Side note for a moment: I appreciate good moral stances. But I also feel that there are some who take things a little too far. Keep following…

After a little reading today, I have learned that the OneNewsNow is a news aggregator of AP stories and other news sources. Great. Congrats. Another news site. Except for the fact that OneNewsNow has been caught on more than one occasion blocking stories and even modifying them in some instances.

One of the ways that they modify stories is to set up filters/rules to do search & replaces in the articles that come through. In some instances I can see where this could be a benefit; Editorial or op-ed pieces that might come through with inappropriate language or subject matter might be toned down for the OneNewsNow audience. I would be concerned on their part for some copyright issues but I don’t work for them nor read their material so it isn’t worth my time or effort to research it any more.

What is worth my time, was what came across my desk today.

In the AFA/OneNewsNow’s attempt to either keep it clean or politically correct, they got it wrong. Good thing is, wrong in this situation is funny-haha, not funny-gonna-end-up-in-court. Hopefully.

The Olympic trials are currently going on in several sports. Swimming, Bass Fishing, Bowling, Track & Field and many others. ONN (tired of typing here) seems to be covering the trials and the results pretty well. And of course filtering every story that comes through. Including replacing any location of the word GAY with the synonym HOMOSEXUAL.

I don’t guess there’s too much wrong with the aforementioned auto-replacement on articles… until Tim Gay, a United States Olympic hopeful, runs a 9.85 second time to win the 100 meter race. I think you get the idea…

In fact a quick search brought up several stories about Tim over the span of a couple days:

Even worse, this isn’t the first time it has happened to ONN. The NBA draft saw the Memphis Grizzlies picking early on a couple of weeks ago looking for a star player to play right along side their young stud, Rudy Gay.

At the time of this posting, ONN had resolved the issues above. Probably by hand. Maybe they should spend a little time looking into their methods or their algorithms, the current ones seem to have a few flaws. Either way, high comedy all around.

• ThosePeopleIn1583LookLikeTerrorists
• IReadYourMail
• IPoisonedYourDog
• GetYourOwnDSLCheapskate

And a couple of my own for good measure:

• YouReallyShouldn’tBeLookingAtThat
• IPouredSugarInYourPrius’Tank
• NiceAcidWashedJeans
• I’llShareMyInternetIfYou’llShareYourCable
• DoYouSwimInMyPoolWithoutMeKnowingToo?

There’s a good chance I will be starting a rotation of great WiFi names in the near future. Any suggestions?

I would also entertain the idea of a partnership with 1-3 others in an attempt to speed up the timeline for ordering.

Some highlights:

• Need only Sport Pilot License to fly (lower cost, less hours than full pilot’s license)
• Lands on both land and water with only about 750 feet needed.
• Max speed 120 knots (138 MPH)
• Parachute for extreme emergency situations to help land entire plan safely
• Folds down for easy travel and storage. I could see landing on the lake near my house and storing in my own garage.

Drawbacks:

• No night flying
• Two passenger only

Any takers? Of course living in the general area of my house would be preferred.

type in a zip code to see where it is on the map. it’s the little things that entertain me…

EDIT:

http://benfry.com/allstreets/

Also pretty interesting. All the streets in the contiguous 48. All 26 million of them.

No need for explanation other than to say that it took time for me to put mine together. I put thought into it. And I picked songs that were a step out for me. No Jack. Nobody from Brushfire Records. No Coldplay. I crossed genres, artists (only duped one) and genders. Autumn: A Feist song even almost made the cut, maybe on the next round. Edit: Updated due to the logic of one Tai Autumn.

I still have two slots open, one of which I know what I want to fill it with. Any suggestions for the last spot?

When I share music with somebody, it’s usually something I think is worth listening to and ask them to put it to the 3 (or 5) listen test. There’s not much music that can catch you with one listen. I’ve only seen it on rare occasion. 3 listens is all I ask if you are serious about getting some new music. I know it won’t be worth it for everyone, but there are a select few that will get it.

http://christianross.muxtape.com/

Just opened shop yesterday. I found out about it about 9:00a yesterday morning and by noon they had over 4000 signed up and uploading music. I hesitated writing about it cause it is showing up everywhere. On every blog, tech site, etc. But, I figured if you were under a rock the last 36 hours or so you might not know.

With the death of the cassette tape, the unique ability to create mix tapes died as well. I know, you can burn cd’s and create playlists but it just isn’t the same. My uncle used to hook us up with some of the best mixed tapes I’ve ever heard. Band’s like Tesla, Outfield, and Mr. Big all came together to create soundtracks to my junior high life. While other kids NKOTB’ing it, I was able to dive into real music and learn about groups like Saigon Kick and The Black Crowes. I won’t lie, there might have been a Richard Marx or Chicago track stuffed in there as well, but that was what made mix tapes so great. You could cross generations, genres, and billboard lines all in the name of spreading good music. And it worked.

Enter, Muxtape.

I have signed up. I haven’t built mine yet. I listened to most of the early-bird mixes I could find yesterday, and honestly, lots of stuff I either skipped or wouldn’t want to listen to again. But then again, some that I went back and repeated a time or two as well.

I am formulating my muxtape. In my opinion, it takes time. Thought has to go into the songs, artists, order, transitions from song to song, genres, old, new, classic, indie, etc.

Good music can take you places. At least it does me. When Buffett sings, I feel the breeze and hear the seagulls. When JT croons, I see the stage, the single spotlight, the guitar, the in-awe’ness. You can pinpoint times in my life just from a song/album. The Weezer ‘Blue Album‘ sung me to sleep on my red futon with my discman and headphones more often than not one school year. Montell Jordan found a way to kick every Friday night off for me my first semester of college. And I can even admit that Mr. Hammer himself convinced me to don more than one pair of baggy-to-the-knees nylon pants in the sixth grade. Heck, I might still wear them today if it weren’t for Justin J. and his fistfuls of snow that ended up down in my trousers more than once.

Music means something to me, it might not have the same effect on you. Mix tapes at their best were a way to learn about new music. They could have been road tapes, junior high love songs, or the soundtrack to your first kiss; but they all had one thing in common, they were to be shared.

I don’t know how long the RIAA will let Muxtape run, but if you are in the market for some new music it seems like a fantastic option for the time being. I’ll make one. I might even post the link here.

Coming soon… LipDub’s

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

An actual printed box for a Nintendo DS game called Imagine Babies. I could care less about the game, but I sure do love that they were too cheap to even purchase the rights to the image of the two babies on the bottom-right! Last time I checked, an image on iStockphoto would run you about $12 for a print quality version.

Funny and true

Environmentalism at it’s finest

And one more for the road…

Coincidence?