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You may not be the land of my birth, but you’ve been home for over three decades. For the fun, the laughs, the learning, the opportunities and the pretty sweet life I lead, I offer my thanks. Happy birthday, Canada!

[via Reddit] I rather like these interpretations of the characters from South Park…

Click the picture to see it at full size.

I love this photo, and would love to have a water tricycle:

Click the photo to see it at full size.
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Here’s a chart from The Economist comparing per-gram cocaine prices around the world:

Click the graph to see the Economist article.

It would seem that it’s not just prescription drugs that are cheaper in Canada than in the U.S..

For an economic index that’s a little less illicit, check out the Economist’s Big Mac Index.

[This was cross-posted to Global Nerdy.]

Full Discloure Time: Before I begin, let me make it very clear: I work for Tucows. I hold the position of Technical Evangelist, and my job is to extol the virtues of Tucows’ services to technical audiences as well as curious laypeople.

The Domain Name Aftermarket

There used to be a time when a domain could fall under one of two categories:

• It was available, which meant that you could buy it
• It was taken, which meant that it was in use

That’s changed. These days, “taken” doesn’t mean necessarily mean that you can’t acquire it. Many taken domain names live in domain name portfolios, which are pools of domain names that have been purchased for later resale. The set of all such portfolios out there is collectively referred to as the domain name aftermarket.

Image from the Tucows Premium Domains Screencast. Click to watch the screencast.

Oftentimes, the “unavailable” domain name that you want is actually for sale, but most domain name vendors don’t make that clear — they simply say that the domain name is taken. Even if you’re aware of the aftermarket, you have to search several portfolios to see if the domain name that you want is there.

Tucows’ Premium Domain Names service makes life easier for customers of Tucows’ domain name partners. We connect our partners with a number of domain name portfolios so that they can offer their customers domain names from a number of portfolios, opening a universe of names that they otherwise wouldn’t know were for sale. Best of all, purchasing one of these premium domain names hides the complexities of transferring the domain name — the transfer takes less than 60 seconds, and to the customer, it’s as quick as buying an available domain name!

Image from the Tucows Premium Domains Screencast. Click to watch the screencast.

Want to find out more? Let me point to you a couple of places with the details:

• There’s an entertaining screencast with me chatting with Tucows Domain product manager Adam Eisner about Tucows Premium Domains.
• I’ve written version 2.0 of The Duke of URL, a cute little demo app that shows the Tucows API’s features for checking domain name availability, finding premium domain names and making domain name suggestions.
• Tucows also has an information page on its Premium Domains.

I like the simple, playful design of these new posters for the Toronto Humane Society:

Click the image to see the article about these posters.

There’s more on these posters at The Fruits of Imagination, the blog of the Leo Burnett agency’s Toronto branch.

It’s a bad week to be an airline, and a worse week to be an airline passenger:

• Computer Failure Grounds United Airlines Flights
• Cathay Pacific Airlines Lets Passengers Sit For 7 Hours, Then Cancels Flight
• Is Aviation in America at a Breaking Point, or are You?
• Airline Passengers facing a Long, Hot Summer
• Woman Says Breast Milk Kept Her Off Plane
• Too Many Passengers are Still Standing in Queues
• Continental Airlines Apologizes to Passengers After Sewage Overflow on Flight
• Plane Lands Safely at Logan After Landing Gear Trouble

• And last but not least, the Bile High Club: