; originally a two-day event) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 mi./42.195 km). It is worth noting that no one present had ever done the bike race; Cdr. Collins calculated that by shaving 3 miles off the course and riding counter-clockwise around the island, the bike leg could start at the finish of the Waikiki Rough Water and end at the Aloha Tower, the traditional start of the Honolulu Marathon. With a nod to a local runner who was notorious for his demanding workouts, Collins said, “Whoever finishes first, we’ll call him the Iron Man.”

That would be outrageous enough for 99.99% of the population. Of course with over six billion people in the world, that still leaves six million who feel that that just isn’t crazy enough. These are the people who came up with the ultra-ironman competitions: double, triple, quintuple and deca- Ironman competitions. The winner of the quintuple and deca competitions is Astrid Benöhr, a German housewife. Another pastebomb:

Her 1997 world record in the quintuple ironman (about 74 hours for some 19 km swimming, 900 km bicycling, 210 km running) is more than 2 hours less than the men’s world record; her 1999 world record in the deca (ten-fold) ironman (about 187 hours for 38 km swimming, 1800 km bicycling, 420 km running) is about 5 hours less than the men’s world record. In this event, her total time of 187 hours included some 8.5 hours of sleep.

She’s got a web site, but disappointingly, no blog.

Oh my god. del.icio.us direc.tor is my new best friend.

Wow, Engadget is whoring itself to the dark side, big time. This post, though written by a guest blogger, is so deeply flawed that I wonder if the site has been hacked. It’s gems like this that make me wonder:

If you can get past your visceral negative reaction, you’ll quickly see that DRM has actually brought consumers more advancements than restrictions. In truth, the hatred of DRM is a product of its own success; without the added options which DRM brings to the table there would be little to rebel against.

Hmmm. What are these ‘added options’ that DRM brings to the table? Oh right. The option to not use your fair-use rights. Those are nifty. Or the right to have software automatically installed on my computer by a “copy protected” CD. Gosh, what was I thinking? It’s true. Without options like those there would be little rebel against.

Take, for instance, the music industry. Before the widespread use of DRM, customers had two main options with regards to music: consumers could a) listen to the radio or b) purchase a bundle of songs (many of which they had no interest in). DRM has given consumers three further ways to enjoy music.

*Bows down before the sacred DRM statue. Drinks the kool-aid*
Yes! It’s completely impossible to distribute MP3 files without DRM. I forgot. Thanks for reminding me! Somebody should tell all the online music stores which aren’t distributing their music with DRM to hurry up and go out of business.

The first is obvious and has been covered ad nauseum. Still, it deserves a mention. Apple’s iTunes changed the music world forever. Unbundling songs from their albums provided a nearly-infinite jump in options. The purchasing power per dollar was greatly increased. Now $16.83 buys the perfect album. Add a quarter for the blank CD and you’re clearly ahead.

Because people buy iPods for the DRM.

Second, DRM has paved the way for advanced “radio stations.” Using services such as MSN Radio consumers have thousands of “radio stations” at their disposal. Each of these stations comes with the ability to instantly skip to the next song. Compare this to the pre-DRM situation of two or three popular radio stations per market and you’re likely to agree that things are better today.

*Chugs more kool-aid*
Because internet radio stations couldn’t possibly exist without that awesome DRM.

Whose music is it?

In the beginning it was easy. Consumers would buy records. TV stations would broadcast shows. There was no copying and the Fair-Use doctrine was largely an issue centered around academia and news reporting. Then came Betamax. Suddenly it was possible for the general population to copy works. Lawsuits followed and the Fair-Use doctrine was expanded. It now made it legal for consumers to time-shift content, backup software, etc.

Over time a schism developed, and two mindsets emerged. There are those who believe that Fair-Use grants the end-user the ability, when possible, to enjoy the benefit of copying for personal use. The other group believes that they have an inextricable right to their content as they see fit; any effort on the part of the content provider to thwart reproduction of content is taken as an affront to Fair-Use. In reality Fair-Use is, and has always been closer to the former than the latter.

The latter mindset, the one held by the content distribution industry (RIAA and MPAA) is that you should have to pay for your content each and every time you enjoy it. If anyone nearby hears it, they should also have to pay. Guess what? Those are the people writing the legislation and coming up with the technology, which under the DMCA, it’s illegal to circumvent. Even if the DRM denies you of your fair use rights.

Hoping to both codify this distinction and to help stem the tide of piracy, lawmakers passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998. Among other things, the act made it illegal to circumvent copyright protection. The purpose of this act was to restore a sense of balance to the copyright world. While the scope of the act and whether or not it’s the government’s responsibility to protect copy-protection are certainly up for debate, the sentiment behind the act stands –content providers have a right to sell their content on their terms. Your decision is whether or not you agree with those terms. In short, limiting your use isn’t unfair.

Um, yes it actually is unfair. It’s just the law now. Get it? Codifying something into law doesn’t make it fair.

Yes, it’s easy to see all the negatives associated with DRM and the laws that protect it. However, we must ask ourselves whether or not all the different ways we can now enjoy our content would be available if DRM wasn’t around and wasn’t protected. After all – isn’t it at least a little fair to say that those who create content should get some say in how it’s used?

Let’s see…would content distribution companies take their toys and go home if we didn’t codify their wet dreams into law? The question is, if they did, would anyone care?

With all that said – I’m still not getting rid of my copy of DVD Decrypter.

So after this long rant in favor of the shiny magic DRM, you’re admitting that you’re violating federal law by copying DVDs?

So what the hell is going on at Engadget? Are they just whoring themselves out in compliance with a secret contract they had to sign to land the Bill Gates interview?

The flying spaghetti monster is vying for a space in Kansas classrooms next to intelligent design. He is a capricious intelligent designer:

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

In a blow to hungry homeless people, the shelter in Juneau, Alaska has stopped serving bear meat.

These people are cycling around the world. Whenever I get tired on my daily commute, I’ll think of them. They’re blogging their entire trip, pretty much around the freaking planet.

PedalWest is a similar blog published by another cycling couple. Their goal is more modest; they’re only cycling across the continental United States. Slackers. They speak Flickr, too, so check out their photostream.

The Fat Cyclist kicks enough ass for me to forgive him for using MSN Spaces. He discloses his current weight on every post as he trains for an insane 100 mile mountain bike race.

Endless Wheel features reports from a fixed-gear afficionado with some great photography to polish it off.

The Kona Enduro Team is also rockin the blogs. They detail all their rides since January 2005.