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Yowayowa Camera Woman Diary
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1420
A Japanese woman who lives in Tokyo and takes pictures of herself levitating. Well, not exactly, but the intent is to capture that moment in the jump where she looks perfectly poised and as if she is truly levitating or flying. In some she's quite successful...
The Wedding
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2336
On Saturday half the restaurant is booked for a wedding.
The owner, he's optimistic that they'll be done early, "7:30" he tells us. I don't know, but I'm skeptical, most weddings I've seen go a lot later than that.
They've planned to arrive early and so the staff shows up early to set up the party. Then we eat, and the party begins to arrive in drips and drabs.
G, the Nephew and I are serving the dining room open to the general public, we've let the girls handle the wedding.
At 7:30 they still haven't been served their main courses. And by 12:00 midnight they're still there, drinking at the bar with the drunken staff members. There's the bridesmaid (being set up by the Owner with G, she's newly single - 25, and the owner confides "She wanted me...., but I'm married", and one is a little too discreet to observe that she's had enough to drink that she'd take pretty much anyone), from the tone of her remarks one gathers that she's looking hard for some revenge sex. G isn't fussed, he'll take what he can get....
And there's the bride's mother, also single and drunk and fondling G's ass, telling him how single she is and asking when he'll drive her home. G tries to look disinterested, he's not really but there's the feelings of the bridesmaid (a better deal all round) to consider...
12:30 and I'm done, it's been an extra-long day and G and the manager can close, the wedding guests, bridesmaids and mothers are still there waiting for G, for anyone really to get off work and give them a ride home. And while I should stay and help lock up, given the general level of sobriety this isn't a party that will end happy or anytime soon and so I bid them all goodnight and leave.
2 Great Tales of "Out of the Box Thinking"
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1556
Not exactly what you'd expect to find in the "Treasure" category, 2 tales of master criminals and their "successful" operations. The Antwerp Diamond Heist and a local boy from Winnipeg, both done very well. Inspiring, if only as a reminder that not everyone lives in the same box that I do. And - regarding the bank thief Gerald Blanchard - the difference between bank robbers and bank officials is only one of hours and clothing. The official does less, on a better schedule and in a suit - than does the thief.
Courtesy of Wired.com:
Link: The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist
Link: Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief
Usage Based Billing
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2981
Having had this argument with a right winged customer, who states that usage-based internet billing is a good thing - after all, why should he subsidize his neighbors downloading of porn/playing games, etc.?
Which makes sense. Except that it's not a subsidy. If, for example, your ISP sets a bandwidth cap of, say, 350 GigaBytes, above which you'll pay a penalty or fine or simply an additional charge - what of all those people who barely use the internet - say, visiting websites and downloading 350 MB per month - will they be then billed 4.5 Cents per month as opposed to the $45.00 everyone else pays?
Or say they block all images from their browser - text-only based internet - why, it wouldn't be unreasonable to then lower your bill to 2 or 3 cents a year - will the ISP's be doing that?
Shaw? Not bloody likely.
And consider the rise of technology over the past 10 years - 10 years ago 350 MegaBytes would have been "heavy Internet Usage". Now it's 350 GigaBytes. In 10 years what will it be? 350 Terabytes? And what will the bills look like, locked in with a 350 GigaByte limit....
The Cable Companies are kicking themselves over lost revenue.
Part of it is simply greed - get as much as you can and hope people stew in their ignorance and just pay. And some of it is to try and recoup the losses they're taking by such providers as Netflix, who offer a flat monthly fee to watch as many of their films as you want - a great business model, but one that puts the cable monopoly of $5.00 Pay Per View movies to shame. That is, if you consider $10 million dollar salaries "Losses", which, next to American Banks, only the cable companies would have the audacity to argue.
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