2.6.06 | Fantastic joke!
A woman brought a very limp duck in to a veterinary surgeon. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest.
After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said,
"I'm so sorry, your duck has passed away."
The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," he replied.
"How can you be so sure," she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."
The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room, and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table, and sniffed the duck from top to bottom.
He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.
The vet patted the dog and took it out, and returned a few moments later with a cat. The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly, and strolled out of the room.
The vet looked at the woman and said,
"I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100 percent certifiably, a dead duck."
Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "£150?" she cried, "£150 just to tell me my duck is dead?!"
The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been £20, but with the Lab report and the Cat scan, it's now £150."
| Ooouch!
31.5.06 | AllofMP3 is illegal, says music industry - NO SHIT!
So it seems that the lawyers have their sights set on the super cheap music site once again.
The site is run by a company called MediaServices and according to them, everything is licensed by the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS) and the Rightholders Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively (FAIR). MediaServices says that it pays licence fees "subject to the Law of the Russian Federation". It adds that it is not responsible for the actions of foreign users.
It has been suggested that the service falls through a loophole in Russian law; that public performances of recorded music do not require the authority of copyright holders; that the website pays ROMS and ROMS pays the artists; and that AllofMP3 operates within a grey area of the law.
Legal action has begun. There are two separate criminal proceedings ongoing in Russia. The public prosecutor in Moscow is taking a former director of MediaServices to trial. And a second case against a current director of MediaServices is in the investigation phase.
British consumers who buy music from an unlicensed site are infringing copyright. In theory, they could be sued by the music industry. However, the industry's legal action to date has targeted only those who upload music for others to access, using peer-to-peer services like Kazaa
Quite what that means to the longevity of the site remains to be seen, but something as good as allofmp3.com can't last forever. Can it?
30.5.06 | 25 Worst tech products of ALL time
As much as I hate PCWorld, they have put together an amusing list of the worst tech products of all time.
Whilst some are bad implementations of bad technology, some are just BAD. The overall winner in my opinion is truly justified as well as I.E. 6 at number 8.
You can check out the article here definitely some beauties in there!