Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

French 'Engrish'

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One of the ladies here at work just came back from a week in Paris, and she brought back an inflatable Eiffel Tower for us. The greatest part, of course, is the instruction sheet — apparently, ‘Engrish‘ is multilingual…

WARNING
HELLO, I AM YOUR NEW INFLATABLE FRIEND
FROM ALEXIS LAHELLEC.
IF YOU WANT ME TO STAY WITH YOU FOREVER,
PLEAST TREAT ME RIGHT.
DON’T POKE ME WITH SHARP THINGS,
AND ALTHOUGH I KNOW YOU LOVE ME
DON’T OVER BLOW ME.
DON’T EVEN THINK OF PUTTING ME ON OR NEAR HOT STAFF,
AND I DO NOT LIKE STRONG MACHO ELECTRIC PUMP EITHER.

Gay couple kept out of US

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From the New York Times: Married Gay Canadian Couple Barred From U.S.

A married gay couple on their way from Canada to a human rights conference in Georgia were not allowed to enter the United States today because the two men insisted on filling out a single Customs clearance form declaring themselves a family.

Mr. Bourassa said he and his partner, Joe Varnell, first approached the United States immigration desk at Pearson Airport in Toronto and an officer stamped their forms. But when they went to a Customs agent for final clearance, the agent would not accept a joint declaration.

“He said same-sex marriage is not recognized by the United States of America and we would have to enter the country as single individuals,” Mr. Bourassa said. A supervisor agreed when Mr. Bourassa objected.

(via Tina)

Driving sounds better all the time

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In the midst of MeFi’s JetBlue discussion comes some more fun privacy information. This time, it’s about .

: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59652,00.html “Videocams Record Airline Flights”

Southeast Airlines said it plans to install digital video cameras throughout the cabins of its planes to record the faces and activities of its passengers at all times, as a precaution against terrorism and other safety threats. In addition, the charter airline, based in Largo, Florida, will store the digitized video for up to 10 years. And it may use face recognition software to match faces to names and personal records, the airline said.

(via thomcatspike)

Ogni homo me guarda come fosse una testa de cazi

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(I don’t normally re-post entire articles, but this one was too good to pass up, and it only seemed to be on Yahoo! News, which deletes its pages after a week or two. Enjoy.)

Bawdy Phallic Plate Heads for Oxford

The maiolica plate

LONDON (Reuters) – A leading British museum has paid \$387,000 for a Renaissance plate which shows a male head made up entirely of phalluses.

The Italian plate is thought to have been made by ceramicist Francesco Urbini in the 16th century.

It shows a head made up of around 50 fleshy penises, wrapped round each other to form a dense, knotted whole.

The head is framed by a garland carrying the inscription: “Ogni homo me guarda come fosse una testa de cazi” (Every man looks at me as if I were a dickhead).

The phrase is still a common term of abuse in Italy and elsewhere.

Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, which has bought the plate, describes it as “one of the most extraordinary and fascinating pieces of Italian maiolica (a style of ceramic painting) in existence.”

It is a rare example of bawdy Renaissance art which survived the suppression of later, more prudish, generations, it said.

The Ashmolean said the inspiration for the plate remains obscure but it was painted “presumably with an individual in mind.”

(via Dad)

More info on JetBlue

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Wired has released more info on JetBlue’s release of 5 million passenger records:

JetBlue Airways confirmed on Thursday that in September 2002, it provided 5 million passenger itineraries to a defense contractor for proof-of-concept testing of a Pentagon project unrelated to airline security — with help from the Transportation Security Administration.

The contractor, Torch Concepts, then augmented that data with Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information, including income level, to develop what looks to be a study of whether passenger-profiling systems such as CAPPS II are feasible.

It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?

Comment spam for Dean?

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Well, this is a shame. It appears that ‘Laura in DC’ has recently started a new pro-Dean weblog (at http://deangrassroots.blogspot.com/ ), and is so excited about it that she feels that spamming weblog comments is the best way to get the word out.

Earlier today, I saw her comment to this BackupBrain post and gave her the benefit of the doubt — maybe she was just being a little pushy. Then, not long ago, I found an identical comment on this Esoterically.net post.

‘Laura in DC’, if you happen to find this — we’re glad you support Dean. We’re glad that you’re excited about him, your weblog, and whatever else in life you might be excited about. But spamming comment threads is just going to piss people off and cause problems for you in the long run. If you’ve got a good site, people will find it. Trust in links and Google, but please — ditch the spam.

Update:

Laura stopped by John P. Hoke’s Asylum too. Damn, now I’m starting to feel left out. ;)

Update:

I just checked back to Laura’s site, and realized that she issued an apology on the 19th — just a case of a “newbie” getting a little over-excited. In the long run, not that big of a deal.

How To…

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Need to know how to…

How To: By You looks like the place to go. Fun little idea someone’s come up with:

Every now and then, a new topic will be posted. It could be anything from ‘How to eat peas.’ to ‘How to build an areoplane.’ No answer is wrong and it’s up to you, the player, to explain how to do it. Eventually a voting system will be implimented and the answer with the most votes will win. Right now, HTBY is in beta testing and there is no such system. Just have fun. Try to keep it on topic and check back for more updates.

(via Anil)

Cauliflower of love

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Things like this really do make the ‘net worthwhile some days. Only NSFW if you (or your employer) take things way too seriously.

sexysusan: Thats ok. Ok I’m a japanese schoolgirl, what are you.

J-Dogg: A Rhinocerus. Well, hung like one, thats for sure.

sexysusan: Haha, ok lets go. sexysusan: I put my hand through your hair, and kiss you on the neck.

J-Dogg: I stomp the ground, and snort, to alert you that you are in my breeding territory.

sexysusan: Haha, ok, you know that turns me on. sexysusan: I start unbuttoning your shirt.

J-Dogg: Rhinoceruses don’t were shirts.

sexysusan: No, your not really a Rhinocerus silly, it’s just part of the game.

J-Dogg: Rhinoceruses don’t play games. They fuking charge your ass.

sexysusan: Stop, c’mon be serious.

J-Dogg: It doesn’t get any more serious than a Rhinocerus about to charge your ass.

(via MeFi)