Imagine -- the size of the file.

"UC Irvine historian Jon Wiener has been suing the government under the Freedom of Information Act since 1983 for complete access to the voluminous John Lennon FBI files. J. Edgar Hoover began surveillance of the ex-Beatle in 1971 when Lennon's protests of the Vietnam War made him a deportation target of President Nixon."

Link to LAObserved.

iPod does"hubba hubba" and "va-va-va-voom"?

Maybe Cardinal Keene of Baltimore was right after all because Playboy is now offering Bodcasts for the iPod (Link via Gizmodo).

Yeah Baby! ;-)

Learning the iPod

Apple has create a site here for first time buyers of the iPod and for those who are thinking about it. It's a pretty good primer for those who are interested.

I have many friends who've bought iPod's and subsequently asked me for advice (being the early adopter that I am :-) this is where I'm sending them now :-)

Bad Karma - over free WiFi

"Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.

According to the officials, the head of BellSouth's Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force."

Link via Xeni and Clay.

Now, if Bell South is having a hissy fit over a New Orleans Muni WiFi deal wait till the get a load of this. (via Om Malik)

TV becoming video

No shit Sherlock... Have you watched TV lately? I haven't. For the past year I've been using a PVR to record my desired programs (mostly CBC and PBS) and then watch them when I have time.

As Max Von Sydow's character says in Woody Allen's classic film "Hanah and Her Sisters":

"If Jesus ever came back, and saw what was on the TV, he'd never stop throwing up".

Link via Lost Remote.

Tim Horton's S-1 Breakaway!

Fun facts from the S-1 filing to take the company public
(quick calculation by PaulK):

"the company serves up around 563,396,800 doughnuts per year in Canada, which is roughly 35,000 tons, or around one 1970s vintage supertanker worth of glazed Timbits."

"Toujour Frais" indeed!

Link to Paul Kerodsky.

Killer Squirrels

"A pack of squirrels at a park in the Lazo village of Russia's Maritime Territory reportedly ganged up on a stray dog that was barking up at them in the trees. Witnesses say the squirrels jumped down, attacked the dog, and killed it."

I wonder if Rocky finally defected to the dark side and created an army of his own. Scary!

"Slurp, slurp, slurp.... nothin'"

Find out why Yukon Cornelius licks his axe! Via BoingBoing... and on a totally unrelated note, is Hermy gay? plus 15 other questions, Via MeFi.

Where Jesus shops?

"This is the day that the Lord has made! We shall rejoice and be glad in the new Wal-Mart that the Lord has made."
-Lester Packingham
Wal-Mart General Manager


Walmart is fighting back hard on all the truth and bad vibes being generated by Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices. The tactic of promoting a spiritual tie to shopping at Walmart has Michael Deaver's name written all over it. He was Ronald Regan's press advisor and is now working for Walmart, as noted in a NY Times article about Walmart's "war room" -- reprinted here.

Hallelujah for Low Prices!

UPDATE: Link to a PBS Newshour piece.

Rubber-necking

Slowing traffic by setting up living rooms in the street...

Link via BoingBoing.

"Tonights First Star -- Le Premier Etoile"

Ladies and Gentlemen -- the Zamboni Hot Tub.
(available for rental from a London, Ontario firm)

Link via Engadget.

Mike Wallace on Tom Cruise's ass...

Go Mike! :-)

Link to Lost Remote.

SONY knew about DRM rootkit infections

A quick follow-up on this earlier post about SONY-BMG CD rootkits infecting users PC's:

Turns out SONY knew well in advance of the realease of their DRM enabled audio CD's (from 52 artists) that they would infect their customers personal computers. Via CoryD at BoingBoing and SlashDot.

I'm telling my friends to boycot SONY music -- not becasue what SONY did was stupid -- but becasue they've demonstrated that buying SONY Music products can be DANGEROUS TO THE HEALTH OF YOUR COMPUTER.

Now, if you bought one of these CD's and are in the mood to sue SONY you'd better hurry, the line is getting pretty long (so far; the Electronic Frontier Foundation, State of California, State of Texas have all launched class action suits... and State AG Elliot Spitzer of NY is taking a hard look right now).

Prof Michael Geist (University of Toronto) chimes in here with a great update.

Alpha Couch Potato

Enlarged Photo

"Man beams down 5000 channels from 12 satellite dishes on front porch!"

Al Jessup from Beckley, has more than 5000 TV & radio channels from the 12 dishes on his front porch.
... and I thought I had media consumption issues.

Link to article (via DIGG).

Sin City

According to Wired a leading Catholic cardinal is warning Catholic parents to be careful when buying iPods and other wireless devices as Christmas gifts because they could be used by minors to access pornography. Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore says iPods, PDAs and video cell phones can easily send and receive pornography, much of it unsolicited.

Guess he doesn't know that some folks in the Catholic Church are podcasting or that a quick search on term "Catholic" on Apple's iTunes Podcast Directory returns 88 results.

Amen to that!

Playboy Centerfolds Galore?

This makes stuffing them between the mattresses a lot easier...

"The first in a ongoing series begun in 1997, this photograph is the result of digitally averaging every Playboy centerfold foldout for the 10 years beginning Jan. 1988 through Dec. 1997. The shroud-like image is yielded by a simple, custom process: point-by-point mathematical averaging."

Link via MeFi.

Mount Aetna eruption

... from space.

Link to NASA's full resolution image page.

The Yoda of comedy

From his upcoming HBO special... text and audio available here.

Got Torture?

God bless Helen Thomas.

Link to a transcript of her exchange with White House press secretary Scott McLellan on the topic.

More on the subject via MetaFilter.

Pixar's Performance

Now that Eisner's toast there's been lots of talk of Disney buying Pixar for around 5 billion. I think the price may be going up:

"Steve Jobs is a money machine. His other company, Pixar, reported profits of $27.4 million on revenues of $45.8 million for the last three months -- double Wall Street estimates, according to Reuters."

Steve Job's: sandbagger extroirdinaire :-)

Link to Wired.