From a recent interaction with a Canadian:

Accordingly, we’re trying not to get too far ahead of everyone while still innovating like H-E two sticks.

“Huh?” says I.

No worries, I can shuffle around this odd bit of language. I’ll Google it.

Not a lot of people (16) using the term. Then it twigs:

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Aussie software pirate extradited to the USA because enough people downloaded software cracked by him and his cohorts that, had every single copied program been sold would have generated retail revenue of $US50 million.

In a fun aside, the article points out that anyone accused of pirating software worth more than USD$1000 could also be extradited.

Now I don’t know about you, but every time I’ve seen commercial software cracked it’s so that it could be used as shareware - try before you buy. Which I see as a perfectly reasonable thing to do, given the returnability and fitness-for-purpose clauses within commercial software - i.e. if it sets fire to your house, it’s your problem not ours. So testing before dropping hundreds of dollars on something seems sane. And those who would steal the software rather than test it were never going to buy it in the first place, even if it was impossible to pirate software. I really don’t see what the problem is.

In the meantime, the USA is the only country which voted against a resolution for an arms trade treaty to control the proliferation of small arms in areas of conflict.

I think the places that copyright law is taking us will lead to an uprising. This is getting ridiculous.

Raymond Chen writes about the notoriously complicated North American telephone dialling rules.

It would appear that despite the huge population growth over the decades, leading to more than 10,000,000 phones in many major cities (less than that actually, given phone exchange limitations and so on), nobody’s had the guts to change the (xxx) xxx-xxxx phone numbering system that’s been in action over there for the past 50 years. And apart from the issues with cities blowing the limit and getting multiple area codes, they’ve also got problems with cell-phones being tied to regions, rather than being truly nationally mobile.

In Australia we went through short-term pain for long-term gain, migrating from a phone numbering system that was mostly (xx) xxx-xxxx in the big cities (and a lot of variations in rural areas and for mobiles) to being uniformly (xx) xxxx-xxxx, which should allow for plenty of growth over several decades. Perhaps longer if fax machines and dialup modems (and separate lines for them) and even fixed-lines continue to die-off. It’s meant that dialling is pretty consistent.

On the other hand, it has to be pointed out that the North American numbering plan covers some 24 countries and territories, so I appreciate revamping it would be a helluva job.

Web sites must be accessible, under pain of having your ass sued off.

So no more Flash only websites, or implementing everything as images.

iPods also have lithium-ion batteries. Perhaps that’s why they grounded the plane.

No, they don’t support Talk like a Pirate Day, they support stealing IP. It’s the Pirate Party of the United States.

Arrrrrr!

Some Americans hate IVR systems. Oh, that’s Interactive voice response.

Pretend to be a Java developer by watching three webcasts, and get a free copy of Visual Studio.Net (US and Canada only). (via Jekke).

Check it out! The US military is trying to blow stuff up with lasers - project starfire, I think it’s called. They’re trying to use atmospheric distortion to focus a wide laser onto a teeny-tiny satellite. Of all the stupid ideas… oh well, at least all they’re doing is spending buckets of money.

Why is it Americans think the only measuring system in the world is Imperial? I want Sticky measuring tape in metric!

Gmail is now open to new (uninvited) members, at least for Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Turkey or the USA.

Curiously the signup process requires a mobile phone number.

The XBox-360 is out in the States. Those of us in AU will have to wait until March to get it. A$499 for the non-HD version, or A$649 with it.

Meanwhile some sneaky people on eBay have been selling what appears at first glance to be an XBox 360, but upon closer examination is actually an email address on Hotmail/Yahoo mail. Pity the poor fools that have bid for them. (via Lex)

Okay, now why does an eBay AU listing have a “Report This Item” link, but the same auction on the US site doesn’t? Ah, turns out it’s being trialled in Australia, with the rest of the world hopefully getting it soon…ish.