Daily Roundup, funny.

OK, and now for something a little lighter:

Tom and Ray Take on Cars and Dating

As part of our ongoing effort to help you understand what statement your date is trying to make with his or her car, we asked Tom and Ray of Car Talk to give their take on these cars. Here’s what they said.

Date Cars Driven by Men
[…]
Hummer H2: “You mean there are people in the world other than me?” Self-centered poser.
Dodge Grand Caravan: “Have I told you about my other family?” Somewhere, this guy has at least three or four kids you haven’t seen.
[…]

Date Cars Driven by Women
[…]
Ford F-250: “I like horses.” Warning: Horses are expensive, and you compare poorly to a stallion.
Porsche Boxster S: “I am extremely high maintenance. You should see my jewelry budget.”

[…] elisions mine, just sharing a few favorites there.

For the H2, they didn’t take the obvious line about a man compensating for the size of his equipment; I’m not sure if I’m disappointed they missed such an obvious one, or if it would have been a cheap shot.

They also have links to the Cars.com blogs on similar stereotypes.

Someone with a web server and a sense of humor…

Ebuyer.com runs on a Commodore 64

Online retailing can be a rough sport. The competition is rabid, customer loyalty is fickle, and IT expenses can go through the roof.

That’s why The Register can appreciate an e-tailer with a unique business model.

A hawk-eyed El Reg reader points out that UK online retailer Ebuyer.com appears to be cutting costs by running its site on servers dating back to the late Cretaceous period – roughly speaking. According to internet monitoring company Netcraft, the e-tailer has bypassed run-of-the-mill legacy servers for some serious heirlooms.

[…]

Next, you’ll find not one but two Commodore 64s. The Commodore debuted in 1982 with 64KB RAM, a 1.02MHz MOS Technology 6510 processor, and a 16-color, 320×200 resolution monitor. Not to mention a creamy BASIC 2.0 operating system.

AskANinja.com on NetNeutrality

Funny, although I’m not sure the analogy makes sense (then again, I’m not sure any of the Ninja stuff makes sense. But it’s funny.)

Via OpenLeft, where there is very nice article by the guy behind AskANinja.com to go with the video clip.

PS, yeah I know too much YouTube lately, not nearly enough writing. What can ya do?

A “Deathly Hallows” parodic summary

Potterdammerung [Mega-Spoilers]

Don’t read this unless you’ve finished The Deathly Hallows, don’t care about spoilers, are or just a jerk who wants to find out what happens at the end and ruin it for everyone.

Sadly the funny parts are pretty much wall to wall spoilers, but once you’ve read the book, this is a must read. If you are not bothered by spoilers, while you CAN read it without spoiling the book, I don’t think it would be very funny on its own.

Update: Another summary of snark, albeit written straight rather than as parody.

eBay, where the sellers pay YOU.

UK teen buys PS2 on eBay, receives box stuffed with £44,000

A young man in the UK got a serious shock when the PS2 that he’d won on eBay arrived at his home in Aylsham, Norfolk. The game system — which he’d paid £95 for — arrived without the two games promised by the seller, but with £44,000, or about $90,378. The boy and his family turned the money over to police, who are holding it until late September under the UK’s “Proceeds of Crime Act” while they investigate the case. A spokesman for eBay described the situation as “somewhat unusual,”

California == France?

Go have a look.

US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a convenient way of measuring and comparing the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. Put differently:

GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports)

Although the economies of countries like China and India are growing at an incredible rate, the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world – and by far: US GDP is projected to be $13,22 trillion (or $13.220 billion) in 2007, according to this source. That’s almost as much as the economies of the next four (Japan, Germany, China, UK) combined.

The creator of this map has had the interesting idea to break down that gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states, and compare those to other countries’ GDP.

“The Redistricting Game” and a few minor round-up items.

No, not metaphorical … this time it’s literal, via Slashdot:

An anonymous reader writes
“This is a cool redistricting game that was launched out of the capitol building in Washington DC last week. It was created by the USC Game Innovation Lab and has been getting lots of press. It’s about time someone took on a tough issue like redistricting reform using the power of the internet.”
It’s crazy that gerrymandering is actually good fodder for a video game.

Worth checking out.

Also of note, lately:
1) Not much here, sorry.
2) I’m starting a class.
3) I’m not traveling anywhere soon, except back east for a family friend’s wedding. Bummer.
4) Today’s big news story seems to have been Mayor Bloomberg leaving the Republican party. Does anyone else think he and Lieberman deserve each other?