Darwin Award Watch

In its original meaning, ‘tits up’ refers to being on one’s back and possibly dead. As in ‘they found Elvis tits up on the bathroom floor.’ In this vein we bring you the story of a true American hero.

St. Johns County deputies recently launched an investigation into what they called one of the strangest accidents they've ever seen when a man was found dead after getting stuck in a cat door.

Investigators said 32-year-old Charles Tucker Jr. was using the cat door early Saturday morning as a way to get back into his girlfriend's St. Augustine home after the woman kicked him out.

First, let us just say that we can but stand in awe of this guy’s libido. Second, how fucking stupid do you have to be to fatally trap yourself in a cat door? Definitely Darwin Award material. For those of you not familiar with the Darwin Awards, one award is given each year to the individual judged to have done the greatest service to humanity by removing himself or herself from the gene pool in the most incredibly stupid way possible. To say Mr. Tucker is a front runner would be an understatement.

The pure comedy gold in this situation goes beyond slightly delaying the inevitable idiocracy. Here’s an actual transcript of the 911 call:

911 Operator: Ma'am you're going to have to slow down. I'm having a hard time understanding you. Is he hurt?
Caller: He's not breathing.
911 Operator: Okay. If you want to perform CPR, I can help you.
Caller: I can't even get him out of my cat door. He's stuck.
911 Operator: He's stuck in a cat door?
Caller: Yes.
911 Operator: Okay.
Caller: I can't even get him pulled out. (crying)
911 Operator: There's no way you can get him out of there?
Caller: I tried to push him myself. I'm afraid to push the door open.

You have to love the response of the 911 operator upon being told the guy is stuck in the cat door. We get the feeling it was more like:

Caller: I can't even get him out of my cat door. He's stuck.
911 Operator: He's stuck in a cat door?
Caller: Yes.
911 Operator: (long pause) 'kaaaay...

As a personal aside, I would have had a hard time not laughing. This gives me the impression that I would be a terrible 911 operator. The conversation would go something like this:

Caller: He's not breathing.
Me: Okay. If you want to perform CPR, I can help you.
Caller: I can't even get him out of my cat door. He's stuck.
Me: He's stuck in a cat door?
Caller: Yes.
Me: AHAHAHA
Caller: I can't even get him pulled out. (crying)
Me: No! Don’t pull him out!
Caller: I tried to push him myself. I'm afraid to push the door open.
Me: I really want a picture of this. Do you have a digital camera? Yes? This is SO going on my Facebook page.

Tits Up: We laugh at the pain of others.

Update: It has been brought to our attention that we are probably going to hell for this post, which is quite possible. However, if you laughed, sniggered, or smiled, you are coming with us. So there.

Pandora Radio to go Tits Up

Popular internet radio site Pandora Radio may be going tits up soon according to the Washington Post and other sources. SoundExchange, the licensing and knee-capping fee collection arm of of the recording industry for broadcasting and performances, instituted a massive, retroactive rate hike last year, and time is about to run out for web broadcasters like Pandora.

The fee structure being imposed on webcasters is nothing short of punitive, at about 2.91 cents per hour per listener compared to 1.6 for satellite radio and 0.0 for regular radio. You read that right—due to historical accident and no small amount of lobbying by broadcasters, regular radio stations pay nothing to broadcast music. Of course, SoundExchange is trying to change that too.

Normally we cheer failure, especially when it happens to companies with 'Flash based application software' and '100% advertising supported' in the business plan. While running around gleefully flinging schadenfreude and insults like verbal feces is fun, in this case we feel somewhat bad. Pandora was pretty a cool service. An outgrowth of the Music Genome Project, Pandora used 'Music DNA' to identify elements in music. So if you tell it you like, say, Kenny G, it will look at its database of music and determine that you might like other music with 'acoustic rhythm piano, acoustic sonority, major key tonality', and other asshattery. It would then suggest and play other music with those elements. Enjoy your Yanni.

It is(was?) an innovative service and the suggestion feature even worked occasionally, which is why it's such a shame that it will be going tits up. The new fee structure is designed to drive webcasters out of business, which is just how the record companies want it. Web radio competes with tradiotional revenue sources, and it's hard to protect digitally streamed content from copying. Apparently the labels haven't figured out yet that once any one warez kiddie has a copy of your stuff, everyone does. It appears they would rather put web radio out of business than figure out how to make money on it, part of their ongoing strategy of litigation in lieu of a viable business model.

Perhaps the biggest failure in this whole sorry mess is intellectual property law as a whole. We have here an instance of entrenched interests being able to sue and bully a legitimate new technology out of existence. This is the exact opposite of the intended purpose of intellectual property law, which is to encourage and reward innovation and creativity. It's a lot like the nascent auto industry being sued into penury by the horse and buggy cartel. But fear not, failure fans. The record companies will be getting their own Tits Up obituary real soon.