This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I'm sure you'll agree, are staggering.

English as she is spoke: Introduction

Russian media reported today that the owner of the American Language Center, Vardan Kushnir, had been killed. According to the reports, Kushnir's body with massive head trauma was found in his apartment in Moscow.

The American Language Center provides English language courses for Russian speaking people. In order to get new customers, the Center reportedly organized the largest SPAM campaign in Russian history. A huge amount of SPAM was (and still being) sent to over 20 000 000 e-mail addresses belonging to Russian speaking people. They say that you can hardly find a Russian who has never received a SPAM advertising the American Language Center.

We talked about him on TIA a couple of years ago. It really was only a matter of time.

F-Secure : Someone got too much SPAM ?

If you wait long enough, a piece of outer space itself will come right to you. As Colby Navarro worked innocently on the computer, a rock from space crashed through the roof, struck the printer, banged off the wall, and came to rest near the filing cabinet. This occurred around midnight on March 26 in Park Forest, Illinois, USA, near Chicago. The meteorite, measuring about 10 cm across, was one of several that fell near Chicago that day as part of a tremendous fireball. Pictured above is the resulting hole in the ceiling, while the inset image shows the wall dent and the meteorite itself. Although the vast majority of meteors is much smaller and burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, the average homeowner should expect to repair direct meteor damage every hundred million years.

APOD: 2005 July 24 - A Chicago Meteorite Fall

No sooner do I blog about Google vs. MSN Search, than Microsoft sues Google for headhunting an exec who had responsibility for MSN Search. And it turns out I know the guy. Kai-Fu Lee once headed up the group next to mine at Apple ATG in the early '90s, specializing in speech recognition, and is one of the smartest guys I've encountered. He's a perfect fit for Google: articulate, bicultural, computational linguistics background, ran MSFT's China lab for a while, years of senior technology management experience.

It's hard to make noncompetes stick in California. I don't know the status in Washington practice, or which jurisdiction will apply here. Grab a bowl of popcorn, as they say, this could be a bit of a show.

Due Diligence: No Solomonic solution, please!

Another Bluetooth enabled idea coming out of the MIT Media Lab is the Cellular Squirrel that acts as a sort of conversational robotic secretary.

Oh Kirby...

Bluetooth Cellular Squirrel :: Blueserker :: Berserk about Bluetooth

According to an article in this morning's Boston Globe, that city's Mayor, Tomas Menino, has become quite peeved about frequent cell phone dead zones he encounters when he tours the city.

Yesterday, Mayor Menino and an aide went around Boston and tested Nextel service.

You are in trouble when the Mayor of a city like Boston feels that it is an appropriate use of his time to personally demonstrate how spotty your coverage is. Not "commission a study" or "hire a consultant" -- drive around with a Boston Globe reporter on a typical route to show where there is an is not coverage.

BBHub

Cross Australia off the list.

Stephen Cooper, operator of a Web site called MP3s4free.net, was found guilty of copyright infringement by Federal Court Justice Brian Tamberlin.

Although Cooper didn't host pirated recordings per se, the court found he breached the law by creating hyperlinks to sites that had infringing sound recordings.

Judge: MP3 site, ISP breached copyright: ZDNet Australia: News: Communications

Styled Form Controls
Accessible, pretty forms developed by Philip Howard

Radio and Checkboxes in CSS + Javascript. Spiffy.

Styled Checkboxes

Michael Panzner observes that while wages have kept pace with the cost of many goods and services over the past 20 years, Housing, Higher Education, and Medical Care are what are squeezing consumers.

Its pretty astounding that Energy doesn't make the top 3 over 20 year period.

As one of the comments notes, what this really talks to is the squeeze on the middle class. Those are the staples for upward mobility when they are affordable. Price out higher education while increasing educational requirements for good jobs (hello global economy) and you either rise or fall based on what economic position you find yourself in. Generally, fall.

The Big Picture: Wages & Inflation: 20 years

Friends and family of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson are preparing to pepper the sky with the late writer's ashes. His cremated remains will be shot into the air Aug. 20 from a cannon installed on a 150-foot-high tower behind his home in Woody Creek.

Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson's, has hired a Beverly Hills, Calif., events planner to oversee the event, which will be closed to the public.

"Hunter meant a lot to me. He was another hero and someone that I got to know very well because I played him in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.' We got very, very close," Depp said in a recent interview with AP Television News.

My Way News