You know that “why?” game that children like to play? Parents can win it sometimes — all it takes is a PhD?

(by Kate Bernauer)

It looks like France is about to lose the Internet. The Hadopi (“three strikes”) law came into force last week, and ISPs are already receiving tens of thousands of requests per day — expected to increase to approximately 150,000 per day shortly.

For those who are not caught up (rightly or wrongly) in this deluge of due-process-free banning from the Internet, US ISPs do not have to comply with more than twenty-eight such requests a month, due to the workload involved. And French law fines the ISP 1,500 Euros per day for unidentified IP addresses.

Assuming French ISPs can process numbers similar to US ones, that means they will likely be fined (as a group) approximatley one million euros every day under this law (and current conditions). A cost certain to be passed on to customers.

And that cost will grow with the backlog.

Which means that for those few Internet users left in France, their internet bill will skyrocket. Enjoy your 1,000 Euro/month Internet bill, if you can afford it.

Steampunk-themed sex toys. There is nothing else to say.

(A dolphin fetus, from National Geographic, found here.)

Getting your doctorate in the sciences usually takes four or five years. Sometimes a bit longer. But how long would it take without all the failed experiments and dead ends? David Ng asked this question, and the answer (for him) was six months.

We have all done it — blown across the opening of a bottle to make some beautiful music. Now a beer-maker has helpfully designed their labels to assist you in this endeavour.

PhD, illustrated.

(The Water Cube from the Beijing Olympic Games, now a Water Park. Via My Modern Metropolis.)

This just in: Dogs in the workplace make workers more productive. I hope this means that there will be an office dog soon. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a mastiff.

It turns out that today’s pop songs are awesome — just slow them down 800%.