Citypages Magazine has a collection of short interviews with freeway exit-ramp beggars in Minneapolis. The interviews are pretty heart-breaking, and it's a rare opportunity to find out more about something we only see through the rolled-up window of a car.

Damien Cummings
35W and University Avenue

Best job: "Working for Northwestern Bell, back in '72. Lineman."

Worst job: "Day labor stuff. Minnesota Barrel, for instance. They're heavy, you gotta stack 'em three high and stuff. But it was a job. I did everything there is."

Last job: "Senior center in Cambridge, doing maintenance work on their facility. I'm a handyman."

Dream job: "I dunno. I really don't. I'm on veterans' disability. I was in Vietnam."

Link (via Consumerist)

BMW's German page has been expunged from Google's search-results, apparently in retaliation for BMW's use of sleazy "doorway pages" that display different content to search-engine crawlers in order to fool them into valuing those pages more highly. A Google employee has confirmed the "Google Death Penalty" for BMW on his blog.

This willingness to punish wrongdoing even when it comes from big companies is a marked contrast with the anti-virus companies that had to be arm-twisted into releasing updates to their products to catch and remove the spyware and rootkits that Sony music was caught distributing on millions of music CDs.

It appears that at least some of the JavaScript- redirecting pages have already been removed from bmw.de, which is very encouraging, but given the number of pages that were doing JavaScript redirects, I expect that Google's webspam team will need a reinclusion request with details on who created the doorway pages. We'll probably also need some assurances that such pages won’t reappear on the sites before the domains can be reincluded. I'm leaving comments turned off on this post; there are no doubt plenty of other search engine optimization areas to discuss this.

Link (via Digg)

Best Buy stores sport large boards with mysterious numbers on them; it turns out that they refer to how much shoplifting is going on in the store, how it has fared at selling Sports Illustrated subscriptions, extended warranties and credit-cards. These are apparently in place to motivate employees to do better.

The author of Cabel's Blog LOL prised the information out of various Best Buy cashiers, and has posted a codex so that we can intelligently discuss each store's success at peddling easy credit with its employees.

Shrink Percent: Ahh, shrink. You probably call it "stealing". And this store is doing pretty good with handling it. The shrink percentage is, presumably, the percentage of Best Buy merchandise that is simply prancing right out the door. A shrink percentage of .50% is, apparently, bad news — so this store is doing pretty well.

Shrink Payout: Keep shrink low, and the shrink payout increases! Well, I have no idea how this shrink payout ($469) is distributed to employees (anyone know?), but I'd wager it winds up being a few extra dollars in your paycheck every now and then.

Link (via Consumerist)

Update: Nathan sez, "When I was working at Best buy the payout was done as a year-end bonus. After PI (that is, 'Physical Inventory') you would get a bonus check for what ever the Shrink payout was. $300 - $400 was the average for my store."

Update: Andrew sez, "Not sure exactly how different Best Buy is, however I can give you the rundown of how Futureshop (owned by Best Buy here in Canada) does it. Shrink is more than just loss to theft, it's also money lost to old products have prices dropped before they get sold (clearence, etc) and things being returned and marked down for sale as open box."

Simone Lueck, a photographer, has a stupendous gallery of photos of television sets in Cubans' homes:

In Cuba, television is the most important communication medium and a national pastime. No matter that the TV sets themselves are outdated, pre-revolution relics imported from America or sets from Russia over fifteen years old; green-hued beasts jimmy-rigged with ancient computer parts and fantastically adorned like religious altars.

Link (via Geisha Asobi)

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: colorize stills from classic black-and-white horror films. Link

The Locus Awards ballot is online, where science fiction fans can vote on their favorite works of 2005. I'm proud to report that I'm eligible in three categories: Best Fantasy Novel (Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town), Best Novella (Human Readable) and Best Novelette (I, Robot).

The ballot is drawn from the Locus Recommended Reading List, which is an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the best work published in the field this year. Link

Gavin sez, "Just wanted to update you on the great success of FreeCulture.org's pledge to boycott DRM CDs. In under one month, more than 3,500 people have signed the pledge to never buy a DRM CD, ever. We have well surpassed our initial goal of 500 pledges and given people a positive step to take to show their disgust with an industry that wants to sell us less and treat us like criminals. There is just one day left to sign the pledge within our one-month deadline. If you haven't, please take a moment to stand up for your rights." Link (Thanks, Gavin!)

A man was arrested in Sayama, Saitama, Japan for dumping chocolate ice cream into a mailbox. Police are investigating whether he was involved in similar cases involving both ice cream and liquid soap. From the Mainichi Daily News:

Yoshiaki Kobayashi, 42, admitted to the allegations. "I was frustrated because my job was not going well. I wanted to vent my anger," he was quoted as telling investigators.

