As a matter of fact, yes :) We've got all the letters for the name of our son (who is soon to be born), but the "A" you know, I am talking about those wooden letters for the wall by Nexxt. We've been waiting for two weeks now.

Apparently we also would have been able to reserve the $2.50 item at Kitchen Stuff Plus for a partial deposit (a cent? ;-) ) and they would have tried to get it from another one of their stores for us. However nobody told us about this. Well, 30 "A"s are on back order and 6 people are on the "Waiting for As" list.

You always have to read the fine print with any offer these days. So what does the small text in the Blockbuster ad here in Canada tell us (this text is actually from their website):

So this translates "no more late fees" into: You can keep the movie for up to 30 days for a 'restocking fee' of $1.75 plus tax. If you keep the movie longer you buy it possibly for the purchase price of a new item (see details on their site).

While I guess this is much cheaper than the usual late fees (I don't really go to Blockbuster, so I have no idea what the late fees were before this), to me this is certainly not the same as 'no more late fees'. Even if you call it a 'restocking fee' it still remains some type of penalty for returning the move late. Just my two cents.

[update]
After talking to one of my colleagues about this, I would like to point out that this change is still quite a money-saver for people who often keep their movies longer than the standard rental period ;-)

The EFF has released a legal guide for bloggers - a great idea and a great new resource:

EFF: Legal ...   more »

Hopes for legal music podcasts rise | CNET News.com

Dear Record Industry: Here's a chance to positively react to yet another change that might affect your business model. Are you ready this time?

Wait till I come! ?  Towel Day

Oh no, I forgot :(

As always I am running a little behind (this was published 6 days ago):
Americans are pants at password security | The Register

I wonder how many people couldn't actually tell them the password because they have it saved on their computer - not a very secure alternative.

Nokia - Nokia Sensor
Meet other Bluetooth enabled users in your surroundings, if they are using a Nokia phone with Nokia Sensor.

Note how the people in the Nokia demonstration constantly use their phone while it seems that they are with other people? ;-)

Google launches "My Search History" today, at tool that tracks all your searches. While some people cite privacy concerns, there could be advantages other than displaying customized advertising:

While you can also maintain a local history of searches, the centralized version gives the search the possibility to customize the results according to your anticipated needs.

Let's take an example - let's say a search for "xxx'". Joe searches for this term, and so does Martin, but both of them actually have different goals. Joe is really looking for information on porn, while Martin is interested in XXX, the movie (ed. I know this isn't that great of an example, I will update once I come up with a better one).

So if the search engine actually knows that Joe is searching for porn a lot, while Martin is very interested in movies, the search engine also knows how to customize the results. And yes, it also knows how to best customize the advertising ;-)

So as you see this would probably work the best for people who do more generic searches. And I would imagine that a lot of people use those; however I am not sure that those people would be aware of this new feature.

While I normally trim down my search results by making them more specific, I think that a lot of users rely on relatively generic terms and then actually don't mind browsing through a couple of pages in order to find the desired result. I would actually like some statistics on this, anyone?

Don't get me wrong, I do share the privacy concerns and what actually is done with the data, but I doubt that better matching of ads is the sole motivation here.

Chris just wondered what it would be like if there were a car that behaved like Internet Explorer.
Wait till I come! : If Internet Explorer were a car

Paying by Fingerprint at the Supermarket | Reuters.com


Convenience or loss of privacy? To me somehow this idea is not appealing at all.