The Internet has given us new ways to communicate to the world. It has changed how we live, but it will also change how we die. Before the Internet people had to read the obituaries in the newspapers or wait for a letter to learn an old friend had died. Now you can use your social network to know whether they are still breathing (and, no doubt, there is an app that can broadcast that fact).

This medium allows you to give some encouraging last words to the world that will live on permanently on the Internet. However, like the first time you were tagged half naked in the photos of a kegger after friending your grandma on Facebook, it has its downside as well..

(Image via gadgether.com)

Nobody does humanoids quite like Japan. The Japanese diaspora have come a long way in their quest to replace authentic human companionship with synthetic human companionship. Why, it seems like only 2004 (it was) that the Boyfriend’s Arm and Lap Pillow were introduced to an easily mollified public…

Pro Tip: The longer you stare at it, the more perfectly normal it looks.

We cannot help but stand up and admire the Japanese. They dove into the deep end of humanoid development without so much as a “Hey, wait, is this weird?”

And let’s face it. People smell. They secrete from unexpected places. They have mysterious markings that you didn’t put there yourself. And when you go to abruptly fondle their breasts, they start bitching and complaining and blowing it all out of proportion with shit like “You’re invading my personal space” and “I do not like it when you touch my breasts”.

At least with androids you can always count on them to just mindlessly go along with whatever depraved whims enter your meaty little brain, right? Not necessarily…

Recently, I escaped from the cubicle farm after seven years working as a human resources coordinator and started working from home. This has wrought many changes in my life, not least the fact that my social skills vanished in a month, but by far the greatest is the phone, which is blissfully, endlessly silent.

Here are the five phone calls that probably take a year off your life, every time you get them. I know they helped shorten mine.

5) The Sales Call

One of these days, sales departments will eventually figure out that for every sale they make over the phone, there are one hundred low level drones taking their calls who really want to do nothing more than tell them to burn in hell for wasting their time and trying to get the name of somebody else to annoy.

To be fair, the guy on the other end is just doing his job: salesmen can be required to make up to 150 cold calls, all day, every day. It’s not his fault: he has to throw strangers into an ax-murdering rage because otherwise he isn’t going to get his sales commission. Still, you’d think companies would learn that making people want to ax-murder their salesmen probably doesn’t do much for their reputation in the long run. It certainly reduces the customer base.

"Mm-hmm, go on. I'm listening."

Copyright law is an important part of society. It allows authors to make money on the works they produce and gives an incentive to create more. Society is made better by the artists and authors work.

However, changes in copyright laws over the years have turned an idea to boost creative output into one of the biggest blocks on creative output. Even the Catholic Church agrees. The Pope sent a letter to the World Intellectual Copyright Organization (which we downloaded off bitTorrent) saying excessive zeal for copyright was harming society. It doesn’t take a leap of faith to see how copyright law can harm society. Just consider how copyright can harm…

If there is something that won’t go out of fashion it has to be the tear-off advertising fliers. Since I’ve been a kid they have been all over the streets. The best parts about it are that you can have fun with it, everyone can do it and it takes so little time to make one. All you need is paper, a computer with printer, or maybe just even a pen, and a pair of scissors and you’re basically good to go.