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

The latest Star Wars/Mr Potatohead crossover is R2Potatoo, a perfect companion to last year's Darth Tater. Link (via Wonderland)

Update: Brian sez, "Don't forget the Spud Trooper!"

In this amazing animation, Super Mario Land is invaded by Katamari Damacy, a giant ball of assorted stuff from the brilliant video game of the same name. Link to 400k animated GIF Link to creator's version of this in Flash

See also Katamari Damacy versus Indiana Jones (Thanks, P2!)

Update: Jamal sez, "This was done by an insane flash animator that goes by Xenon. This is where his animations are located, but before you watch any of them make sure your speakers are turned down to a safe volume because he likes to yell and make your ears bleed. My favorite is probably the first one on the page."

Al Lewis, the actor who played Grandpa Munster and later became a political campaigner, TV host, and restauranteur, has died at 95.

Just two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis."

He didn't defeat Pataki, but managed to collect more 52,000 votes.

Link (Thanks, Tavie!)

AOL and Yahoo have proposed a system to charge senders a quarter of a cent for guaranteed delivery on each email sent to their customers. They justify this as an anti-spam measure, but of course it could make them billions, is unlikely to eliminate spam, and will undermine the ability of activist groups like MoveOn and others to correspond with their supporters. The justification AOL offers for this is that it could make email just as good as postal mail.

"The last time I checked, the postal service has a very similar system to provide different options," said Nicholas Graham, an AOL spokesman. He pointed to services like certified mail with return receipts, "where you really do get assurance that if what you send is important to you, it will be delivered, and delivered in a way that is different from other mail."

Just as good as postal mail. Hooray. Of course, you can always just tell your friends that they have to cancel their email accounts with their local ISPs and switch to AOL. I wonder if Yahoo will pay me $0.0025 for every email I receive at my mail server from Yahoo subscribers? I could clean up! Or is it only giant oligopolies that get to tax the rest of the Internet? Link (via MeFi)

Update: A reliable source sez, "One of Goodmail's competitors told me: 'Goodmail is sharing 80% of stamp revenue with AOL, and they gave AOL a big piece of the company in warrants to launch with them and kill their enhanced whitelist.'"

Update 2: Patrick sez, "Charles E. Stiles, an AOL postmaster says 'AOL has no plans of terminating the whitelist.'"

A temple in india receives 15,000 coconuts every day, couriered by an informal volunteer network of donors and traffickers -- the coconuts are used in religious ceremonies.

The temple of Maa Tarini in Orissa, India, receives the coconuts from faithful volunteers from distant parts of the nation. Bus drivers relay the coconuts from vehicle to vehicle, dumping them in collection points at state lines. The surfeit of coconuts around the Maa Tarini has spawned a local coconut candy industry.

Hold a coconut in your hand on a highway in Orissa and the next bus will surely stop to pick it up to take it to the temple in Ghatgaon in Keonjhar district.

The drivers' faith in the goddess Maa Tarini is complete - it is common to find the space behind their seats stacked with coconuts.

Even if the bus is on a different route, the driver will make sure to drop the coconuts in a collection box en route or pass them on to a bus headed for Ghatgaon.

"If I refuse to carry coconuts to the goddess, I may face various odds on my way," says Arun Sahoo, a bus driver.

Link (Thanks, Mike!)

The Designer Emulation Kits are punch-out, working miniature replicas of famous designer lamps, which you mount on a 9V battery that serves as both power-source and base. Link (via Popgadget)

Snip from a piece by Saul Hansell in today's New York Times:

[Internet] data led directly to a suspect in a school bombing threat; it has also been used by the authorities to track child pornographers and computer intruders, and has become a tool in civil cases on matters from trade secrets to music piracy. In St. Louis, records of a suspect's online searches for maps proved his undoing in a serial-killing case that had gone unsolved for a decade.

In short, just as technology is prompting Internet companies to collect more information and keep it longer than before, prosecutors and civil lawyers are more readily using that information. When it comes to e-mail and Internet service records, "the average citizen would be shocked to find out how adept your average law enforcement officer is at finding information," said Paul Ohm, who recently left the Justice Department's computer crime and intellectual property section.

The issue has come to the fore because of a Justice Department request to four major Internet companies for data about their users' search queries. While America Online, Yahoo and Microsoft complied with the request, Google is resisting it. That case does not involve information that can be linked to individuals, but it has cast new light on what privacy, if any, Internet users can expect for the data trail they leave online.

