Free Credit Reports for the US

Residents of the United States can now get one free credit report per year so they can see for themselves why they got rejected for that American Express Gold credit card with no limit.

Greatest Canadian Ever

The greatest Canadian ever according to voting on the CBC is Tommy Douglas. Who is he? well the a former Saskatchewan premier and founding father of Canada's health care system. He beat out other notable Canadians such as Terry Fox, Alexander Graham Bell, Wayne Gretzky and Don Cherry. Yes, that's two hockey related Canadians in the top 10. (the other 90)

Why Do People Want To Bid On?

Google has a zeigeist which lets people see what the most popular searches and other miscellaneous data about Google searches. Now eBay has somewhat the same thing with eBay Pulse. You can see what the most popular watched items and searched items are. Might be useful.

A Math Genius

What's the most complex math calculation that you can do in your head in oh, 11.8 seconds? How about finding the 13^th root of a 100 digit number? Fortunately for the human race, there is one 38 year old who can find the 13^th root of a 100 digit number in 11.8 seconds. Guess you'll see that in the Guiness World Book of Records. Actually, you won't -- read the article to see why.

iTunes Tracks With CD Labels?

One of the problems with digital music is that you lose all the album art and CD covers you would normally get if you buy the physical version. Well there has been a suggestion that Apple should include PDF copies of the album art with each download so rabid fans can have the best of both worlds. I think this would be an adequate solution, if you do as well then sign this petition to include PDF booklets for purchased albums on iTunes.

HP Device Automagically Blurs Face In Pictures

HP has developed a device that automagically blurs your face in pictures, which if you were a celebrity would be great for anonymity. Unfortunately once you read the article, you realize that the magic is that the device sends out a infrared signal to cameras that support the feature, and then the cameras will blur out your face. So basically, this won't work unless 1) all cameras support this functionality or 2) the camera is close enough to receive the signal. I don't think this will work.

Newspapers are Going the Way of the Dinosaur

Shockingly, it has been reported that young people are no longer reading newspapers but are getting their information online. I haven't actively seeked out a paper in probably 5+ years and I don't think I will be looking for them in the future either.

Google Not Saying If They Are Poaching Microsoft Employees

Google has opened a new office very close to Microsoft's campus in Washington. Most people have reached the conclusion that they're doing this to hire away Microsoft's talent, and from this interview with the Vice President of Engineering at Google it seems that he's basically admitting that that's what he wants to do by side stepping the obvious questions.

More iPod Accessories

Since the iPod is the hip thing to have, there tends to be lots of interesting accessories for it. Here's today's accessory, a felt slip case for your iPod. They have an interesting array and mix of colours but I think $20 a pop is too much. I mean, iPod socks are $29 for 5!

2 Rules For Blogging

For those that are starting to blog and don't really know what to blog, these two rules for blogging are a great start. It takes a while to get your style, but you have to continue blogging before you get your style.

Too good for their own... good?

I'm anti-google... so booya, sue them!

Nude Photo Publisher Perfect 10 Sues Google

Fix for a Dying iPod Battery

If your old-gen iPod battery is dying and you want to save some money before replacing it, you might want to try this little strategy for prolonging your iPod's battery life. It's nothing too high tech, just a means to defrag your iPod's hard drive without actually running a defrag problem.

Tokyo Underground

These pictures of underground Tokyo look like they're out of Lord Of The Rings, but infact they are real and not CG. These huge tunnels have been a long term project to drain water from Tokyo in case it gets flooded. You can almost fit the Pacific Ocean in there, it's amazing.

Will Knork Succeed Where Spork Failed?

The Spork didn't do so well although it is a great concept right? Why didn't it take off? Anyways, I think the Knork is even more useful because I don't need a spoon that often, by knives are pretty useful. I wonder how the engineered it so you won't cut yourself? Hrmm

RSS Ads

RSS ads are inevitable you would think since we have so much advertising on the web anyways. That said, it seems that RSS advertising is a relatively simple concept.

An Introduction To Encryption

If you don't know anything about encryption but want to learn? This is a great starter guide to encryption as it explains about different types and all that jazz.

What Does This Song Mean?

FINALLY, I've been waiting for a site like this forever. Song Meanings is a site where people can submit what they think song lyrics mean. The only thing that I would want from this site if they can track down the artists and find out what they really meant when they were writing the songs.

Ever Had a Car That Fell Into The Water?

