Due process too much hassle for DC dept. of motor vehicles

in

Washington DC's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will no longer allow citizens to protest parking tickets in person, reports Thenewspaper.com. Instead, they'll offer mail-in and e-mail adjudication.

The move is intended to allow automated street sweeper parking ticket machines to boost the number of infractions cited well beyond the 1.6 million currently handed out by meter maids. As one-third of those who contest citations in the city are successful, the hearings cut significantly into the $100 million in revenue tickets generate each year.

Under the DMV's plan, motorists will only be able to object to a ticket by email or letter where city employees can ignore or reject letters in bulk without affected motorists having any realistic recourse.

Link


(Via Boing Boing.)

Largest BSOD ever

in


Gizmodo reports that this may be the biggest BSOD ever. It went on for days. A few people have sent me this and asked if this was our work. They think maybe we rented these screens and did this on purpose. You know what? We didn't. You know why? We don't have to. That's the beauty of Windows. The wow is now. As in, Wow, that OS is wicked unstable, isn't it? Or, Wow, that friggin giant screen has been dead for days now hasn't it? Much love to everyone who sent this in.

(Via The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.)

New Guinness advert: Rube Goldberg domino cascade

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This new Guinness ad was shot over a week in a remote Argentine village -- it depicts a falling-dominoes cascade that expands to include falling suitcases, book-cases, flaming bales of hay, junker cars, crutches, and many other objects winding through the hills of the town. It's a lovely bit of filmmaking. Also, you can read the article about the making of the ad in its entirety if you want

Right Wing Campaigns To Get Climate Skeptic’s Blog Named ‘Best Science Blog’ In Weblog Awards

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scienceblogvoteAt 5:00 PM (EST) tonight, voting will close in the fifth annual Weblog Awards, “the world’s largest blog competition.” In the competition, participants are allowed to “vote once every 24 hours in each poll.”Currently leading the field in the “Best Science Blog” category is a website whose work has gone a long way in furthering anti-scientific interests, the global warming denialist blog Climate Audit.

Climate Audit is run by Stephen McIntyre, a Canadian and “former mining executive” who has become the darling of climate skeptics by challenging the conclusions of Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann and NASA’s James Hansen.

McIntyre’s criticisms of Mann, which appeared in the non-peer reviewed conservative journal Energy & Environment, have themselves been challenged for “overstat[ing]” their case. Even McIntyre himself has admitted that “the significance of things has been misstated by [Rush] Limbaugh and people like that.”

But the right blogosphere has made Climate Audit’s shot at the Weblog Award a cause celebre and are using postings and “endorsements” to rally their support to push for a skeptic to be named “Best Science Blog”:

Newsbusters: “We encourage voting for Stephen McIntyre’s Climate Audit as Best Science Blog.”

Junk Science: “We’d like to suggest you consider a vote for ClimateAudit.”

Small Dead Animals: “Science blog- Climate Audit of course!!!”

Free Republic: “Please Freep this Poll. Vote for Climate Audit. Fighting Global Warming nonsense.”


Needless to say, McIntyre is pushing for himself to win as well. Kevin at DeSmogBlog is encouraging those who value science to vote for the current second-place contender, Bad Astronomy Blog.

UPDATE: Science Progress has more on why the claims of sites like Climate Audit should not “detract from the overwhelming consensus of scientists” that climate change is real and caused by humans.

Fake Steve: ‘It’s Not a Phone, It’s an Alliance’

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Fake Steve Jobs nails it on Google’s Android:

The only companies that join consortia are the ones who are too stupid or shitty to make a great product on their own. It’s like, Hey, we’ve got forty spazzo companies that can’t fuck their way out of a paper bag; let’s put them all together and maybe they’ll magically become some kind of big bad powerhouse. More likely it’ll just be some scary ass Frankenstein monster, walking around drooling and tripping over its own tongue.

And:

Also, whenever you see companies start talking about being “open,” it means they’re getting their ass kicked. You think Google will be forming an OpenSearch alliance any time soon, to help also-rans in search get a share of the spoils? Me neither.