The Globe and Mail:

“Who better to lead America than a country already leading America in so many ways?” is just the beginning of Canadian Brian Calvert’s case, made in a YouTube video, for why Americans should vote for Canada to run the U.S. this fall.A scrolling list of things Mr. Calvert argues Canadians do better include healthcare, human rights, and the employment rate – along with big foot sightings, lumberjack fashion and bear attacks.

Seriously, America. Why not let Canada govern you for a while? What’s the worse that could happen?

Wired:

Usually, the only math required at a bar is tip calculation. But a new algorithm-based program from Miami company Drink Exchange makes ordering cocktails much like playing the stock market.If a particular concoction is popular, the software automatically raises its price. Conversely, the less popular a drink, the less it costs. Bar promotions (such as a sudden “market crash,” when all prices fall) affect prices minute to minute. Television screens and LED tickers display the prices so patrons can follow along—and throw elbows to get their orders in.The system is currently set up in 25 watering holes, and there are plans to be in 300 by year’s end.

Seriously? Would you do this? I don’t want to work this hard just to get a drink.

Mashable:

Verizon believes unlimited data plans are on their way out, the company’s CFO told investors at a Goldman Sachs conference on Friday.“The good news here though is the dilution is not as much as we expected,” said Fran Shammo, explaining how the company hasn’t seen much attrition after dropping its unlimited data plan in May.Shammo added that “Unlimited is just a word. It doesn’t mean anything…”

No – it doesn’t. Mostly because you cell phone providers have made it meaningless. You used it to sucker in customers and once you got your hooks into them, you removed or “redefined” the word to suit your needs – but not the needs of the customers.

So you’re right, it doesn’t mean anything – when weasels like you use it.

Mashable:

Traditionally, people keep dead presidents in their hearts, history books and wallets. Here’s a new place to look for fallen leaders of the free world: your Twitter feed.

Twitter is great for keeping in touch with family and friends, chatting with people about the day’s events and now – you can converse with (fake) dead presidents.

Yahoo! Tech:

Could the days of having to turn your cell phone off when flying be nearing an end? Aircraft manufacturer Boeing seem to think so. It’s begun the process of outfitting new models of its 747, 777, and 787 airliners with hardware to allow incoming and outgoing calls, with the aim of making them available to airlines by 2013.While this technology sounds like a boon for air travelers who’ve long awaited the ability to make calls while flying, they shouldn’t start celebrating just yet. Whether or not you’ll be able to fire up your phone in-flight still depends on the approval of government agencies such as the FAA who’ll have the final call on, well, calls from 30,000 feet.

Please Boeing, I’m begging you – don’t do this to us.

Wired:

Alton Brown of Food Network had strong feelings against Twitter, but an even greater aversion to Facebook. When his agent demanded he choose one, he picked what he felt was the lesser of two evils and began tweeting.To spice up his twittering, he began hand-writing notes, then posting pictures of them. Sometimes he’d doodle a message in Morse code. Or draw a sketch. Or set half of a paper message on fire, then tweet a photo of the remnants.

You gotta love Alton Brown.

Wow…Swedes are more uptight with public displays of emotions than Canadians are.

Esquire:

Stealing magic has become a commonplace crime. Teller, a man of infinite delicacy and deceit, decided to do something about it.

Fascinating story about the magic of Penn & Teller and how magicians protect their secrets.

I’ve always been fascinated glassblowers and love watching them work.

TIME:

On Wednesday, 18 workers were arrested for stealing the miniatures from LSG Sky Chefs, the company that provides food and beverages for American Airlines, CNN reports. The majority of those accused were LSG employees, but three were airport security guards. The arrests culminate a nine-month investigation known as “Operation Last Call” carried out by the Port Authority’s Office of Inspector General.Here’s how the whole scheme went down. At the end of every American Airlines flight, workers are supposed to return any unused bottles to a storage facility. Instead, workers began stashing the bottles to sell them to local liquor stores and bodegas.

I love those little tiny bottles of booze.

New York Times:

(Here) comes an actor, comedian and writer, seeking to make his way across the country in the next two weeks with only a dream and, oh, yes, instead of a dollar, a trailer filled with 3,000 pounds of a new bacon.The actor, Josh Sankey, will embark this week on a promotion for the Oscar Mayer division of Kraft Foods that is being called the Great American Bacon Barter.

