Steve Jobs is a gnome

So Apple launches the iPad, a new e-book reader and more. Big deal. Please let me be wrong, but I suspect it will be hopelessly locked to the shockingly bad iTunes software which will be needed to do more or less anything with the device. I also suspect you will have to buy e-books in a proprietary format - from iTunes. In other words just as uninteresting as the Amazon Kindle and other proprietary systems.

What I find a bit amusing though is the picture of Steve Jobs holding the iPad. Doesn't he look like a cute, little gnome holding a huge iPhone in his hand?

Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

The Berlin Wall - coming to a city near you

Apparently Gothenburg motorists are next in line to be subdued by the Berlin Wall of traffic, the road tolls. This abomination is striking arbitrary and with no regard to people's personal economy, and is providing yet another means of surveillance for the government. All in the name of making money. Tons of money.

I've said it again, and I'll gladly repeat it: Have a look at what's in store for you Swedes now that the pandora's box has been opened with the "congestion charges" in Stockholm.


Yes, this is a map of road tolls in Norway, with tons more tolls being built as we speak. And if you're interested in why road tolls are the work of the devil, read my post about it here.

Guilty until proven innocent

The mafiosos over at the record companies (yes, the usual "axis of evil", Universal Music, EMI Music, Sony Music and Warner Music) continue their crusade to make the world an insecure place to live. According to Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Industri and Svenska Dagbladet they insist that two of the Pirate Bay founders are still involved in the management of the site, and should be fined accordingly. Not only that, but they seriously expect that mere allegations should be enough, and that the accusers should have to prove their innocence! The witchburners of the 18th century would be proud.

Enligt skivbolagen har de två har brutit mot vitesförbudet "genom att delta i driften av fildelningstjänsten", och skivbolagen anser att bara det faktum att Pirate Bay fortfarande fungerar är tillräckligt för att de två ska anses ha överträtt förbudet - såvida de inte kan visa att de inte längre är delaktiga.

"So, you're not a witch, huh? Prove it, or you're obviously guilty and will be burned at the stake."

I actually had to read that last sentence a couple of times before I realized it was serious. The good old "guilty until proven innocent" tactics that most developed countries abandoned decades ago. You're kidding me. However I'm quite sure the court will continue to obey the entertainment industry no matter how seriously it violates basic human rights.

Rednex FTW

Never thought I'd say this, but after reading this article on Newsmill I've found a new respect for the Rednex-guys. Hell, I might even consider donating some money, just because they make such a great statement against the "axis of evil".

Bono says: Look to China!

U2 front man and tax refugee Bono comes out of the closet as a firm believer in China style censorship (more comments on this article are here, here, here and here). Who would have thought a guy who's based his image over the last decade on being some kind of human rights activist, would do a U-turn like this and embrace oppression:

We’re the post office, they tell us; who knows what’s in the brown-paper packages? But we know from America’s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content.

Sure, why not. Let's make a "noble effort" to monitor all user's Internet traffic (and just forget about details like multiple computers sharing the same ip address and other minor details...) in order to protect an outdated industry refusing to renew itself and instead demanding special legislation in order to keep the profit growing. Yeah, that's the noble thing to do. You complete moron.

I also love the part about the rich, evil Internet service providers and the poor songwriters:

A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

Swollen profits? Lost receipts? You might wonder what was in that pipe Bono just smoked. If anyone's making profit ripping off the "poor songwriters" it's the rotten to the core record labels. So please, Bono, stop embarrassing yourself by writing absolute bullshit about stuff you know nothing about, and stop promoting oppression and abolishing human rights in order to boost the profit of a vicious industry. It's really bad for your image.

If you want to read an intelligent piece of text on the subject, go read David Byrne's Survival Strateglies for Emerging Artists here. You don't have to be a slave to the CD manufacturing industry just because you want to write and/or perform music.

Or, if you're a friend of oppression, like Bono himself, read about how the Belarus are about to handle the "problem" of free speech and sharing of information. There are some good ideas to be found there.

The joys of modern aviation

A retard terrorist wannabe gets to board a plane with his undies full of explosives. Meanwhile my bottle of water is getting confiscated by the airport security, because clearly it poses a lethal threat.