If your car falls into a lake or an ocean or something near the shore, then you would probably want to fish it back out right? Well when you do just heed the advice of this series of pictures when you lift your car out of the water, otherwise you might be in more trouble than you bargined for.

Pieces of Minority Report to be Reality

One of the most talked about parts of Minority Report were the auto driving, auto navigating cars. Well that particular piece of technology isn't that far off the horizon, as EE Times posits that the building blocks of autonomous cars are falling into place. I can't wait to test drive one of those.

The Richest Man in the World has the Largest Spam Box

Trivia Question: who gets the most spam in the world? Bill Gates. Apparently he gets 10 million messages PER DAY, but fortunately for him he has (almost) an entire department at Microsoft devoted to filtering spam. Let's see baysian filtering beat that.

Why Do Americans Tip?

I came across an old article in The Economist about tipping. Interestingly, americans are the best tippers in the world but 40% of them hate tipping. It also raises some interesting questions as to why we tip for basic things like going to a restaurant but we never tip our doctor. Which is more important?

A Pillow for Lone Rangers

For those lone rangers who have I guess lots of money to spend, you can get a fancy pillow that is in the shape of a woman's lap. You know, in case you want to sleep on one and never get the chance? I don't know. Apparently from the review, the quality is pretty good but what happens when you take the skirt off?

Anime OS Girls?

I'm not quite sure what OS-tan is but I think it's a show in Japan with girls that are based on operating systems (like Windows and Linux)? Each girl has their own characteristics that are suited to the OS they follow after. At least that's what I get out of this page. What will those crazy Japanese people think up next? (don't answer that!)

The New Place To Hook Up

So where's the best place to pick up in New York? Well if you listen to the New York Post, it's the Apple Store in SoHo. Apparently, the Apple Store is a singles hotspot because 1) it's near 4 model agencies and 2) the people there are up-to-date and sober.

Red Light Stops Speeders

Here's an awesome idea to stop speeders, if you see a speeder coming along a road turn the traffic light ahead of them red. Apparently the trick around this is to drive fast enough that you get into the intersection before the light is red! Yes, that'll promote safety.

Interview With FedEx Logo Creator

Did you know that the FedEx logo has an easter egg in it? I didn't see or notice it until I read it either. You can find what it is in this interview with the creator of FedEx's logo. He also goes on to explain some of the design decisions that led to certain things such as the colour of the logo.

Goodbye Justin Frankel

Slate has an article lamenting the disbanding of the key members from Nullsoft, at least that's what I thought the article would be about. It turns out it spends most of its time recounting Justin Frankel's career at AOL. The only problem with that is he left quite a while ago so it's not really "news".

Story Of NeXT+OS9 = OS X

You may remember that Steve Jobs was ultimately ousted from Apple in the 90s, but returned to lead Apple to its current glory. Well one of the stepping stones was when when Apple bought NeXT and it became part of OS X; another reason that Apple has more credibility now.

Terrorist To Strike TTC?

Possibly pure speculation and paranoia, but CSIS is monitoring the TTC in case there will be a terrorist incident. It's interesting how they identified the person that was filming the Yonge/Bloor station; he must have had a record somewhere.

An Only Child Is...?

I think the writer has too much of a fascination with children who have no siblings as he continues to write paragraphs upon paragraphs about the nature of an only child. Basically the conclusion is that an only child is queer in some way or another.

The Real Story Of Audion

You've most likely never heard of Audion and you probably never will. There are two things working against it, 1) It's for Mac and 2) It's retired. Anyways, the people behind Audion re-told the story of Audion to the masses and while it's not particular interesting if you've never used it; it was cool to hear about what happened when Apple entered the market with iTunes and basically ran over Audion.

Speed Signs In France

This blog has a picture of a speed sign in France which is actually quite interesting because it shows two different speeds; one for clear weather and one for rain. The author goes on to joke about what the same sort of sign would be in Seattle which I found somewhat entertaining as well.

Find A Job By Blogging

The Globe & Mail has a feature piece from Workopolis about a high profile Toronto blogger that got a job with Tucows through his blog. The main advantage of having a blog they said is that they could read up on you and see what you are like etc. I doubt that most companies would want to do this unless you are doing a job that requires blogging skills, since I'm sure they can find lots of more candidates or spend their time doing more productive things.

I'm not holding out waiting for a job offer from this blog!

Downloading Every Song Made

An attorney by day, this man has a job, hobby, mission, or quest to download a copy of every piece of music as an mp3. It seems hard to believe, and would probably take his lifetime but he has like 8 Macs dedicated to this task already, so he seems serious.

