With absolutely NOTHING happening in the tech world today, Steven and I opeted to just hit the “record” button and see what happened. We ended up having a pretty fun show for having absolutely nothing planned!
We discussed the FCC saying that it wanted to have 100 Mbps Internet service for 100 million users in America … with no time line, budget or idea of who is paying for it. This led me to announce my plan named Shmoo … that’s it … no idea what it is, I just felt like announcing something too.
We discuss the Kevin Smith/Southwest Airlines debacle, and while Steven is a bit harsher than I, we both agree Mr. Smith would have been better served by not cursing as much through out the whole thing.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
In this episode, Steven and I do something a bit different … hey, you try to get annoyed with something every night! Tonight we go through TechMeme’s headlines and just make general comments on each one … and some of the authors. MG Siegler gets his own theme song!
Tonight’s links by Steven is a sampling of what we commented on. This may become out regular Friday night show … oh, and I mock some of the people on Blippy again.
Sarah L. Tolzien, a former English teacher and cross country coach at Rich South High School in Richton Park, IL, has been sued over the affair she had with a then 16-year-old student.
This is a new twist to the teacher student sex scandals. Last March I brought you the story of Sarah L. Tolzien who had been accused of having sex twice in Nov. 2008 while she was an English teach and cross country coach. The accusation was that she had twice given a member of the boy’s cross country team a ride home and reportedly had sex with him. At the time Ms. Tolzien was 24-years-old, and the student was 16. In Dec. 2008 Ms. Tolzien resigned from the school district after being put on administrative leave.
The Chicago Sun-Times is now reporting that on Tuesday the boy filed suit as “John Doe” in the Cook County Circuit, seeking at least $50,000 from the Rich Township High School District 227 and former teacher Ms. Tolzien. The damages are being sought for “intentional infliction of severe emotional distress.”
Neither Ms. Tolzien or the school district have chosen to comment on the lawsuit.
This is the first I have ever heard of such an occurrence in one of these cases, but if he’s successful, I highly doubt it will be the last time.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Mark and I take yet another look at the whole FTC disclosure debacle in the wake of the fact that it has now turned into a joke meme in the blogosphere. Maybe the FTC will some day decide to clarify itself, until then, let the humor commence.
20 years ago today the Berlin Wall began to fall due to a misspoken note during a press conference.
I can pretty vividly remember Nov. 9th, 1989 because it was the first time I ever realized I was watching history as it was actually unfolding. Sure I had seen other major news events happen during my 18 years on Earth, but this was the first one that I had ever seen live, and I knew for sure it was something that would be written in history books for years to come.
You can read the sequence of events for yourself of how the fall of the wall came about, and honestly it’s more fun to go read it for yourself because it is so crazy that you have to absorb it all. However, going back to that night in 1989, no one knew what was happening: not the media, not those of us at home, pretty much everyone was in the dark as to why East Berliners were standing on top of the wall without being shot. West Berliners were taking sledgehammers to the wall and no one was stopping them. It was like the world had gone mad and no one knew what was happening, for all we knew at that moment it was spontaneous.
It took days to sort out, and the media was still scrambling because even the Central Intelligence Agency at the time had been caught off guard. Absolutely no one knew it was coming … it just happened, and there was something in that that made it even more beautiful. You saw families reuniting that hadn’t seen each other in ages if ever, complete strangers hugging as a country reunited, you saw the first chinks in the armor of the eastern bloc nations, and it was a sight to behold.
This past August I visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum with the Diabolical Miss M, and in the very last room on the tour, they have an actual slab of the Berlin wall standing there with the graffiti covered Western side facing you. it is understandably protected by Plexiglas, but yet there was still a part of you that wanted to touch it. This cement monolith had once been one of the greatest signs of oppression in the history of the world, but yet here it stood tattered, chunks missing, graffiti tags all over it, somehow it didn’t seem real any more or that it could have ever been something people feared. Now it is just a sad chunk of cement in a museum. It’s power was gone, but it certainly served as a reminder.
While other history making moments have happened since Nov. 9th, 1989, I know it will be one of those things that lives with me until the day I die.
October 5th, 1969 changed the face of comedy history for it was the day the world was given Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
I honestly don’t know where comedy would be today without Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. These six men pushed the boundaries of taste, logic and even the basic structure of comedy to limits people couldn’t have even dreamed of. If you ask just about any person working in comedy today, they will list Monty Python as one of their key influences, and rightly so.
For just as many people who love them, they’re are those who don’t “get it”, and I can honestly respect that, their particular brand of humor wasn’t for everyone.
I honestly can’t remember which skit I saw first, I just know it was in the late 1970’s and I was dumbstruck at the insanity of it even at the young age. (remember, I was born in ‘71) I had already been watching Saturday Night Live since it debuted in ‘75, and even at those young ages I could see how wildly different this British comedy was. You weren’t sure if you were supposed to laugh or scratch your head, but in those early years I just laughed myself silly.
Over the years as I saw every sketch 50 times or more, I came to appreciate the show on so many more levels, and I also came to realize how it influenced just about everything we see around us today when it comes to comedy. These men were, and are, brilliant (R.I.P. Graham), and comedy lovers everywhere owe them a debt of gratitude.
