It has never been easier to help – Simply text the word HAITI to 90999 you will have just donated $10 to the American Red Cross for Haiti. If you want to donate $100, do it 10 times. The donation will appear on your next phone bill.. All four major carriers (At&T, Sprint, Verison and T-Mobile) are now waiving fees for Haiti SMS donations.

In addition, American Express, MasterCard and Visa say they will waive transaction fees when people use credit cards to donate to charities helping in Haiti.

a look at the sad but true Music Industry FAILs – 4 Musical Mistakes Of The Decade ..

good article on Transformative v Incremental Change – a look at why big music just doesn’t get the internet revolution..

the story behind the UK ‘draconian pro-copyright plans’ of the leaked Digital Economy Bill (similar to the terrifying/leaked US Copyright Treaty)..

visual

some bizzarre + beautiful stop animation video as well as the very cool Khoda Project video .. an animated film using 6000 paintings..

everyone freaking out over this trippy + n@ked interactive site experience from Yeasayer [NSFW]..

fell in love with these bizarre drawings made out of dead flies..

geek

a must read : The War For the Web

Fake Steve Jobs talked about Apple’s patent application for an evil advertising scheme..

interesting + ballsy move by a Russian cop who used YouTube to fill Putin in on police corruption ..

wtf?

learned that some homeless cannibals got caught selling a corpse to a kebab house in Russia. um.. WHAT?!

a pimp cut off a Rabbi who was on 3-day ‘cocaine-fueled orgy’ binge..

and a Minneapolis dads poke only Klingon to his child for three years – for science (of course)..

I started sneaking into the Uptown when I was 15 to see the bands i loved play insane sets so close their sweat was dropping on you… it was the first (and last) bar i ever got carried out of, the first (and last) place I started a fist fight, the place where I met and fell in love with my first real lover and one of my very favorite places to work.

Although I stopped hanging out there a long time ago, I still feel sad tonight.

Wired noted that the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 could bring another round of tumult to the music and publishing industries, due to “provisions that allow authors or their heirs to terminate copyright grants — or at the very least renegotiate much sweeter deals by threatening to do so”..

Creative Deconstruction posted a great article on the problem with music streaming and why it’s only the beginning – got some interesting comments too..

And we witnessed the power of the “fully armed and operational” MPAA when they shut down an entire town’s WiFi over a single illegal download..

– VISUAL –

Instant Shift gave us 100 AWESOME Tilt-Shift Photographs to drool over – Tilt-Shift photography gives you that cool surreal “miniature” effect that i can’t get enough of.. check out the Tilt-shift video and iPhone app if you like these..

I fell in love with this dark Invisible Empire Series from photographer Juha Arvid Helminen..

And Newsweek posted the must-see video of the week – The Decade in Seven Minutes..

- GEEK –

LifeHacker gave us a priceless bookmark – the Repair or Replace Chart helps us determine what to do with broken gear..

On the heels of the news that the LHC is going to get fired up in the coming weeks – Discovery News quickly assured us that even if it DOES cause a black hole, it will be very small and evaporate fast (not the earth-munching kind of black hole).. so.. one less thing to worry about..

And soon after the Google Wave: Theory & Reality pic showed up on a hacker thread, Google announced that the Google Wave Invitation Donation Thread Is Open – we’ll see if that speeds things up any..

- WTF? –

In a flurry of Twitter activity, we learned that Rupert Murdoch is threatening to de-index his sites from Google.. to which Google replied “Do it – here’s how” since they send his sites (Fox News, Wall Street Journal, etc) 25% of their traffic.. but then some CEO (who used to work for Murdoch’s Digital Chief, Jonathan Miller) came up with a way Murdoch could actually hurt Google – by partnering with Microsoft’s BING.. so who knows what will happen next..

Sadly, I knew zip about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, so I was giddy with geeky-”wtf?”-excitement when I saw these 15 amazing hi-rez images from the MRO on the Coolist – and they are waaaay cooler than that even sounds.. and we found out there is water on the moon!

And we got the video to prove that – if you wanna drive your Oldsmobile from the roof using an iPhone – yeah, there’s an app for that..

On a completely unrelated note, I just downloaded the Tiltshift Generator iPhone App after seeing this image of Vegas (left), taken by Rob Sheridan.

Then @heideland sent me this cool tiltshift video – check it out:

Jack White’s Third Man Records to going to release “A Glorious Dawn” on Vinyl – if you’ve never seen the video, this is one of my all-time favorite things in the world

Explore Music posted 3 articles (and now a follow up) on 11 Ways the Internet Has Ruined Music – all of which contain great comments / conversations on thow the music industry is adapting..

