Each September, Montreal, Quebec closes Ste-Catherine street, one of the busiest streets in the city, to hold the “a day without my car” event. As the name implies, no motorized circulation is allowed on the street during this day, and a bunch of vendors present green-transport alternatives to cars.
This year, “L’école Polytechnique de Montréal,” a branch of “L’Université de Montréal” related to engineering, was presenting their solar car, named Esteban IV.
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Divorce is a messy stressful affair (from what I hear). First, there is the breakup which is obviously painful and upsetting for both the husband and the wife (it’s even worse if there’s children involved too). Then the lawyers get involved and the arguments then start over who gets what. Months or even years later, you stagger out of the marriage, having aged ten years with your computer game collection under your arm and your laptop under another.
But Angie Schmidt had other ideas when she got divorced. She decided she needed a bit of laughter to cheer herself up. So she started a business called Smashing Katie which sells divorce gifts to women (Katie is apparently the woman she blames for the breakup of her marriage).
Gifts can be as simple as a wedding ring coffin or as scary as an Ex Knife Block (!)
The business has been a success – but it has divided people over whether the business concept is a sound one or not. Some have praised Schmidt for having the personality to get over the bump in her life and moving on, but others, including one divorce attorney, thinks that the last thing a divorcee wants to have, are constant reminders of a failed marriage –
“You don’t want to have a bunch of reminders around about your failed relationship,” she said. “I’d get away from these kind of cynical reminders that just sit on your desk. The best thing I did when I got divorced was use some frequent flier miles to go to Paris for a week. That was the best gift possible.”
What do you think GAS divorcees? When you got divorced, would you have liked gifts like this? Or is this just twisting the knife a bit too much?
Breaking up can lead to a business – San Francisco Chronicle
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Remember Whitney Harper? She was that 16 year old who didn’t know that downloading MP3’s from Kazaa was illegal and she pleaded ignorance when the RIAA set their hound dogs on her. It actually worked because the judge ordered that she only had to pay $200 per song instead of $750.
Well the RIAA has now apparently decided that the judge’s award of $200 per song is totally unacceptable and they have told the judge to shove his $7,400 up where the sun don’t shine. Instead they have decided to force the whole matter to a federal jury trial and let the jury decide how much the RIAA deserves (I’m praying they award them $1! That would be poetic justice!).
This decision just shows the RIAA’s hypocrisy. All along they have said that it’s not about the money, that instead it’s about teaching those darn downloaders a lesson. If that’s really the case, then why not just take the $7,400? I don’t think Whitney will be doing any more downloading anytime soon. But to drag her now through a jury trial and rack up even more legal costs?
That is just downright vindictiveness, nothing more, nothing less. Why don’t they just form the firing squad, put her against the wall and get the whole thing over with?
Via Ars Technica
You might think that planet Earth is pretty big, but the following video will show you that size is only a matter of perception, and that in fact, our planet is really tiny compared to other celestial objects.
Now that you’ve all seen the new “I’m a PC” ad from Microsoft, I’m sure that we can all agree that this commercial was much more efficient in driving its point across compared to the “Seinfeld and Gates” joke. Even though part of the ad was made using a Mac, it’s no secret that PCs are being used all around the globe by people of many cultures and professional backgrounds. And yes, as shown in the ad, Bill Gates is part of those users.
Unfortunately it seems that the marketing company who thought of the whole concept didn’t deem Steve Ballmer worthy enough to appear in the commercial, so today, we thought that you’d all appreciate seeing a video of Mr. Ballmer screaming at the top of his lungs that “He’s a PC”.
by Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
The British science journal Nature reported a study today that upends what we thought we knew about the evolution of fingers of toes. The previous theory was that air-breathing animals that had found their way to land were the first to develop primitive fingers, but this new study shows that rudimentary digits actually existed inside the fins of a transitional fish specie (the Panderichthys, pictured).
This discovery didn’t come from a new archeological find, but rather a reexamination of fossils. Recent genetics research suggested that a gene that affects the patterning of hands and feet is present in the modern-day lung fish. This information prompted scientists to have a closer look at the Panderichthys fossils using more advanced techniques. And what they found there were distal radials–stubby bones arranged like four fingers–at the end of the fins of the skeleton.
I’m not sure if I would find this as fascinating if I hadn’t been playing Spore so much lately, but I’d still call this a plus one for evolution!
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Scientists at the University of Southampton in England have come up with a really genius way of proving once and for all whether “out of body” near death experiences actually occur or not. Is that REALLY a light at the end of a tunnel? Is that REALLY Nicolas Cage standing there waiting to take me to heaven?
