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)

Weblog Ethics

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Rebecca Blood has an excerpt from her book The Weblog Handbook posted dealing with weblog ethics that’s well worth looking at. I do my best to abide by these rules — to me, most of them are pure common sense — but it’s not a bad idea to occasionally refresh the concept in your mind.

  1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
  2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
  3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
  4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
  5. Disclose any conflict of interest.
  6. Note questionable and biased sources.

Canon EOS Digital Rebel

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Canon EOS Digital Rebel

Now that my new computer is on the way (two weeks to go, at most…), I’ve started fixating on a new item for my techno-lust: the Canon EOS Digital Rebel.

I’ve had an interest in photography for many years now. I remember playing with my dad’s old SLR camera when I was younger — unfortunately, it didn’t work anymore, but I had fun fiddling around with it. I took one quarter of photography in high school. Not so much that I really remember much of anything, but enough to cement it as a definite interest. However, it’s been a fairly low-level interest for many years.

Just before I left Anchorage I picked up a nice little Kodak digital camera (the DX3500) which has served me well over the past few years. I’ve even managed to come up with a few shots that I really like from time to time (my favorite so far being one of Post Alley here in Seattle). The more I play with it, though, the more I wish I had a more full-featured camera, and the Canon EOS looks to be a really good value.

It’s essentially a full-featured SLR digital camera. 6.1 Megapixel resolution (roughly three times the resolution of my current camera), through-the-lens viewfinder, the ability to accept all of Canon’s EF series lenses and Speedlite flashes, and all sorts of other goodies. It even got rated ‘Highly Recommended’ by DPReview.

The downside, of course, is that I won’t be able to afford it anytime soon. While the \$999 price is extremely good for everything you get with the camera, it’s definitely out of my price range anytime in the near future (especially if I ever want to get myself out of debt). Ah, well — such is the way of life, right? At the very least, it’s a goal for the future.

Of course, if anyone out there is feeling generous at all, you’re welcome to help me out here! ;)

PayPal donations are accepted, if you go shopping at Amazon through this link I’ll get a miniscule percentage of whatever you spend, and, of course, Christmas is only a few short months away. Okay, sure, I’m shameless. But as I’m not expecting anyone to actually chip in, I can’t exactly be disappointed, now can I?

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?