Is this the future of the internet?

The British government has brought down its long-awaited Digital Economy Bill, and it's perfectly useless and terrible. It consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the "three-strikes" rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial), as well as a plan to beat the hell out of the video-game industry with a new, even dumber rating system (why is it acceptable for the government to declare that some forms of artwork have to be mandatorily labelled as to their suitability for kids? And why is it only some media? Why not paintings? Why not novels? Why not modern dance or ballet or opera?).

So it's bad. £50,000 fines if someone in your house is accused of filesharing.

At the present moment, the first page for a Google Images search for Lima has just one image of the city in a shallow but seductive sea of images (wavy hair, dipping waists, rising hips, stirring lips) of the supermodel Adriana Lima. This image is next to the only image of the city, which has a population of 7 million unknown souls.

The Danes are at it again. Check out Hit the Bitch, a domestic violence education site, but be warned that it will make you a terrible person. As far as I can tell, it isn't a viral site trying to sell wireless pancakes or whatever, but a serious attempt to show potential and actual abusers the error of their ways. The message seems to be something like "When you hit your special lady, there's an annoying lag before her bruises show up, and then you need to keep hitting her to find out what happens next." Spoiler alert: She falls down sobbing and the internet calls you an idiot, then scolds you in Danish. No screenshot = no PTSD triggering!

The folks behind it claim to be a Danish NGO (that's socialist for "nonprofit") that published a children's book titled It Hurts When Dad Beats Mum.

Thanks to Slog Tipper Mary!

The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner and Paul Hughes.

Then, while I was in our 10 a.m. news meeting, someone posted in reply a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman’s anatomy. It was there only a minute before a colleague deleted it.

A few minutes later, the same guy posted the same single-word comment again. I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it included.

After some detective work at the school, they located the commenter, who then resigned on the spot. Overkill much? The commenters on the post seem to be leaning more toward the "You did an asshole thing by forcing the guy out of his job" side of things, and Greenbaum seems genuinely surprised by the aggression from commenters.

(Via Edward Champion on Twitter)

Yes yes, FAIL Blog has brought us hours of schadenfreude-rich pleasure, but to commemorate the first full day of Mayor-Elect McGinn's triumph, let's accentuate the positive with SUCCEED Blog.

To the right is the Hair Sculpture Succeed. Here is the Obama Sushi Roll Succeed, and the Spaghetti Packaging Succeed. See the full roster of success here.

(And for a fabulous Dance Party Starting Succeed—filmed at the Northwest's very own Sasquatch fest—head over to Line Out.)

P.S. This was featured on FAIL Blog but like many FAIL Blog readers I consider it a success.

Didn't take Google long to catch up:

Google has announced a pact to feed Twitter's Web2.0rhea straight into its search engine, hours after Microsoft unveiled a similar deal.

"We are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results," reads a blog post from Googirl Marisa Mayer.

"We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months."

h/t: the Register

Also, speaking of headlines that would have made no sense 15 years ago, how about this one: Facebook Users Spend 8 Billion Minutes/Day on the Site

According to a recent Twitter message from Rainn Wilson (AKA Dwight from The Office, AKA UW graduate, AKA founder of Soul Pancake): The UW Alumni Group will not be sponsoring his speaking engagement at the school on November 6th so now he needs "a hall to bring my magic to my alma mater!"

Will some PLEASE give this man a hall!? He's interesting and hilarious and I would like to see him and I highly doubt he'd take me up on an invitation to speak at my house to me and my cat.

UPDATE: Mr. Wilson just Tweeted the good news; he found a venue. He'll be speaking November 6th, 6:30 pm, at Kane Hall.