The really foolproof plan involves building really high shelves above the patient’s bed (IKEA will be happy) and then putting postcards and pictures on those shelves. These pictures can’t be seen from the ground so the only way to see them (yep, you guessed it!) would be if they were having their “out of body” experience!
The theory is that the patient, while dying, would leave their body, lift up into the air, see the pictures, think “oooh! nice snaps!”, memorize everything, drift back down, re-enter their body, wake up and then tell the doctors all about each picture. Hey presto! “Out of body” experiences hereby proven! Can’t describe the photos? Then the whole “out of body” thing has been proven not to exist. End of story.
But is it really that simple? As the Guardian news blog says, what if you didn’t notice the pictures while you were having your out of body experience? What if you were more focused on looking down at your dying body and what was going on below you?
Plus the Guardian makes a very good point – should the hospitals be even investigating this in the first place? Shouldn’t they be spending money and focusing their energies on saving lives instead of researching what happens after those lives are over?
I can’t believe medical professionals are trying to dismiss something as complex as near death experiences by using postcards and high shelves! Some things in life are just not meant to be proven or known for sure. What happens after death is one of them. What do you think?
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
OK, now I really have heard everything!
The Israeli city of Petah Tikva is seemingly fed up with all the doggie poop lying around on their streets. So their solution is to set up a dog poop DNA database. To build this, all the dog owners of the city are being asked to take their canine pals into the local vet to have their dog’s mouth swabbed. Rover or Tiddles can then have their DNA information entered into the computer.
From that point on, whenever Rover or Tiddles does his or her poop business, the owner can pick it up and put it into one of the specially marked bins on Petah Tikva’s streets. If they do that, they will be instantly eligible for doggie prizes such as pet foot coupons and dog toys! Sounds like a game show doesn’t it? “Congratulations! You and Fido have won the Poop Show! Let’s see what you have won tonight….oooh, a juicy bone!”
If on the other hand, your dog does their business and you decide to leave it on the street, then the Israeli Poop Mossad will come kicking in your door in the middle of the night and issue you with a hefty fine. No coupons or toys for you! Twinkles won’t be able to lower her bottom onto that piece of grass ever again! Oh the disgrace!
This unique Israeli project serves to remind you of one thing. Whenever you think your job sucks, remember that somewhere in Petah Tikva, someone is opening bags of dog poop and comparing them to DNA in a database to find out which dog it belongs to!
Suddenly your job doesn’t feel so bad does it?
by Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
This morning I received an email from Amazon informing me that there are now over 170,000 books, magazines, and newspapers available for the Kindle. Still, a quick search informed me that of the three books that I ordered from Amazon last week, not one was available in Kindle form. I’m a firm believer in the power of the long tail, and anything that can only provide me with bestsellers doesn’t really do it for me. If I want a book I could find in a bookstore, I’d go to a bookstore. I like bookstores.
Still, I realize that for most people the joy of an ebook reader has more to do with convenience and a streamlined lifestyle than selection. If the average-sized book was too big to fit in my purse, I’d be inclined to agree. But for those of us that have large collections of books, aren’t we generally happy having them filling our bookshelves at home? It’s not as if we have to carry them all around with us all the time.
… or do we? Remember those days when your bag was bursting at the seams with textbooks? Lugging around a backpack that weighed a million pounds as you crossed campus for another class? And even better, shelling out hundreds and hundreds of dollars for textbooks at the beginning of a college semester? In fact, textbook prices just keep getting higher and higher, a problem compounded by the fact that publishers are constantly releasing “updated” volumes that destroy the used book market.
Textbook piracy is becoming a huge issue, which isn’t an unsuprising consequence of the rising costs. It also shows that students apparently don’t mind having their textbooks in electronic form. So imagine this: all of your textbooks on an e-book reader. Presumably a way to save your back and your budget. Or I thought so before doing a quick Amazon search and realizing that the typical $9.99 Kindle book price definitely does not apply to the small selection of textbooks that they do have. If you could even manage to find the one you needed, you’d still be shelling out $100 for a Kindle version of that Calculus textbook.
Apparently Amazon wants to get into the textbook business, considering the huge promotion that they had in August, giving away three months free of Amazon Prime to customers who purchased over $100 worth of textbooks. Offering cheaper, e-book versions would probably boost their Kindle sales as well.
Not that the textbook publishers would ever go for this idea, since I’m sure they’re enjoying the money that pours in every August and January. But if piracy gets to be an even bigger problem for them, they’re going to have to do something.
[Image Source: Flickr]
Microsoft has launched its “I’m a PC” ad campaign last night, and compared to what they have done with their “Seinfeld and Gates” commercials, this ad really drives a point home. It seems that PC users are not at all like what Apple would like people to believe, and some of them can even be pretty darn sexy too!