Monthly Archives: July 2005
SONY Admits Paola Scam
Sony BMG, the world’s second-biggest record label, has agreed to pay $10m and stop paying radio station employees to play its artists’ songs The settlement follows an investigation into "pay for play" practices in the music industry, conducted by New … Continue reading
Nuking Spammers
Hiawatha Bray, technology columnist for the Boston Globe, has been covering the Spam Wars for quite some time now: "A couple of years ago, this column featured the prediction that the junk e-mail problem would be coming under control right … Continue reading
Dowbrigade Under Attack
Who is this Richard Davis, and what does he have against the Dowbrigade? We have been suffereing from intermittent comment spam for almost a year now, but as the attacks were minor and seemed to affect only older posts, … Continue reading
Chimp Heaven
This past spring, in a secluded patch of forest in northwest Louisiana’s Caddo Parish, a singularly bizarre bit of evolution unfolded. There, amid the sun-dappled pines and flitting birds, a pair of 40-something chimpanzees named Rita and Teresa — lifetime … Continue reading
Meathead Artist Shocks Santiago
An artist has shocked gallery visitors by filming herself with her face covered in raw meat. Gabriela Rivera’s video forms part of a controversial exhibition at Santiago’s Sala Juan Egenau gallery. She said: "My work is a metaphor for the … Continue reading
North Korea Goldmine for ESL
Any day now the Dowbrigade may be looking for a new job as far off the beaten track as possible. We are keeping our eyes, and our options, open. The following article makes North Korea sound like a promising possibility – … Continue reading
Welcome to the Petrocracy
In many of the science fiction novels of our youth, the world was run by mega-corporations which, in some cases wore vestigial trappings of democratic government, and in others had done away with secular government altogether. A hundred years ago, … Continue reading
Strap-on Skeleton
In our continuing series of adolescent science-fiction staples come to life, we present the computer controlled, strength-enhancing EXOSKELETON. In the novels they were usually built of space age metals, light and super-strong, suitable for asteroid mining and deep-space death matches. … Continue reading
So Walk
Reacting to the NYPD’s announcement Thursday afternoon that police would randomly – but routinely – search the bags of commuters, one concerned New Yorker quickly created a way for civil libertarians to make their views black-and-white. In a few outraged … Continue reading
Title Nine Unleashed
What is it about girls fighting that captures the male mind like a steel trap on a drunken bear? Somehow it connects the Sports Zone of the brain to the Sex Zone, which together make up approximately 95% of the … Continue reading
You Can’t Be Too Thin
Seems like every week or so these days, the Dowbrigade reads about some epochal, paradigm altering invention or experiment or innovation that is sure to change the world. Many of these items seem straight out of the science fiction novels … Continue reading
Living Dolls
About 40 models are living on the side of a building as part of New York City’s first-ever live billboard. Pedestrians are able to view the models as they live in the billboard throughout the day and night. The three-story … Continue reading