The answer, in many cases, is clouded by ambiguities in the law that governs electronic communication like telephone calls and e-mail.

Link

CloneDVD Mobile is a new commercial program for ripping DVDs for viewing on phones, PSPs, iPods and other small devices. Based on the free software project FFMpeg, Clone DVD Mobile presents a simple way to convert your DVD collection into mobile movies.

There's no good reason that you should be forced to buy the movies on your shelf again as low-resolution, single-player thumbnails. After all, if you want to play your CDs on your portable player, you just rip them -- buying the movies you own all over again is strictly for suckers and people with a whole lot more disposable income than me.

# Convert movie DVDs to play on mobile video equipment like the Sony PSP, Apple iPod Video, iAudio X5, Creative Labs ZEN Vision, etc
# Convert movie DVDs to other file formats like DivX, XviD, AVI, MP4, etc.
# Utilises a high quality picture conversion engine
# Supports multi-angle movie DVDs
# Video Preview shows an overview of all selectable DVD titles
# Target size freely adjustable

Link (Thanks, Charlie!)

Update: Brandon sez, "Some people are having audio issues with CloneDVD Mobile and some DVDs. It seems the SlySoft people aren't about to fix it in the near future, possibly because they don't know how, or it requires stepping over the multi-angled scenes the software explicitly says it supports."

A Lego builder has constructed an elaborate tableau out of HP Lovecraft's tales of terror, cleverly dubbed "Cthulego." Link (Thanks, Krazmo!)

The makers of malicious spyware that was covertly installed on PCs of people who bought Sony music CDs has complied with EFF's demands that it clean up its act.

Back in December, I blogged about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's open letter to SunnComm, the makers of the MediaMax spyware that was automatically installed if you tried to play some Sony music CDs in your computer.

EFF presented a series of demands to SunnComm regarding steps it should take to undo the harm it had wrought on Sony customers. SunnComm has complied with EFF's demands:

SunnComm says it will ensure that future versions of MediaMax will not install when the user declines the end user license agreement (EULA) that appears when a CD is first inserted in a computer CD or DVD drive. SunnComm has also agreed to include uninstallers in all versions of MediaMax software, to submit all future versions to an independent security-testing firm for review, and to release to the public the results of the independent security testing. SunnComm and EFF are discussing how to ensure that legitimate security researchers who have been, are, or will be working to identify security problems with MediaMax will not be accused of copyright violations under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

In January, SunnComm published a complete list of all music CDs that employ the MediaMax technology and sent a letter to the independent labels using MediaMax with information about a security vulnerability in MediaMax version 5. Music label Sony BMG has separately committed to addressing security concerns arising from CDs using MediaMax.

Link (Thanks, Kurt!)

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

(Sony taproot graphic courtesy of Sevensheaven)

A number of animatronics and props from Epcot's defunct Food Rocks show at The Land pavilion are on sale on eBay. Food Rocks was a genuinely crappy show ("The Boogie Woogie Bagel Bakery Boy" was the highlight, if you can believe it), but owning a genuine Epcot animatronic aubergine is a pretty tempting proposition. Link, Link, Link, Link (Thanks, Ricky!)

Update: Thanks to everyone who pointed out that Boogie Woogie Bakery Boy was from the precursor to Food Rocks -- Kitchen Kabaret.

Pillow Fight Club stages giant, fre public pillow fights in major cities -- hundreds of people turn up with pillows and good-naturedly clobber one-another. The next one's V-Day in San Francisco:

When: 6pm on Valentine’s Day (February 14th)
Where: San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza (at Market and Embarcadero)

1) Tell everyone you know about PILLOW FIGHT!!!
2) Wait for the Ferry Building clock to strike 6:00pm
3) Don’t hit anyone with out a pillow (unless they want it)
4) Don’t hit anyone with a camera

Link (Thanks, Scott!)

Debcha sez, "Dorian Lynskey presents a London Underground map, transmogrified to represent music and musical influences. Each major line is a style of music (for example the Circle Line is pop, and the Docklands Light Railroad is classical), each station is labeled with the name of an artist. Junctions are artists working in two or more genres, and the branch lines are used to represent musical divergence (eg rap diverges into old-school and New York rap). I love the Tube map, and music, and mashing them together makes my head explode with joy." Link (Thanks, Debcha!)

Update: Here's Laura Cantrell's C&W/NYC subway map version of this -- thanks, Jeff!

This Flash app is a synth board for doing your own Super Mario Bros remixes: pick a tune from the scene-selector on the left and then hit the sprites on the right to mix in sound effects. Link (via Digg)