This is just yet another lame attempt by Corporate America to leverage social media (and use the mainstream media as a promotional tool) and turn something viral. It rarely works and often blows up in their faces.

On the other hand – Bacon. So there’s that.

Wall Street Journal:

On Aug. 31, the Federal Aviation Administration requested public comment on its longstanding policy of prohibiting the use of personal electronics during takeoffs and landings. The restrictions date back to 1991 and were motivated in part by anecdotal reports from pilots and flight crews that electronic devices affected an airliner’s navigation equipment or disrupted communication between the cockpit and the ground. Over the years, however, Boeing has been unable to duplicate these problems, and the FAA can only say that the devices’ radio signals “may” interfere with flight operations.

Gadgets may not but the near constant whining of people who can’t use their iPads and Kindles and can’t entertain themselves for a few minutes might drive some of us insane. Our parents seemed to get along just fine on airplanes without needing to be constantly distracted by electronic gizmos.

Steve Simonsen:

This morning I received an urgent telephone call from my good friend Pam Gaffin. She was terribly excited about an event that was happening before her eyes. Pam told me it was a migration of soldier crabs also called hermit crabs and there were millions and millions of them she likened it to the migrations of Serengeti.

At what point do you watch this video and think, “That’s really….CREEPY!!”

Wired:

Amazon packed a boatload of new products, services and information into its Santa Monica media event Thursday morning. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced a trifecta of new Kindle Fire Tablets, new software services to improve the tablet experience, and updated Kindle e-reader models.

If you are a fan of Amazon and/or their Kindle devices, there’s a lot to like about these announcements. Amazon has a niche – customers who want access to the Amazon ecosystem – and are serving it well.

It may not be a two horse race but the other horses are three legged.

Associated Press:

The nation will have a chance to say goodbye to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, in a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 13.The 10 a.m. service will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the websites of the cathedral and space agency.

I’d amend that first sentence to “The world will have a chance to say goodbye…” Armstrong represents and represented more than just America. He represented the best in all of us.

PCWorld:

Is it time to give Java the boot? Experts say yes.Java, the programming language designed to make the web fun and interactive, has become one of the weakest links in a PC’s and Mac’s defenses against external threats.The risks don’t outweigh the rewards, security experts say. “I’d say 90 percent of users don’t need Java anymore,” says Dominique Karg, the founder and chief hacking officer of AlienVault, a security software company. “I consider myself a ‘power user’ and the last and only time I realized I had Java installed on my Mac was when I had to update it.”

When was the last time you used Java on your Mac?

Cool Material:

For some inexplicable reason, dessert has never been seen as a man’s game. Yeah, we’ll eat it, but baking never seemed to be nearly as manly as tossing a steak on the grill. If you’re ready to put your ego aside (at least partially) here are some desserts you could whip up that have a bit of macho in them.

“Chocolate-Dipped Beer Marshmallows”? “Bourbon Marshmallow Bacon S’mores”? “Beeramisu”? Well, there goes my diet.

Slate:

If you’ve ever met a Swede, chances are you asked her the following question: “What do you think of [ABBA/Ikea/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/socialized medicine/the Swedish Chef]?”

For Swedes, it’s the last of these questions—the one about the unintelligible, shotgun-wielding, and much beloved chaos Muppet—that is especially vexing.

Remember the Fawlty Towers episode where Basil says, “don’t mention the war!” Well, apparently Swedes can be a bit touchy about being asked about The Muppet’s Swedish Chef – who knew!? Turns out, he’s probably Norwegian.

Wired:

Though 12 men have walked on the moon, only one could be the first. When Neil Armstrong, who died Aug. 25, touched down in 1969 on the lunar surface, he and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin made history and photographed their landing site in detail.This fitting panoramic tribute transports you to the Apollo 11 landing site and lets you see what Armstrong saw. Stitching together photographs taken by Armstrong himself, the full 360-degree view shows the flat volcanic regolith where the Apollo Lunar Module landed.

This is another in a long line of amazing panoramas created by the brilliant Hans Nyberg.