Ah, the joys of modern aviation.

Limo madness

The Swedish taxpayers paid 3,5 million kronor to transport the fat, lazy delegates to the EU European Development Days 2009 in Stockholm in limos to and from the airport.

Unfortunately that's just pocket change compared to the costs of closing down E4 repeatedly during those days just so these overpaid bastards could get their fat asses to the conference without any interference from other traffic. Way to throw taxpayers money out the window and annoy the hell out of them.

My personal favorite was the Stockholm police refusing to let motorists know exactly at what time they would close E4, "for security reasons". More like "for annoyance reasons" if you ask me. How could knowing the closure time and therefore avoiding complete chaos be a threat to security? If I wanted to blow up one of these pompous bastards I wouldn't abandon the plan just because I didn't get the exact time for when this stupid idiot would show up in his limo, would I?

My God, the stupidity...

Plotting new evil

The "axis of evil" are gathered in the White House and plotting new evil in collaboration with the US government. What kind of insanity can we expect as an outcome of this meeting? More censorship? More oppressive legislation? More "guilty until proven innocent"?

Among those expected are Sony's Michael Lynton, Warner Bros.' Barry Meyer, Viacom's Philippe Dauman, NBC Universal's Jeffrey Zucker, Warner Music Group's Edgar Bronfman, Harper Collins CEO Brian Murray, Universal Music Group's Zachary Horowitz, the MPAA's Dan Glickman, the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol, IATSE's international president Matthew Leob, AFTRA'S Kim Roberts Hedgepeth, DGA president Taylor Hackford, DGA exec director Jay Roth and SAG's David White.

Yup, the whole "family" is here, ready to take on new acts of extortion, threats, bullying and corruption. In more civilized countries these bullies are actually convicted for their crime instead of given a carte blanche by the government to do whatever they want. Well, I guess if they refuse to give the "family" this carte blanche at this point they'll each receive a friendly reminder in the middle of the night, consisting of a severed horse head or something.

And why does it come as no surprise that there's no-one from the consumer and human rights side present at this meeting? Goddamn criminals the lot of them.

Damn choos!

My wife insisted to buy me a pair of Jimmy Choo by H&M shoes, and while I tried to resist I lost the fight and she ordered them on the Internet. So the first pair of shoes arrived a couple of days ago. The first impression was good, except the very notable smell of glue, they fitted nicely, but I soon noticed that the leather that was glued to the sole (I have to say I'm wondering how long these shoes are meant to last anyway if they're only glued to the sole...) was wrinkled at one point on one of the shoes. Back they went.

The next pair arrived today, they too reeked of glue, but imagine my surprise when I felt the leather and noticed several really rough patches, in addition to several visible wrinkles, like they had been worn for quite a few weeks (which they hadn't, they looked absolutely mint except for the irregularities in the skin). It basically looked like the skin from a very old, wrinkly cow with a rash. Not very nice, and obviously they're going back as well.

Now the question is how many times are we supposed to try before forgetting about it and finding some other shoes in some other store? How poor of a QA process does H&M really have, and how badly does this impact the Jimmy Choo brand? After this experience I'll always think of Jimmy Choo shoes as poor quality and overpriced. Unfair, perhaps, but this cooperation with H&M hasn't proven to be great PR for the Jimmy Choo brand.

Restrictions, restrictions...

Politicians never get tired of trying to restrict people's freedom, in any way possible. The latest, and probably least serious although extremely annoying, pointless and unnecessary is banning smokeless tobacco, snus, for council workers during working hours. This has been introduced by a number of municipalities in Sweden lately.

I'm struggling to understand how these municipalities are justifying this completely pointless invasion of people's personal life.

• Snus doesn't make workers less productive, as they are able to continue working while using it. Also, the users' mental state isn't altered in any way that could possibly affect work.
• Snus doesn't bother any third parties, unless looking at a person with a snus under his or her lip bothers you (in which case you should have your head examined).
  
• Snus is a legal substance.

What will be next? Banning coffee during work? Banning looking through the window during work? You can't just go and ban something because you don't like it. Stupid, ignorant bastards.