Category: Weirdness
Bopaboo – selling second-hand MP3s. This has got to be a joke, right?
A site has just launched called Bopaboo. It claims to be a marketplace that allows you to resell unwanted MP3s to other people. There are only two valid conclusions to be had here – either it’s a joke, or it’s been set up by some people who haven’t got the faintest idea about how digital music works.
At the moment it’s still in private beta, but if you can track down an invite code (I found one on Google in less than 30 seconds) then you can try it out. You upload songs, and then others can download them at a price, at which point you get some cash, and the site takes 20%. No word on how much of that 20% goes back to the record labels.
Evening Standard fails in its meagre attempts to understand Twitter
Ah, the Evening Standard, that bastion of dead-tree media. The paper has written an article about Twitter – go read it now, I’ll wait. Back? Okay. There are so many things wrong with the article, but I’ll pick three out for special consideration.
Firstly, the assumption that Twitter is just another social network. It’s not. It’s not about pictures, poking or friends lists. Instead, it’s about microblogging – pushing out short updates that say what’s going on in your life.
Secondly, Nick Curtis says that Twitter messages are limited to 160 characters. He’s wrong. It’s 140. C’mon Nick, the simplest of fact checks would have spotted that one.
Lastly, and relatedly, the utter lack of effort that went into researching the article. Here’s Nick’s Twitter account – @NickCurtis. Looks like he’s made a real effort there.
Cut your neck open on a barbed wire fence all year round, with the Ice Meister SLICER
If you’re young and still flexible enough to find the idea of (a) being outside in the cold and (b) hurtling down a hill really fast sitting on a piece of plastic enjoyable, here’s the answer to your extreme sports prayers – a sled that works just as well on grass as on snow.
The Ice Meister SLICER is a grass-based sled that’ll keep your bottom aching and your knuckles freshly grazed all year round, thanks to its removable sliders that users take out, freeze, then reattach…
Croatian arrested for creating pointless Facebook Group
I bet I can find 1,000 people that get annoyed by pointless invites to Facebook groups. However, I don’t think any of them would advocate chucking the group’s creator in prison. Exactly that has happened in Croatia, however, where a man’s been arrested after creating a group called “I bet I can find 5,000 people that hate the Prime minister”.
The man in question, Niksa Klecak, is the President of a local branch of the youth of SDP – which is the main opposition party in Croatia. They don’t like the governments financial policy, which seems to consist of telling the Croatian population to spend less money. He was arrested, following Godwin’s Law, on the pretext of keeping Nazi symbols and propaganda at home, but when the police couldn’t find any, they tried to link him to child porn instead.
Eventually he was released after a lack of evidence that he’d actually done anything illegal, but social networks and local media outlets all labelled his Facebook group as the reason. There’s now a group on the site called “Break into my place, you Gestapo wannabes. Croatia isn’t a police state!”.
It makes me glad to live in England. Our government wouldn’t randomly arrest members of the opposing political party, just because they’re saying things they don’t like. Oh… wait…
(via Profy)
Related posts: Idiotic juror asks her Facebook friends to vote guilty/not guilty in child kidnapping case | Yoda banned from Facebook
eBay Nutcase of the Week: DJ/The Shamen man Mr C flogging his entire record collection for £75k
DJ Mr C, AKA the bleach-haired proto-Eminem out of early-90s dancey/ravey band The Shamen, is flogging his entire remaining record collection – with a starting price of £75,000.
Here’s what your £75k gets you, along with an interesting look into the personal life of Mr C himself…
International Space Station astronauts indulging in urine-drinking party tonight
You wouldn’t think people would ever be pleased to hear they can start drinking their own urine – but the astronauts on the International Space Station are currently over the moon about it.
“There will be dancing later,” Mission Control said, after ISS commander Mike Fincke told Earth that the the orbiting station’s faulty urine processor – which filter space wee, condensation and SWEAT and turns it into lovely drinking water – was finally fixed.
This raises two important questions – how do you dance in zero gravity? And before…
Idiotic juror asks her Facebook friends to vote guilty/not guilty in child kidnapping case
“I don’t know which way to go, so I’m holding a poll” a female juror wrote in a vote application on her Facebook page when she couldn’t make her mind up about a court case she was part of.
The unnamed juror failed to set any sort of privacy options on her plea for help, meaning the entire Facebook-using portion of the internet was capable of viewing her confused cry for help…
Boombench – a Bluetooth stereo for the whole community
I’d happily wait hours for the bus if benches were built according to Michael Schone’s design. His creation is called the Boombench. It’s essentially a very large Bluetooth stereo nailed to the ground that you can sit on with 60 watt co-axial speakers, two subwoofers and a bass bin with enough power to shake any booty with which it comes into contact. Just look at this lady’s face if you don’t believe me…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Person pays $10,000 for digital picture of a "seven legged spider"
The beginning of this story is mildly amusing. An Australian man called David Thorne attempted to pay an outstanding bill of $233.95 by sending the utility company a drawing of a spider he made on his computer – which he valued at precisely $233.95.
The utility company replied to his email in a very serious manner, saying it was “unable to accept drawings as payment” and a whole heap of internet hilarity entailed as the conversation between David and the poor admin assistant was beamed around the internet.
Then things start to officially go TOO FAR. David Thorne gave his spider…
One-eyed artist plans Borg-like installation of webcam into her spare eye socket
San Francisco-based artist Tanya Vlach lost an eye in a car accident in 2006 – now she’s planning to replace her standard-issue fake eye with a webcam. Preferably wireless – and with a 3x zoom. And infra-red support so she can see what she does in the dark.
Here’s what Tanya asked for in an advert she placed for a suitable technician for the job…