Don't Work For EA

This testimonial from the spouse of an EA engineer makes working at EA seem like working in a sweat shop. In fact, it's actually worse because people who are working in a sweat shop expect it. Anyways, I've had friends who worked at EA and this seems to be more or less true.

Delicious Library

Ars Technica reviews Delicious Library, and not only delves into the program but into how the overall quality and look of Apple apps are much better than Windows and Linux ones.

A Very Serious Eminem

Eminem's recent interview with Rolling Stone spends most of the time talking about parenthood issues rather than his new album Encore. It's definitely another side of Eminem and show's that he is not as superficial as all the other rappers out there.

Elite Designers Against Ikea

ELITE DESIGNERS AGAINST IKEA are well, against Ikea. I think we should start a CHEAP PEOPLE AGAINST ELITE DESIGNERS AGAINST IKEA, but I don't think I could put in as much effort as this guy.

Do Coffee Wifi Spots Make Money?

You've noticed that more and more coffee shops are offering wireless access, and more and more people are bringing their laptops in. The question is whether this actually does increase sales and revenue or if people just use up your tables all the time, well Google Answers tackles whether coffee wifi spots make money for ya.

First Look at Nintento DS

IGN sucks, but unfortunately they are a power in the game review space so you must live with their crappy ad filled site whenever you want to read one of their features. Well today, they have a hands-on with the Nintendo DS with lots of pictures. I want one now, but I don't think I should buy anymore gadgets.

Google Has A Lot Of Bandwidth

Google has a ton of bandwidth since they offer so many services, but now it's hosting the start page for Firefox. Interesting, if I were a speculator then I would infer that Google and Mozilla.org are working together towards building something that would be beneficial to both Google and Mozilla like a Google Browser. But then again, I don't believe the rumors ;)

Oh Those Crazy Americans

So we now know that 20% of Americans consider moral issues to be the most important agenda for the President. So how do you uphold your morality if you are a pharmacist? well you don't fulfill prescriptions for birth control of course. Cuz you know, you're preserving life.

Desktop Sidebar

One of the previewed innovations in Microsoft's next generation OS Longhorn, was the addition of a sidebar that took up 15% of your screen. Well, now you can try out the same sort of "functionality" with desktop sidebar. I'm sure some people will find it useful, but I'd rather not waste the desktop space.

Interested In The History of Warcraft?

If you're interested in the history of Warcraft, from the big bang to present, then you should read the history of the Warcraft Universe on the World Of Warcraft page.

The Incredible Hype

The hype for the second last Disney/Pixar movie, The Incredibles is starting to pick up. This Slate article thinks that The Incredibles is a seemingly live-action superhero movie done in animation. Really? well I'm going to watch it anyways.

Bit Torrent accounts for 35% of Internet Traffic

Could ya believe it? I know BT is very popular now, but I wouldn't say that torrents accounts for over a third of Internet traffic. I would think downloading from bit torrent uses the same amount of traffic as downloading from a single server, it's just decentralized. Maybe it's all the acknowledgement packets.

10 Technological Things That China Does Better

You can write all you want about things that China does better than North America technologically, but at the end of the day, it's because China is just starting to build up its infrastructure and facilities so they are able to use the latest technologies. It wouldn't make sense for North America to tear down all their buildings and build them again with the latest and the greatest.

Pay What You Want Restaurant

A novel idea for restauranteurs is this restaurant where you pay what you think a meal should be worth. I can see it being great for the consumer where you pay like a few pennies, but the restaurant has an interesting policy against such patrons, they give them their money back. So you either pay ~20 pounds per head, or it's free.

Unmarkable and Unscratchable CDs

Cool, this is what I'm waiting for, TDK has a new technology for CDs which make them resistant to scratches as well as marker ink. I guess there will be no more discounts on scratched CDs in the future.

World's First Coloured Coin

Wow, being away from Canada you really miss the whole concept of coloured money. Coins aren't really a problem as they were all different sizes. But being the progressive nation that we are, Canada has introducted coloured coins! I wish I was in Canada to pick some up.

The Seeds of Change In The Music Industry

The Economist (i.e. a respected publication) has an article on how the internet is changing the music industry; not just from a p2p piracy view but also in terms of legal distribution and the rise of independents. It's nice to see a balanced article that doesn't delve too much into the iTunes phenomenon or the effects of piracy.