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That $2.25 you pay every month in your phone bill, wasted…

I’m a big advocate of schools, especially the poorer districts, getting federal money for things like computers and internet hookups. But it looks like wave of scandals over the “E-Rate” program might threaten that.

Unfortunately, the scandals aren’t without reason. One shining example, unfortunately, is the case of my home town, where a little network upgrade turned into the Taj Mahal of networks, which apparently now sits dormant. More examples of waste here and here.

Isn’t it nice to know where your $2.25 a month is going?

Insure your chest hair

Lloyds of London has apparently been approached by some unknown celebrity to insure his chest hair. And Lloyds wrote a policy for it!

*jaw drop*

But [the policy] does not cover loss though illness or hair which simply falls out, The Daily Telegraph said.

So what DOES it cover? “Accidental” shaving?

Usual omissions such as loss through war, invasion or revolution are not covered.

“AIIIIYYYEEEE! I am the great Sheik Guriti al-Jazeera Blagadagoosh! I declare jihad on your chest hair!! Manly British pigs!!! Fear my Gillete Mach3 blade!!!”

…neither are hunting on horseback or hang-gliding.

I don’t even wanna know how such activities can remove your chest hair without disfiguring other things, too.

Fire-eaters are also excluded.

…of course. 🙂

Claimants must prove loss of 85% of chest hair verified by two independent experts.

Where exactly can one find “two independent experts” on chest hair loss? What kind of fees would they charge for their expert analyses? And how does one get certified to evaluate your chest hair?

Is chest-hair-loss analysis a lucrative business? I can only imagine the dialog for that.

“I’m sorry sir, you are ONE chest hair folicle short of reaching our 85% threshold. ”

Wow… that’s just… stupid.

Take two mediocre networks and put them together…

I wasn’t a big fan of TechTV when it was, well, TechTV. To me, TechTV is a lot like a Macintosh: useful to some people, but the handholding and coddling and training wheel-esque presentation wasn’t something I could stomach. It struck me as TV for people who wanted to pretend they knew about computers, but really didn’t.

But apparently now that Comcast has purchased TechTv and merged it with its existing gamer channel G4, the new FrankenTechTVG4 [tm] isn’t leaving anyone very happy:

G4 fans are willing to tell the TechTV types to stop whining, and some complain about the influx of computer geek shows. But the TechTV troops are throwing every digital bit they have at the problem, including a Yahoo news group called Long Live Tech TV with more than 700 members, a TechTV Meetup day and e-petitions. Web cartoon strip User Friendly is tackling the subject this week. At one point, Leoville, home of the discussion boards for deposed TechTV host Leo Laporte, drew 1,000 simultaneous users.

I think this whole debacle is proof positive that Comcast knows nothing about quality programming. Imagine if they had bought Disney? They would have done the almost the same thing: taken an old, tired, uncreative entertainment outlet that’s been resting on its laurels since 1960 and produced nothing of value since, and made it completely unwatcheable to even the most vapid of audiences. Of course, I wouldn’t have cared, because like TechTv, I haven’t paid much attention to Disney since I – to put it bluntly – started thinking for myself.

3,000 weblogs suddenly wiped off the net

Note to all: the links in this article might be slow in loading. The sites I’ve linked to are getting hammered. Once you read on, you will understand why.

UPDATE: Well, if the Register is to be believed, Winer isn’t totally leaving the blog-hosting business. He’ll still host the ones who pay for it. Lovely.

weblogs.com

It looks like there’s one big vulnerability of blogs that the Time article I posted previously didn’t mention: the fact that weblogs aren’t permanent.

Netcraft reports that 3,000 bloggers have lost access to their blogs. It’s been referred to by victims of this event as the “9.11 of weblogs.” While I wouldn’t go that far, it is a significant event, and one that everyone who blogs should take notice of.
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