Really, Amazon? Really?

DMV COMMISSIONER UNVEILS NEW EMPIRE GOLD LICENSE PLATES

New York State Commissioner of Motor Vehicles and Chair of the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee David J. Swarts today unveiled the “Empire Gold” license plate which will be issued to most vehicles registered in the state beginning in April, 2010.

Our committee spent eight months trying to come up with something that looked like “work”, and the only thing we agreed on was this ugly-ass license plate. You know, the same one we got rid of 20 years ago.

“The bold colors of the new license plate reflect New York’s force and its resilience,” said Commissioner Swarts. “These new plates, in the official colors of the State of New York, will help maintain highway safety, reduce the number of unregistered and uninsured vehicles on our roads, and generate $129 million in General Fund revenue over two years, which will help address the State’s financial crisis.”

We could probably help the budget crisis by reinstating a more progressive tax structure and reducing graft, inefficiency, and corruption. Or we could just nickel and dime you schmucks for $129 million, because even though it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $12 billion deficit, it still looks like we’re “doing something”.

State Police Superintendent Harry J. Corbitt said, “License plates are a fundamental tool of law enforcement that has been enhanced in recent years through a variety of technologies that improve their readability, especially under low light conditions. The State Police has worked cooperatively with DMV to ensure that the new plates will continue to serve the law enforcement community effectively.”

Oooh, they’re shiny! And reflective!

“This project will benefit law enforcement efforts, and therefore enhance public safety, in several ways,” said Denise E. O’Donnell, Deputy Secretary for Public Safety and Commissioner of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. “For instance, nearly 300 police agencies in New York State are currently deploying approximately 500 computerized license plate readers (LPRs) that enable authorities to quickly identify vehicles that have been stolen or used in a crime. These new plates will ensure that the LPRs are as effective as possible.”

Oh my god, we are laughing so hard that you people let us get away with buying all this crap.

DMV will begin issuing the new plates for registration renewals that expire in May 2010. Customers renewing their vehicle registrations in person in a DMV office, over the phone, by mail or through the Internet, will receive their new Empire Gold plates in the mail. Customers completing an original over-the-counter registration transaction will receive their plates immediately. [ . . . ] A plate fee of $25.00 will be added to the registration renewal fee. Single plate registrations (e.g. motorcycles) will be charged a plate fee of $12.50. Motorists registered in the Passenger (PAS), Commercial (COM), Motorcycle (MOT) or Trailer (TRL) registration classes will have the option to keep their current plate number/letter combination. Those with vehicles registered in other classes may also have this option. The registration renewal invitation will tell motorists if this option is available. Those choosing to keep their current plate number/letter combination on the new Empire Gold plate will be required to pay a $20.00 fee. Those motorists holding a personalized plate will automatically be re-issued the same number/letter combination on their new plate. Because they currently pay an annual personalized plate fee, they will not be required to pay the $20.00 fee. Most plates with the New York skyline banner across the top of the plate will begin to be replaced by the new Empire Gold plate in April. Custom picture plates will be replaced at a later date. The DMV will also be electronically sharing updated plate number information with EZ-Pass so that motorists who participate in that program will not have to do so.

We’re making the entire process as obtuse as possible so that we can smack you with additional fees and fines when you inevitably fuck it up the first time. Good luck!

I tooke a bodkine gh & put it betwixt my eye & [the] bone as neare to [the] backside of my eye as I could: & pressing my eye [with the] end of it (soe as to make [the] curvature a, bcdef in my eye) there appeared severall white darke & coloured circles r, s, t, &c. Which circles were plainest when I continued to rub my eye [with the] point of [the] bodkine, but if I held my eye & [the] bodkin still, though I continued to presse my eye [with] it yet [the] circles would grow faint & often disappeare untill I removed [them] by moving my eye or [the] bodkin.

If [the] experiment were done in a light roome so [that] though my eyes were shut some light would get through their lidds There appeared a greate broade blewish darke circle outmost (as ts), & [within] that another light spot srs whose colour was much like [that] in [the] rest of [the] eye as at k. Within [which] spot appeared still another blew spot r espetially if I pressed my eye hard & [with] a small pointed bodkin. & outmost at vt appeared a verge of light.

[illustration and text From Isaac Newton's handwritten notebook essay ‘Of Colours’, c. 1666]

I cannot even apply eyedrops without flinching, and Isaac Newton willingly stuck a bodkin¹ into his eye socket and rubbed it around, just to see what would happen.

We all celebrate Newton as a genius, but if you dig a little deeper you’ll find that he was also the height of 17th century whatthefuckery.

Oh, fuck you, internet. Just fuck you right in the eye.

So goes a lyric we all know from the Andy Williams song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”¹. We’ve sung it in school, we’ve caroled it at home, we’ve heard it every damn Christmas our whole damn lives. It’s still a lovely classic, though.

But what’s the deal with the ghost story part? Scary ghost stories? Are you fucking kidding me? Have none of you ever stopped to wonder what that’s all about?

Perhaps it’s just that I grew up in some oddball part of the country where this Christmas tradition never took hold. But I doubt it.

Other than the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, did you ever sit around and tell ghost stories at this time of year? I didn’t think so.

This is but one of the many conflicts that is going to arise between old a new media, whose rules and customs are dictated by differing economic and technological factors.

The AP will probably be slow to learn the lesson, because it will see no immediate impact if people like me won’t link to them any more because we don’t want to be sued. I mean in our world, how crazy is that? Like I’m going to sue Atrios for linking to me? That’s just insane.

[snip]

If I were running a major metropolitan daily, and I saw my advertising revenues shrinking and my newsroom personnel diminishing as the dead tree business died, and I knew how important it was to generate online traffic to keep the doors open, I’d be thinking … Reuters. McClatchy. Bloomberg. Anything but AP.

What goes largely unspoken is that for the major media, as a principle, Fair Use has been dead since roughly the time the DMCA was passed.

Like Jones, Rahn was an archaeologist, like him he fell foul of the Nazis and like him he was obsessed with finding the Holy Grail – the cup reputedly used to catch Christ’s blood when he was crucified. But whereas Jones rode the Grail-train to box-office glory, Rahn’s obsession ended up costing him his life.

Fascinating story in the Telegraph.  This is just sample of so many bizarre stories that could be told about Himmler and his minions.  It’s a rich vein of content, and I’m surprised more people haven’t tapped into it for fictional purposes.  Maybe because so much of it would seem over-the-top even when presented as factual historical narrative.

During a storm in the North Pacific in 1992, twelve 40-foot containers were washed off of a Chinese cargo ship.  One of them was filled with 29,000 plastic bath toys, or “Friendly Floatees”, which were released into the Pacific Ocean.  Two oceanographers tracked the toys and accurately predicted where and when they would begin washing ashore.

(via Strange Maps)

A robot that can pluck and move individual hair follicles on a person’s head makes hair transplants look more natural than those performed by humans, a US company claims.

Oh, the wonders of modern medical science.  Don’t you just get a happy little tingle every time you see the words “robot” and “pluck” together in a sentence?  Neither do I.

Once the “harvest” is over, the patient sits up to let the robot implant the follicles into the top of their head.

Again, another word that is just sinister when paired with robot: “harvest”.  Shudder.

Behind doors on the tombstone that can be locked is a QR code — a square code read by mobile phones that can link to Web addresses. Grave visitors can use the code to access images and photographs of the person while they were alive.

I, for one, eagerly await the release of the “.dead” top-level domain.

(via BoingBoing)