Popular digital music industry service SoundCloud – aimed at artists, producers, A&R folk and label managers – will launch it’s official iPhone app on Nov 17th

– VISUAL –

I dig a lot of Japanese weirdness, but these toys are just creepy as hell

Fox News coverage of the Uptown Bar closing contains some awesome footage – including a guy dressed as Carl (from Aqua Teen) smoking a joint behind the reporter (at the 1:50 mark)

WIRED gave us a map of the future and io9 lets us view the details and gives us alink to print the poster :)

– GEEK –

Finally – the app I’ve been waiting for my whole life! Car Finder uses augmented reality to locate your car

TechDirt warned us that the FCC is poised to let Hollywood break our TVs & DVRs

Why? Because you can.. Build a Home Server in a Whiskey Bottle

– WTF? –

Not often we get a new ocean.. but there’s one forming in the African desert right now!

This electronic rock guitar t-shirt can actually be played (on your body) – hilarious video footage.

Ultimate proof of what an uber-geek I am – this What To Do If Romulans Invade a Renaissance Fair video had me laughing all morning :)

Okay that’s not literally what happened but c’mon.. they’re selling the entire Beatles Catalog for just short of free – singles $.25 / albums $3.25 – yeah that’s almost better than the average Russian MP3 site.

And NO – they don’t have any legal right to do so (whatsoever). They don’t have any agreement with the band – nor with the publisher, EMI. In fact, EMI filed a lawsuit against them on Tuesday and they didn’t even bother to reply (that I’m aware of), let alone stop. They never tried to hide what they were doing – their sale of the songs for dirt cheap has been in every music / news blog I’ve seen this week. This is full-on poking the bear.

The only possible explanation is that they expect the publicity from this stunt (and the staggering flood of traffic to the site for the cheap files) will result in future profits that will (more than) cover the cost of the judgment that EMI will undoubtedly (and rightfully) be awarded. Not to mention the other lawsuits that are bound to follow *yoko*

Read a more eloquent story about it on Beat Crave.

UPDATE 11/05 maybe they’re prepping an insanity plea…
- Read about BlueBeat’s (CRAZY) response! – via @artistshouse
- BlueBeat Website Claims It Owns Copyrights to Beatles Songs [Exclaim]
- Judge Halts Online Sale of Beatles Songs [Wired]

- Copyright Treaty Is Policy Laundering at Its Finest [DMusic, Nov 5]
- Leaked Trade Agreement Paints a Bleak Picture for the Internet’s Future. [Exclaim, Nov 5]
- New Copyright Legislation Leaked… and it’s reeeeal bad. [Studio Manifesto, Nov 4]
- Secret Anti-Piracy Treaty Turns ISPs into Pirates. [TorrentFreak, Nov 4]
- Your kids could go to jail for non-commercial music sharing. [BoingBoing, Nov 4]
- Secret copyright treaty is the most annoying thing you’ll read all year. [CrunchGear, Nov 3]
- Secret copyright treaty leaks. It’s bad. Very bad. [BoingBoing, Nov 3]
- Copyright treaty is classified for ‘national security’. [CNET, Mar 12]

LINK ♥ after a flurry of obituaries for Chuck Biscuits on Thursday, we find an equal number of stories announcing that the death of the drummer (D.O.A. / Danzig / Run D.M.C.) was actually a hoax..

LINK ♥ Relevant Magazine warns the Music Industry to “Innovate or Die. Seriously.”

Visual

LINK ♥ this absolutely brilliant digital graffiti interface allows people to “virtually” paint on walls.. no idea what they cost to rent but this would make ANY promotional event a guaranteed hit..

LINK ♥ pretty much everyone on the planet will need to prep something for print at some point – band/business logo, post/business cards, posters, etc.. so Smashing Mag’s 10 Pre-Press Tips For Perfect Print Publishing is a great bookmark..

Geek

LINK ♥ every Minnesotan needs a reminder to put together a winter car emergency kit – LifeHacker provides a checklist..

LINK ♥ a German book company pulls off a great stunt at a book fair – attaching little banners to (actual) flies and then releasing them on the crowd.. crazy. [video]

WTF?

LINK ♥ Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network warns us against ‘demonic’ Halloween candy.. saying, “most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches” hmm.. really!?!

LINK ♥ shortly after 62 year old MN man pimped out his la-z-boy, he drove it down to the local bar, downed “8 or 9 beers” and got a DWI on the way home (oh man I would have loved to have been in that cruiser).. now the cops have put the la-z-boy (complete with 8-horsepower lawnmower engine, stereo, headlights, cup holder and a “Hell yeah it’s fast” sticker on the back) on ebay..

LINK ♥ yeah Keanu Reeves is hot.. but is he immortal? some guy made a video which concludes that “it’s only logical to conclude that (he) is either a vampire or immortal“.. well of course it is.

They claim it’s “the world’s first wearable magazine” .. hmm, maybe it is that.. however, it definitely is a brilliant / unique marketing strategy for something I’ve not heard of before – a subscription-based clothing line model.

“T-post is a t-shirt magazine. And just like your favorite paper magazine, our subscribers don’t know what the story is about or who’s designed until they get it. It’s like getting a surprise birthday present in the mail every month.” – T-post.se