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Corporate Knights :: Canada’s Most Sustainable Cities Ranking

Calgary came in last in the large city category. Boo! C’mon people!

The full article (PDF) is a good read.

Silly Rabbit! Jews are for kids.

Makes your Linux or Mac OS X system run super fast. Actually no, don’t do it!

Now I’m kind of curious if Edmonton had a good turnout for their Anonymous vs. Scientology thing. Had I been there I would watched on the sidelines.

The are few things worse than Scientology but these protesters are certainly up there. If you’re using a shitty Hollywood adaptation of a good comic book as your inspiration to protest then you make the Scientologists look good.

Yes, I know about Lisa McPherson. Yes, I know about Xenu and OT III and the whole bit. I say let the Scientologists be douchebags in peace. Besides, Tom Cruise is doing more to make them less credible than any Guy Fawkes mask wearing dummy can ever do.

How to make a baby stop crying: the non-violent method.

Bottom Line for (Red) - New York Times

In its March 2007 issue, Advertising Age magazine reported that Red companies had collectively spent as much as $100 million in advertising and raised only $18 million. Officials of the campaign said then that the companies had spent $50 million on advertising and that the amount raised was $25 million. Advertising Age stood by its article.

But the iPods were cool.

Auto-Tune Abuse in Pop Music - 10 Examples - Hometracked

If you’re unfamiliar with Auto-tune, and especially if you listen to much pop and rock, you might not hear it initially. When overdone, the effect yields an unnatural yodel or warble in a singer’s voice. But the sound is so commonplace in modern mainstream music that your ears may have tuned out the auto-tune!

YMO - Rydeen

YMO - Taiso

Make3D — convert your image into 3d

Make3D converts your single picture into a 3-D model. It takes a two-dimensional image and creates a three-dimensional “fly around” model, giving the viewers access to the scene’s depth and a range of points of view.

It uses powerful machine learning techniques to learn the relation between small image patches and their depth and orientation. This allows it to model 3-d structures such as slopes of mountains or branches of trees.

The eggheads at Stanford have created software that will take your 2D image and create a 3D model. Pretty neat if you ask me. If you sign up you can upload your own images and see it in action. I was going create a 3D model of my giant head but I’m sure they wouldn’t be too happy with it.

Microsoft Offers $44.6B for Yahoo: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.’s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets.

The surprise offer of $31 per share, made late Thursday and announced Friday, comes with Sunnyvale-based Yahoo in a vulnerable position.

In a statement Friday, Yahoo said it will “carefully and promptly” study Microsoft’s bid.

With its profits steadily sliding, Yahoo’s stock slipped to a four-year low earlier this week and a new management team has been trying to steer a turnaround but sees more turbulence through 2008.

Who knows if this will pan out or not but if it does I hope the Yahoo Technologies I use like YUI and Flickr are safe.

China ‘will stop the rain’ for Olympics | Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania

CHINESE weather boffins say they have stopped the rain from falling in experiments aimed at guaranteeing a dry opening ceremony at August’s Olympic Games.

With no roof on the showpiece Bird’s Nest stadium, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau has been charged with developing methods of preventing wet weather spoiling what promises to be a spectacular start to the Games on the evening of August 8.

“Our experiments with rain mitigation have been aimed at light rain,” said Zhang Qian, head of weather manipulation at the bureau.

The answer is of course China but I would have guessed John Fogerty. Read the article for more info.

Articles: How to Spot Arial

There is a difference between Helvetica and Arial. Take the test.

CTV.ca | Trustees approve Afrocentric school for Toronto

Trustees with the Toronto District School Board have voted to approve an “operational model” for an Afrocentric school, a controversial plan to help struggling black students in the city’s education system.

“The strategies developed by our staff following consultation with our communities, will hopefully more effectively address the needs of youth who have historically struggled in TDSB schools,” John Campbell, chair of the board, said in a press release late Tuesday night.

Didn’t we deal with segregation in schools like, I don’t know, over 40 years ago?

AfriGadget » Blog Archive » The BodaPhone in Uganda
Seriously cool portable payphone from Uganda.

Follow Ezra Levant’s ongoing dispute with the Alberta Human Rights Commission at his blog. He got into some trouble after a complaint was filed after his magazine “The Western Standard” published the infamous Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed a few years ago. You know the ones - the ones that cause a whole mess of riots throughout the Middle East.

Interestingly, his ordeal seems to gather support from both sides of the political spectrum despite the fact that under any other circumstance those on the Left would find him hard to stomach. However, keep in mind that freedom of speech does encompass the freedom to be a douche. That being said, draw your own conclusions. Here’s his opening statement.

Slings a web any size, catches thieves just like flies, there goes the dummy in a Spiderman costume at a kids party who falls on his ass while trying to flip off a wall.

::: the future of ideas :::

Lawrence Lessig is offering his book “The Future of Ideas” as a free download. I should have waited a year as I bought it off Amazon.

While you’re at it, have a listen to his lecture on corruption.

It’s also available on iTunes as a podcast if you want to listen to it on the go. Good stuff.

Balloon for each Kassam on UN doorstep | Jerusalem Post

As the United Nations Security Council debated a response to the situation in the Gaza Strip and Sderot, Israel’s New York Consulate held a protest in front of UN headquarters on Thursday, in which they placed 4,200 red balloons on the UN’s doorstep. The number of balloons signified the 4,200 Kassam rockets fired into Israel from Gaza since the 2005 disengagement from the Strip.

The display was meant to raise world awareness to the fact that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip are part of an effort to end the rocket attacks, the consulate said in a statement.

I doubt that it’s nearly as catchy as “99 Luft Balloons” by Nena.

500 XL Super Duper Big Earbud Speakers

Sometimes bigger IS really better, especially when it comes to sound. That’s why we took a puny pair of earbuds, put them in Fred’s highly technical Way Big machine, and created 500XL - it’s 500 times the size of the original! How great will these look on your desktop alongside your mp3 player or PC? 500XL includes a built-in amp and 3-way power - it runs on batteries; you can connect it to your PC’s USB port with the supplied cord; or plug it into the wall with a generic power supply (not included). The stand-up, peggable clamshell packaging really makes a statement.

OK, seriously. Someone please get me these.