Unilad: Argentina Loses Its Google Domain After Random Citizen Buys It For Just $5. “Argentina temporarily lost its Google domain after a random member of the public bought it for the equivalent of around $5. Taking to Twitter yesterday, April 22, Nicolas Kuroña said a google search had shown the domain ‘google.com.ar’ was available to buy, so he bought it.”
BBC: Canadian ‘sign war’ captivates the internet. “For the past week, the Canadian town of Listowel has been embroiled in a war of words via business signs that has captivated local residents and people around the world. It started as a battle between two businesses in the Ontario town – Speedy Glass and Dairy Queen (DQ) – and has since spread to the entire town and even further afield. Locals have been joining in, creating fun mottos for their business’ sign.”
Cult MTL: IKEA shared an instruction manual to teach their clients how to stay home. “After footage has been shared on social media of clients lining up outside various IKEA stores across Canada, IKEA has reshared an instruction manual from March 2020 in traditional IKEA format, teaching clients how to stay home.”
Reuters: Internet’s ‘Hide the Pain Harold’ accidentally used by Swedish COVID-19 vaccine website. “A health authority in Sweden unwittingly used ‘Hide the Pain Harold’ – one of the internet’s most-recognised figures – as the face of its COVID-19 vaccination booking website, officials said on Tuesday evening, adding the image had now been removed. Harold is actually Hungarian man Andras Arato, who in 2008 and 2009 posed as a model for stock photographs.”
Gizmodo: The Boat in the Suez Canal Is Still Stuck, But You Can Now Stick It Anywhere You Want With This App. “For all who have been captivated by the Ever Given, the ginormous shipping container boat that has been stuck in the Suez Canal for days, we have some good news. Before you get excited, no, the boat’s still stuck. But you can now stick the Ever Given anywhere you please thanks to the clever people of the internet, specifically one Garrett Dash Nelson.” I believe by the time you read this the boat will be unstuck.
The Verge: Zoom Escaper lets you sabotage your own meetings with audio problems, crying babies, and more. “Had enough Zoom meetings? Can’t bear another soul-numbing day of sitting on video calls, the only distraction your rapidly aging face, pinned in one corner of the screen like a dying bug? Well, if so, then boy do we have the app for you. Meet Zoom Escaper: a free web widget that lets you add an array of fake audio effects to your next Zoom Call, gifting you with numerous reasons to end the meeting and escape, while you still can.”
BuzzFeed News: This Woman Wins For Accidentally Getting The Most Hilariously Unfortunate Pandemic-Era Tattoo. “A trend going around TikTok asks people to share ‘the dumbest tattoo that you’ve ever gotten,’ and a Kentucky woman has completely taken the cake. Leah Holland, 25, had wanted to get this specific tattoo for two years before she finally did it.”
Techdirt: The Best Summary Of Australia’s News Link Tax / ‘Bargaining Code’ Legal Issues . “The Juice Media, an Australian outfit that is famous for making hilarious ‘Honest Government Ads’, usually for the Australian government (but sometimes for elsewhere) has put out a new ‘ad’ about the link tax in which they explain how it was a fight to take money from one set of giant rich companies, and give it to another set of giant rich companies, and not to do anything useful in between.” Includes several obscenities. Hysterically funny and also enraging.
The Register: Healthy 32-year-old offered COVID-19 vaccine because doctors had him down as 6.2cm tall with BMI of 28,000. “The problem was that due to his supposed stature, [Liam] Thorp had a body mass index (BMI) of 28,000. A BMI of 40 is enough to be classed ‘morbidly obese’ so you can imagine that the UK’s health service was concerned. The heaviest person ever weighed in at 635kg/1,400lb/100st and only had a BMI of 186.”
Geeks are Sexy: Mark Hamill Performs “Will You Wear A Mask? I Ask” #Staysafe. “Listen as beloved geek icon Mark Hamill performs “Will You Wear A Mask? I Ask,” a rhyming read-aloud picture book featuring two opposing characters discussing the need to wear a mask in public. The poem comes from the illustrated book of the same name by author Tom Ruegger. Naturally, Hamill, using his legendary voice acting skills, play the role of both characters, a shopkeeper asking the customer to wear a mask, and a patron who refuses to do so.”
CNET: SimpliSafe social distancing sweater sounds siren when others get too close. “Unprecedented times call for unprecedented sweaters. Enter the SimpliSafe Social Distancing Sweater, which sounds an alarm when other people get within 6 feet. The sweater for the COVID-19 era is a bit of creative PR for SimpliSafe, a purveyor of home security systems. The company did produce a working prototype of the pullover, however.”
Washington Post: Enjoy these tales of awkwardness and mortification from Zoom holiday office party season. “It’s not as if Lizzie had high expectations for her office Christmas party. Like everything else, it had been moved to Zoom. Like everything else, it promised to be a slightly weird, slightly awkward approximation of normal life. But the 27-year-old social worker wasn’t prepared for how weird and awkward. First warning sign: the food.” This is “Funny” as in “You’re laughing while you cringe so hard your body is a circle.”
The Verge: Roast your own Spotify listens with this snarky AI. “If you want to be judged, you open a page titled ‘How Bad is Your Spotify’ and you log in with your Spotify account. (It might take a couple refreshes on the ‘Loading your music library’ page.) This absolute jerk of an AI then drags you mercilessly while it pulls your playlists and top tracks. It asks you questions before it shows any results, in phrasing that gives the plain text the same aura as the girls who bullied me in middle school. Did you really listen to Clementine by Sarah Jaffe? (Yes) Like ironically? (No…)”
BuzzFeed News: This 5-Year-Old Girl Put On A Mask Before Going Shopping, But It Wasn’t Exactly The Mask Her Mom Was Expecting. “With everything going on this year, Raena Granberry wanted to get the Christmas cheer going early. Granberry, 38, was getting ready to go to Michaels to buy some decorations on Saturday and told her 5-year-old daughter, Justice, to go get her mask. Justice did, but it wasn’t exactly the mask that Granberry was expecting.”
BuzzFeed News: People Are Making Vaccine Memes About Moderna And Pfizer. “With an end to the pandemic perhaps in sight, people gathered to celebrate the only way we really can in 2020: with an outpouring of memes about the rivalry between two big pharmaceutical companies.”
