Daily Nonsense

A colleague of mine had an interesting ‘run in’ with a Google Street View car this morning on his way to work and the Iranians apparently have discovered Photoshop, but don’t actually have anyone who can use it well.

Here is a photo and a link to my coworkers web site.  As you can see from the sequence of events, Google isn’t too keen on anyone noticing their nondescript Chevy with the big freaking mast on the roof.

Maxabee.com

And finally, pictures released by the Iran’s state-run media agency have been identified as being heavily Photoshopped.  It looks like the Iranians do have missiles, but just how many they have or how many they can get to launch at the same time is up for debate.  The article on boingboing is aptly titled Iran: You Suck At Photoshop.  Donnie Hoyle would be appalled at the amateurishness of this ‘effort’.

boingboing.net

Polish poets threaten Google’s supremacy

You really have to wonder about these people who think that throwing money and lawyers at a mistake or oversight will make it all better.

AFP has a funny story. It seems a group of Polish poets, Grupa Mlodych Artstow I Literatow (Group of Young Artists and Writers) owns http://www.gmail.pl/ and Google wants it. So it’s using its lawyers to try to get it, rather than admit its own incompetence and just offer to buy it.

Izabela Krawczyk of GMAiL told AFP: “We bought the name legally, with our own money. Nobody gave it to us for free. We refuse to be deprived of what we consider is our property.”

Krawczyk, a poet and IT fan based in the central Polish city of Lodz, said that at the end of last year her group was surprised to discover that www.gmail.pl was available.

They decided to buy the rights to the domain name in order to raise the profile of GMAiL, which publicises the works of young unknowns who have not yet found a conventional editor.

“Our site has a use. There’s no financial gain involved. And we’re not competing with the US company,” she said.

So is the message that after three years of beta testing Gmail, and stashing many billions in the bank, the droids at the Googleplex either have not yet heard of Poland or still can’t figure out how to buy a Polish domain name? No problem! They may not be able to figure out how to spend $10 on a domain name, but they can easily afford $100,000 worth of lawyers.

What was that bullshit about “Don’t be evil” again?

Hat tip to Profy.

[Thanks, Guardian Unlimited]