I’ve gathered up a few of my favorite skits from the Official Monty Python YouTube Channel, but I always encourage you to check out the source material. Sadly the channel doesn’t have nearly all of my favorites (Dead Parrot, Upper Class Twit of the Year, Spam, Spanish Inquisition and so on). After the BS I have been dealing with all day over the FTC, this was a welcome post to write, as I found I still laughed and smiled at every sketch I have posted below.
Every Sperm is Sacred (from The Meaning of Life)
Ministry of Silly Walks
Lumberjack Song
Stoning (from Life of Brian)
Black Knight (from The Holy Grail)
Always Look On The Bright Side of Life (from Life of Brian)
President Obama has begun talking about the possibility of extending the school day, and while I think he is on the right track, he is coming at it from the wrong angle.
According to a story for the Associated Press (sorry, can’t link it or quote it due to their insane rules on bloggers owing them money if we do so), President Obama is currently looking at extending the school day by three hours, and also increasing the number of days per year that students go to school. This is said to be combat the continually low scores that American students have in comparison to countries such as Japan.
In comparison, USA students attend school an average of 1,146 hours, while students in Japan attend 1,005, but I am going to concentrate on why this is a bogus number and the Japanese actually attend more hours than that. The students OFFICIALLY attend 1,005 hours, what is not counted is their “extra curricular” hours which are “elective”, but you would be hard pressed to find any student who does not attend them. They are also quite often going in to school on Saturdays and Sundays, again this is “optional”, but due to the pressure of their peers doing it, so they know if they don’t follow suit that they will fall behind.
So is extending the hours of the day the solution? No, I don’t think so. From the sounds of it, it almost sounds like Obama envisions this partially as a babysitting service as he sees keeping the students in school until 6 or 7 PM. You are talking about children who are not used to such long hours, and you are also going to have a major cut down in the amount of time they have each night to do homework. Extending the hours per day is not the best choice.
He also has discussed the possibility of cutting the summer vacation time down, and while I have problems with extending the number of hours per day, I have no problem with changing up the structure of the entire year. The current model of nine months on, three months off is based on the agrarian calendar of farming, but children are no longer spending the summer working in the fields with their parents, so needing the block of time off is no longer required.
A school year model that has shown some definite success is a quarter system where students attend school for 9 weeks and then have 3 weeks off. Students attend the same number of hours per day, but with less down time between sessions, the students don’t forget as much, and take less time to get back up to speed when they do get back.
Of course, all of these plans ignore the problems inherit in our public school systems and the subject matters they teach our kids, but that is another argument for another day, but I do agree with the President that a change needs to be made in how the kids attend school. While I have already seen some blogs such as Sweetness & Light decrying this as a way to brainwash children into being liberal leaning, Obama lovers, there have been schools playing with the structure of the school day and year for quite a while now. I knew a child attending a 9 on/3 off school 12 years ago in St. Louis, and yes his grades did go up from when he attended in the 9 months on/3 months off school.
In a study conducted in 2006, students in the United States placed 17th amongst 30 countries compared in how their students were doing. I am sure no one will ever think this is a desirable place to be for this country, and while I feel there is a lot that needs fixing in our system (psst, school uniforms), a change to the school year is inevitable at some point. Be it under Obama or whomever follows him into the Oval Office, this is a subject that will need to be addressed at some point along with the manner and matter of what we are teaching the students in school.
… or do you really know that many kids still working in the fields each summer?
A mere month after 26-year-old Helen Goddard, a trumpet instructor at the City of London School for Girls, was discovered to be having a sexual relationship with one of her 15-year-old female students, she has been given her sentence. While I normally don’t do follow ups on the sentencing of the teachers I write about, this one just filled in too many holes to be ignored.
According to the London Evening Standard, it was the teenager who instigated the relationship by first discussing personal issues with the teacher, and then eventually going for coffee together that led to the girl attempting to kiss the older woman. The girl said in a victim impact statement that she felt remorse for the situations he had gotten the teacher into.
While the original story on Helen Goddard had the parents saying they would have no problem with their daughter eventually reconnecting with Ms. Goddard, they have now taken a much harder line over the situation. The young girls parents are now angry and say that the teacher betrayed their trust. They also revealed that the girl had been telling them she was staying at a friend’s house when she was sneaking away to see the teacher. Nothing specific was mentioned on how Ms. Goddard ended up taking the girl to Paris for a weekend to attend a Gay Pride parade, but they somehow managed to pull that off also.
As the evidence was presented, more details of the raid that found the two together was revealed. When the police went to question Ms. Goddard, they found the girl there also, and confiscated numerous sex toys, including “fluffy handcuffs”. They also seized the girl’s cell phone which contained one text message from Ms. Goddard that read:
‘It’s going to be a beautiful day. I love you. You were on my mind all night.
With the amount of evidence against her, Ms. Goddard confessed to six sexual encounters with the student between February and July of this year.
