Technobabble

Step Away From MySpace, Private!
I’ve always thought it strange that our government will trust an 18-year-old young adult with deployment to a foreign country equipped with an automatic weapon, but not with a can of beer or a glass of wine. Seems now there is something else U.S. soldiers can’t be trusted with: the Web.

The Pentagon is revoking soldiers’ access to 13 Web sites, including MySpace, YouTube and MTV, on the Department of Defense computers. Former U.S. soldier Colby Buzzell, recent winner of the $10,000 Blooker Prize, the Internet blog equivalent of the Booker Prize, said, “I think it’s going to totally destroy their morale—you have soldiers out there for their second, third, even fourth time,” he told BBC News. “One of the few luxuries you have over there is the Internet cafés—it gives you a sense of normalcy to go on Web sites and follow the news, be in touch with family and friends.”

The Department of Defense claims it is a bandwidth issue. Believe that and I’ll tell you about some WMDs and Yellow Cake. Way to support our troops.

DWT
California, Connecticut, DC, New Jersey and New York have now passed legislation that limits cell phone use while driving. But one state is taking it a couple of clicks further. The state of Washington is banning text messaging or SMS use while driving, as well. Motorists are looking at a $101 fine for texting, reading a text message or talking on a phone without a hands-free device. The text ban goes into effect Jan. 1 while the cell phone ban begins July 2008.

Advertisements, make some noise!
Why let your eyes hog all the fun produced from over-worked Madison Avenue ad execs who have supersaturated our visual world with commercials? Your ears have more to ingest outside of audible advertisements during television viewing, radio listening and those ads they play before your $11 multiplex cinema experience. Now it seems bus stop signs and subway print advertising wants to tickle those three tiny bones in your ear also. Coke has made a World Cup Futbol (soccer) poster that shouts, “Goooaaaal!” every couple of seconds at bus stops in Stockholm, Sweden. Pepsi has taken a more civilized route (and more high-tech) with a stark, nearly empty blue sign containing two small Pepsi images and less than 20 small-print words and an eighth-inch audio jack in the dead center of the poster (eighth-inch jack is the size that your MP3 player’s headphones would fit into). Pretty smart as many subway riders have these headphones to listen to their MP3 players.

Don’t Hasselhoff Me!
For those who say I am too serious or only reporting the gloom, I give you this cute little bunny and Germany’s No. 1 idol (remember, like Solitaire, only during nonwork hours):
www.waxhoff.com www.10mg.nl