No Backbone As Google Bows To Korean Government And Bans Users With Fake Names [Silicon Valley Watcher].
In Korea.
And, it only costs 900 grands to get Google to handover personal information of people who post videos that are potentially embarrassing for the government.
Bill C-15, currently just past the first reading in the parliament, proposes, among other things, moving all amphetamines, even the types approved for treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), from Schedule III to Schedule I.
This would put drugs containing any type of amphetamine, such as the widely used Adderall, in the same category as heroin, phencyclidine (PCP), and methamphetamine.
Moving all amphetamines to Schedule I technically does not make it impossible for ADHD patients to obtain Adderall, but it would make it practically impossible for doctors to prescribe it for prolonged use outside hospital settings. It also serves no purpose in containing recreational use of methamphetamine, a very addictive subtype of amphetamine, as it is already separately classified under Schedule I. To have this kind of grave error, even in the first draft of the bill, is a complete embarassment for the Canadian government. Had it sought consultations from medical experts, the error would have been pointed out immediately. It’s another proof that the current government’s drug policy is driven by social conservative paranoia, not scientific facts.
Correction: In its original version, this post made the mistake of confusing Schedule I set by United States Drug Enforcement Administration and Schedule I set by Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) of Canada. While the term “Schedule I” is used to classify drugs considered most dangerous in both countries, Canada does not completely prohibit use of Schedule I for valid medical reasons.
No TVs, DSLRs, or iPods yet though. But, if you need a blue 8GB Zune in your mailbox tomorrow afternoon, Amazon’s got one ready to ship out immediately.
Hopefully, Amazon will expand its offerings quickly and finally put an end to this Future Shop-Best Buy monopoly (monopoly, not duopoly – Best Buy bought out Future Shop) on Canada’s consumer electronics market.
Volkswagen’s regular shares are trading at over €850, down a bit from the intra-day high of €1005.
At €1005, market capitalization of Volkswagen comes out to over €296 billion (about $368 billion), toppling Exxon Mobil’s $343 billion valuation.
The sudden jump in the share price from €205 on Friday last week to €1005 today has largely to do with Porsche disclosing it has acquired options to bring its effective stake in Volkswagen up to 74.1%, decreasing available float to approximately 6%.
Hedge funds, which have shorted more than 12% of Volkswagen shares, faced potentially unlimited liabilities, and started buying up shares to cover their positions at pretty much any cost.
To put it more plainly, no one thinks Volkswagen’s worth that much money – it’s just that hedge funds got royally screwed by Porsche in complex derivative trading, and it’s now buy or die for them.
Update: Financial Times has posted an article specifically about this ridiculousness.
I was just listening to The Best Show With Tom Scharpling from September 16th on iTunes, and at the 1h59m58s mark, someone claiming to be “Michael” from Waterloo, a football player in his second year originally of Hamilton, calls in. (You can try narrowing it down to one person, if you like.)
So, there is exactly one person who is cool enough to know who Tom Scharpling is at UW, and that person is a football player from Hamilton?
What the fuck is this?
Ok, well, I guess Mad Men is better, but I think that’s about it for list of shows I definitely can say is better than Superjail!
Superjail! is the new cartoon series on Cartoon Network’s [adult swim] programming block about a secret underground jail which kidnaps the most dangerous inmates from real jails around the world for a super-advanced incarceration. And, David Wain is the warden of the titular mega-jail.
This is a really sad day.
Jonathan Franzen may finally get his wish to destroy experimental fiction fulfilled.
One can only hope this is some sort of a horrible joke, which is definitely a possibility since David Foster Wallace has been known to be quite an eccentric.
Blu-ray version of There Will Be Blood, which goes on sale today in North America, is sold out, and it’s only 3 a.m. on the east coast.
Is it the killer title Blu-ray camp has been looking for, or did Paramount screw up manufacturing and couldn’t deliver enough discs on the release date?
Xavier: Renegade Angel, the new show from Vernon Chatman and John Lee (of the Wonder Showzen fame), centers around Xavier, half-man, half-bird superhero with a snake for left arm, who travels the world “[f]acing rednecks, inflicting righteousness and preaching religiously about the ’strong, silent types’ and moralism.”
The premiere’s at 6 p.m. ET on [adult swim], which, of course, is not available in Canada.
I guess I’ll be watching it… umm… some other way that may or may not be entirely legal.
Update: The first episode has now been posted in full.
