b l i p s   b l i p s   b l i p s   b l i p s   b l i p s   b l i p s

These may be old news to radiohead fans, but in case you haven’t seen these yet, I encourage you to watch these blips.

They are sort of videos, sort of advertisements, but confusing enough not to get played as either.

They are all good, but I especially like Geese and Yeti. [you’ll need quicktime]

 

thank you for never faxing me again

What follows is my fax response to automated junk-faxes (and I do realize the irony of the ‘save a tree’ comment).

save a tree.

To the junk-faxer: I hope you get toner all over your hands and your favourite shirt when you have to replace it.

If you hate junk faxes too download the file (PDF) and fight back by being annoying.

 

“Lexmark to cut 900 jobs, find cheaper labor abroad”

From Cnet’s News.com:

Lexmark to cut 900 jobs, find cheaper labor abroad
Lexmark International, the second-biggest maker of inkjet and laser printers, will cut 900 jobs and move some manufacturing to Mexico and China to reduce costs.

The announcement sent the company’s stock up Monday. At midday, Lexmark shares were up $4.50, or 15 percent, to $34.

This could be straight from The Onion. Move the jobs to areas with less regulation and labour laws and the stock shoots up.

Couldn’t they at least try to be a little more inconspicuous? I shudder.

Matthew:
Sadly, shifting your employees to a lesser regulated country is fairly inconspicuous. If Lexmark really wanted to see it’s share price skyrocket, it would have simply cut the staff and not re-hired.

 

email or e-mail.

to hyphen or not to hyphen? the debate rages on, but at Wired News they claim it’s just A Matter of (Wired News) Style.

For those regular readers of Wired News, set your bookmarks to the following URL instead of http://www.wired.com to avoid the banner ad on the front page and in concert with Microsoft’s autocomplete feature, it only takes a few extra keystrokes.

http://www.wired.com/news/nc_index.html

 

sloan + thrush hermit + the superfriendz = the flashing lights

sloan + thrush hermit + the superfriendz = the flashing lights

Last night at The Barn (UPEI’s infamous bar) matthew@actsofvolition.com and I had the enormous pleasure of seeing Halifax murderock-esque band The Flashing Lights.

The unfortunately small crowd didn’t prevent Matt Guitar Murphy and the band from putting on a monster rock show. Highlights included Matt playing several guitar solos in the audience and a harmonica playing bad-ass who actually smashed a tambourine.

 

service industry? we’re not in the godamned service industry.

FlexNet does not have time to deal with morons. If only the rest of the world could be so honest.

 

a brief message left on a public terminal at Softworld2000.

Wearing a suit will not affect your ability to think clearly or coherently. It may impair these functions.

Your very existence is preposterous. You are not a business-person, you are a farce.

Behind your back, people are laughing at you. Many people do not even wait until your back is turned.

You have accomplished nothing here. No one is surprised.

Enjoy your stay at Softworld.

 

this website is “too large and provides a poor user experience”

After creating a handheld version of Acts of Volition for your PDA using AvantGo’s fine software, I applied to be an ‘official AvantGo Channel’. Lured by the promise of free publicity and a free listing on the AvantGo Channel website, I attempted to submit the online form. This did nothing but spit out ugly server errors (apparently they were ‘upgrading the servers’). After a few days of trying, I finally gave up and emailed my submission only to receive this reply weeks later (note the intuitive subject line):

To: ‘Steven Garrity’
Subject: RE:
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 21:58:00 -0700

Steven,
   As the channel is currently built we cannot launch it on the service. There are a number of off-site links that need to be either removed or disabled. Otherwise, the channel is too large and provides a poor user experience. Please let me know when this has been resolved.

Thanks,
Daniel

No problem Daniel.

 

guerrilla conference presentation

listen to the presentation
I really like my job. Some days I love my job. Today was one of those days.

We actually made the following presentation today at the Softworld 2000 conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia:

Ladies and gentleman, I respectfully request your attention for the next two minutes and forty three seconds…

 

Who Killed Biggie Smalls?

Salon.com asks the question: Who Killed Biggie Smalls?

He ain’t dead folks. He ain’t dead.