Speaking on her own behalf, Ms. Goddard said she had been “pressurised” (yes, she said “pressurised”) into the affair by the young girl. Seeing as the woman is so much older, Judge Anthony Pitts apparently didn’t care; he sentenced Ms. Goddard to 15-months in jail, she must register as a sex offender for 10 years and she is banned for life from working with children.
I’m not 100% sure who first thought to do this, but I would send them a huge thank you if I could.
Someone got the bright idea to pose a very simple question: Ever wish songs just sang what was happening in the music video? The concept is simple enough in that you take any music video that has odd, non-sensical moments (i.e. pretty much every music video from the 1980’s and 1990’s), write new lyrics for the song that deals with what you are seeing in the video, and, there you go, you have a literal video.
I believe the first one was by Dusto McNeato for A-Ha’s “Take On Me“, which has since been pulled and replaced by a version showm on a Digg show. Since then the concept has really taken off, but I think the person producing the highest quality ones is dascottjr. Check out his latest for Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.
Susan Boyle appeared on Britain’s Got Talent this week, and to say she wowed the judge and audience would be an understatement.
Seeing as I live in the United States, I don’t watch Britain’s Got Talent, but, then again, I don’t watch America’s Got Talent either. I’ve never been big on the “talent” style shows like American Idol, but then tonight a video was making the rounds on Twitter, and considering it seemed to leave everyone speechless, I went ahead and checked it out.
Same as its American counterpart, Britain’s Got Talent consists of common British folk coming on the show to display their talents, whatever they may be. Unlike American Idol they can dance, sing, play instruments, even spin plates if they want, it really is open to all talents. In the early rounds the judges, Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan, can say if someone is passing on to the later rounds, or they can stop them there, and even stop the performance by hitting their big X lights.
In this week’s episode, Susan Boyle, who is 47-years-old and hails from West Lothian in Scotland, came on the show. She informed the television audience that she lives alone with her cat Pebbles, and has never even been kissed, let alone had a boyfriend. When she took the stage the audience and judges were snickering alike… and then she sang.
If there ever was a case of “don’t judge a book by its cover”, it is obviously Susan Boyle. I hate to admit it, but I was snickering along with the audience when she took the stage in her awkward little way. Shame on me.
I also have to admit it is very rare for me to actually watch a shared video on Twitter, it is even odder for me to watch the whole thing, but I have watched this one a couple times thus far. Her voice is simply amazing. If I had the ability to vote in this show, I would be, and I don’t even know if there is someone with more talent performing, but I find that difficult to imagine.
Good luck, Ms. Boyle, but somehow I doubt you’re going to need it if you keep wowing the audience and judges like this.
At approximately 10 AM Wednesday morning, an F-22a Raptor crashed around 35 miles northeast of the Edwards Air Force Base in California. (link takes you to an interactive map) The fighter was conducting a test mission at the time, and the cause of the crash, as well as the fate of the pilot, is unknown at this time.
The plane officially entered service in 2005, and costs $137.5 million each, hence why we’ve only built 135 of them thus far. Due to the advanced nature of the fighter, and its perceived superiority over everything else in the sky, the government does not allow them to be sold to any of the countries we normally sell weapons to.
This is the second of these fighters to crash, the first being in December 2004, and luckily the pilot in that case ejected to safety. Hopefully the pilot in the latest crash is okay, but only time will tell. Search and rescue teams are currently working in the area.
If the fighter looks vaguely familiar to you, by the way, it’s because it’s the basis for Starscream in the Transformers movies.
Beginning around 10:38 PM local time on Sunday night, Mt. Redoubt, which has been under watch for quite some time, finally blew its top. The mountain, which stands 10,200 feet tall, threw ash as high as 60,000 feet, causing some sir traffic to be rerouted or turned back.
If history tells us anything about this volcano, when it last blew in 1989, it continued to spew ash for four months. Scientists have no clue how long it will continue to emit ash this time, but it could be for a similar amount of time again. Ash is a known abrasive that can eat away at exposed mechanical parts, cause asthma attacks or any other host of health problems. Luckily the winds are blowing it away from Anchorage, but other smaller towns are expecting to get a good coating of the stuff.
What concerns me, and prompts me to write this, was the news last week of undersea volcano off the coast of Tonga erupting. While these volcanos are seperated by great distances, they are both part of the Pacific Ring of Fire: a series of volcanic trenches, arcs and belts that encircles the Pacific rim. When one area of the Ring starts to have major activity, it is usually a good indicator that other parts of it will react with its own eruptions and earthquakes.
In short, don’t be surprised if there is news of other things happening in this region sometime soon.
Sarah L. Tolzien, a former English teacher and cross country coach at 
20 years ago today the Berlin Wall began to fall due to a misspoken note during a press conference.
October 5th, 1969 changed the face of comedy history for it was the day the world was given Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
President Obama has begun talking about the possibility of extending the school day, and while I think he is on the right track, he is coming at it from the wrong angle.
Well, that didn’t take long.
I’m not 100% sure who first thought to do this, but I would send them a huge thank you if I could.
Susan Boyle appeared on Britain’s Got Talent this week, and to say she wowed the judge and audience would be an understatement.
A United States Air Force 
