Belgian girl’s offer to take Net Neutrality fans Virginity (unsurprisingly) a response to Virgin’s Stupidity
   |
You may have read around the web about the Belgian woman, Tania Dervaux, offering to take the virginity of any Net Neutrality supporting guy. What you may not have realised from the (largely American) coverage is that it was a direct response to a story I posted earlier this month, about the Virgin Media CEO calling Net Neutrality “Bollocks”.
You can check out their anti-Virgin Media campaign page, naturally named “Stop Virgin” here, the site everyone else is noticing though is the ahem registration page.
Further research on Miss Dervaux revealed she seems to have done a lot of press stunts before, she runs a fake suicide blog, and allegedly did indeed give out all those blow jobs to fellow Belgians who supported her political party in last year’s elections (though Wikipedia says it was entirely virtual).
Is this girl for real? No of course not, but she’s achieved her cause.
Via: Engadget Switched (plus a bit of research, whodathunkit)
What you need to know: China tricking Africa? (Dvorak)
 |
John C Dvorak has a great blog post about a how a new ‘win-win’ deal the Chinese have done with the Democratic Republic of Congo could cause untold problems for the country. The deal (originally reported by the BBC) is to swap the Congo’s resources (needed by China) for much needed infrastructure. The deal, however, has numerous loopholes, such as the fact that the Chinese don’t have to pay any taxes until they complete the building work, and as Dvorak says “Any bets that they get started on the mining before the 32 hospitals?”
For more, check out the must read article here and the original BBC article and report here, please decide for yourself.
Dvorak will be discussing it on his podcast with Adam Curry ‘No Agenda’ later today, you can download that from here or on iTunes here (both free).
Samuel L. Jackson to star in Virgin Media iPlayer Advertising
|
I’ve been using the BBC’s online iPlayer for some time, and for the first time the on demand player is coming to proper television, via Virgin Media (formerly NTL). The big news, however, is that Samuel L. Jackson, star of Pulp Fiction (and the classic Snakes on a Plane) has been hired for Virgin’s advertising campaign!
This follows other big stars such as Uma Thurman (also of Pulp Fiction) who have taken part in campaigns for the newly rebranded network now headed by ever popular boss Richard Branson.
I look forward to seeing the ads!
Source: Dean’s Blog
For more info visit: DigitalSpy.co.uk
Facebook want to launch an IM service. D-Day for MSN?
 |
According to TechCrunch, Facebook want to launch an instant messaging service, now I know that almost everyone I know is on Facebook, and as such the service has the potential to completely change my online social experience.
According to TechCrunch, the service will be embedded on the Facebook site and available as Jabber chat for programs that support it, like my personal favourite Adium but I happen to know everyone I’ve ever met has used Windows Live Messenger, and as we know that doesn’t support plugging in anything really.
So this could end up being as lame as GTalk (no friends on GMail), MySpace IM (Came too late and was Windows only), or it could be something new, revolutionary, and exciting. It will be interesting to see if people can cope with an instant messenger in the browser (since I doubt many people are going to know how to plug into its jabber capabilities).
We’ll see.
In other news AOL, who just bought social network of-two-years-ago Bebo.com have announced they want to integrate their Instant Messenger AIM into the service. In my opinion it’s a bit late to start invading Europe with your messaging service.
Earthquake: Exciting, Frightening, and OMG WTF!
That is a map I felt compelled to make when I heard about the earth quake that as recently as 2 hours ago completely shook my building and made me feel completely unnerved. I cannot sleep, I just hope it doesn’t happen again.
The map shows locations where the BBC (and my friends) said the earthquake affected. The BBC said it was the biggest earthquake in England for 20 years at 4.7-5 points on the richter scale.
I don’t think I can go to sleep now, that was really shaking. Literally. Enjoy the map.
I don’t want to die: Phone Charger Edition
A man in Ghana who decided to answer a call while his phone was charging was electrocuted and ended up dying before he got to hospital. I don’t know about you but, I don’t want to die, I’ve talked on my phone while it was charging before, never happened to me.
This does prove that power from a wall socket can kill you, if not instantly. But you know, this guy was foreign, we in Britain have that Earth wire thing, the third prong on the plug, so hopefully there’s less chance of us dying in such an event.
modernghana via Gizmodo
Heath Ledger dies, at 28, I didn’t even know him.
Well, while mucking around at 3am for no particular reason, I found out that the actor, who plays the joker in the upcoming ‘THE DARK KNIGHT’ movie just died. The movie (according to IMDB) is in post-production, so hopefully we’ll get to see his last work.
Heath Ledger apparently died due to a drug related incident. I hardly knew his acting, but I’ve seen him playing Chaucer’s main (character) dude in A Knight’s Tale. Which I watched, mainly because it might impress someone who liked Chaucer, it didn’t, I don’t think… Ahem.
Anyway, it’s a sad day I guess. RIP.
Source, regrettably: MSN UK
Wild Speculation II: Gizmodo weighs in…
“Apple Cinema Displays. Long overdued and surpassed by the competition at this point, the Apple Cinema Displays could be renewed in this Macworld. However, with new Mac Pro systems without any aesthetic change, don’t expect a revolutionary change in terms of design. Most probably, it will be an evolution that will match the current professional desktop and in line with the looks of the latest iMac. (emphasis mine)
So it could look like this? This image I found on Apple.com?
It will be cool to see how this plays out, but even if I am right, nobody’s going to care. Darnit.
Original gfxl Post (with 9to5Mac comment)
Leopard’s turning out to have some bugs…
Turns out when you wake a mac from sleep, it’s keyboards attention can go AWOL on you. Best solution is to restart and don’t put your mac to sleep, unless like me you decide to rant to your friends through the on-screen keyboard.
Way to go ruining my life Viacom…
Viacom have launched the most awesome website in human history at TheDailyShow.com, reaching back to 1999 it showcases all the clips available from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart from start to finish. The site is still a bit buggy, and I can’t for the life of me find John Hodgman’s original book interview, but it’s without a doubt the best source for Daily Show videos since the old YouTube.
I’m definitely never going to get any work done.
Now, TheColbertReport.com please?? He’s running for president, I wish him luck…
Tarah.
Spam bites back…
Being a vegetarian, the one thing I definately wanted to avoid while blogging was spam. I switched from my crappy old blogging system, CuteNews to something better and more professional, after realising I had inadvertantly had my blog kicked off Google, because of comment spam being subtly placed on my blog entry on Fake Steve Jobs.
So I set up this new blog without any hassle, enabling comment moderation, just like Fake Steve himself. Little did I know how much of a hassle comment moderation is once the spammers find you. I had wondered why YouTube celebrity, thewinekone’s brand new blog did not enable any commenting. I found out soon enough.
Days ago the flood began, I was getting metric tonnes of comments containing hundreds of links, this clogged my email and if it was to continue I would have been managing comments forever. So I was pleased to find that there are filters available from WordPress, I was tempted to add a CAPTCHA (the funny words you have to type in a box), but I’ve always found them incredibly irritating, so I added a filter.
These filters, (as the site above notes), can be inaccurate sometimes, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have as many comments as the people who are complaining. We will see. Peace out.
Without further ado…
It is my great pleasure to introduce you to the world that is gfxl, from this day forward I hope to bring you the works that have be promised and what you expect from me, I will use gfxl as a showcase for my work, and hopefully some of my friends.
Are you ready?
Because we sure are. 