Is stupidity addictive? This is an example of management assuming that the people who made the poor decision in the first place, can be trusted to fix it unsupervised.

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080817070239900

Pizza Hut Sends Unsolicited Email To Apologize For Sending Unsolicited Email

Sunday, August 17 2008 @ 07:02 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

Pizza Hut apologized for sending an unsolicited marketing email by sending an unsolicited apology email. We've all accidentally hit send without ending the world, but the pizza-maker's flub is all the more egregious because they force customer who place orders online to opt-in to spam marketing. According to Pizza Hut, the error occurred while "testing new functionality."

Source - The Consumerist blog

Continuing the “law is global” theme...

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/17/020229&from=rss

Doubts On Yahoo's Human Rights Code of Conduct

Posted by kdawson on Sunday August 17, @01:48AM from the do-as-i-say dept. Yahoo! United States

Ian Lamont writes

"The US Senate has been pushing American technology companies to work with rights groups to develop a human rights code of conduct, which would help to guide their overseas activities. Yahoo now claims that it has established the 'core components' of a global code of conduct, and a more complete version will be ready this fall. However, the Industry Standard notes that there's a fundamental flaw with such efforts: US law is not world law. Following the local laws is a requirement of doing business in any country, and conflicts between corporate ethics and the law of the land in which these corporations do business are inevitable. The US Senate's push for such a code was prompted by a number of incidents, including Yahoo's complicity in the arrest of Chinese dissidents and a Chinese journalist."

If people will donate to a politician, who else will they send cash to? Am I missing an opportunity to get rich? (Perhaps a website explaining why you should not send money to websites? )

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/16/1748246&from=rss

Kansas Nerd Uses Net To Shake Up Political Fundraising

Posted by kdawson on Saturday August 16, @02:21PM from the will-it-still-work-once-everybody-is-doing-it dept.

ghostlibrary sends a note about Sean Tevis, an information architect in Kansas, who is running for state representative with the help of an xkcd lookalike cartoon and grassroots Net-based fundraising. Tevis had garnered more than 6,000 contributions, most of them small, from around the country, far out-fundraising his opponent. Major news outlets have picked up the story as a harbinger of 21st-century Net-based political campaigning. Reader ghostlibrary adds, "As a bonus, Tevis cites xkcd intentionally (rather than just ripping it off without crediting it) and, well, it's actually funny."

[Somehow it still fails to tell me anything about the candidate... http://seantevis.com/kansas/3000/running-for-office-xkcd-style/

Strategically, it isn't wise to anger your fans.

http://torrentfreak.com/new-u2-album-tracks-leaked-after-bono-plays-stereo-too-loudly-080816/

U2 Tracks Leak After Bono Plays Stereo Too Loudly

Written by enigmax on August 16, 2008

There’s little file-sharers like more than news of a little payback. Ever since U2 manager Paul McGuiness suggested that people using P2P should have their connection to the Internet severed, he has elevated himself into the ranks of ‘fair game’ in file-sharing circles - and therefore ripe to be pwned. After today, he’s going to want file-sharers executed - or worse.

Proving that if media can be seen, heard or touched it can be copied, songs from U2’s forthcoming album have been leaked online. Four tracks from the album, provisionally entitled ‘No Line On The Horizon’, have appeared on the Internet. The mechanism of the release is pretty comical - Bono blasted the tracks from a stereo in his villa in the South of France so loudly, that a passer-by recognized his voice and recorded them.

I love lists. I love not making this one.

http://www.webupon.com/Web-Talk/Journeys-to-the-Far-Side-of-the-Internet.212159

Journeys to the Far Side of the Internet

by R J Evans, Aug 16, 2008

There are parts of the internet that are just down right weird, strange, or simply have no seeming purpose whatsoever.

[My favorites: 404 Why Germany Lost the War Hypnodisc

I always worry that my students will decide I need a 3AM wake-up call (and a 3:15, and a 3:30...)

http://www.killerstartups.com/Mobile/getmooh-com-get-away-easily

GetMooh.com – Get Away Easily

Who hasn’t pretended to take a phone call to get out of a meeting or avoid saying hello to someone? If you still haven’t mastered that art, then you should see Getmooh.com. Through this site, you’ll be able to set prearranged phone calls to ring you out of any situation you might need rescuing from. For instance, say you have to take your ugly cousin out for a stroll, just set the reminders to call you at around that time and pretend one of your friends is sick. Another great thing about this site is that you can choose who calls you. Once you answer the phone, you’ll be able to hear Alec Baldwin’s voice, or another one from the wide variety of humorous voices. The greatest thing about the service has to be the fact that it is free. Y ou don’t need to worry about paying the site anything to get you out of situations, plus, it works around the world.

http://www.getmooh.com/