AmazonFail
Posted on | April 14, 2009 | No Comments
This weekend’s news that Amazon.com removed sales rankings for gay and lesbian books has coined a new term, already in heavy rotation on Twitter and the blogosphere: AmazonFail.
Kumar/Korea/Strike
Posted on | April 13, 2009 | No Comments
Mr. Penn, who played Kumar in “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” and starred in “The Namesake,” ended his run on the medical drama “House” as his character, Lawrence Kutner, committed suicide. “House” star Hugh Laurie had hinted at a major shakeup on the show, and Fox created a “memorial” for Dr. Kutner, complete with a tribute video and Facebook fan page.
But the fictional death also sparked a flurry of Internet searches from people unsure whether the character or Mr. Penn himself was dead. Several queries, including “kal penn death” and “did kal penn die” landed on Google Trends earlier today, indicating how frequently Internet surfers have been searching those phrases. Yahoo Answers also features a few questions from confused viewers, as do Mahalo and WikiAnswers.
Allison Puccioni, an imagery analyst at Jane’s Information Group, said Musudan had been largely dormant for about two years until January. Since then, as satellites have photographed people and vehicles moving outside the rocket facility, she has been studying it as activity picked up. “We knew the thread would be test, assemble and launch,” she said.
Days before the launch, she said, photos showed black sedans, an indication that VIPs were been driven in to see the missile.
“At this point, we have so many images, we could practically do a flipbook animation sequence of the entire thing,” Ms. Puccioni added. “You can’t get the whole story, but if you know enough about the features of the area, little things can tip you off.”
The song’s pro-labor lyrics include “Get ready to strike, get ready to walk the line” and “Protect my health care, don’t lower my wages / Realize, recognize, mobilize, stay alive” and even a shout-out to technicians who support U-verse, AT&T’s TV service.
It was co-written by Ray and Rachael Rodriguez, AT&T employees who are active in the Communications Workers of America Local 6222, as well as Riley Wallace, a Toronto hip-hop artist whose stage name is Special.
Ms. Rodriguez, who works as a customer service representative in AT&T’s Houston office, said the idea struck as she and her husband realized that most of the U-verse technicians he works with have been with the company for fewer than two years. “We just felt we had to come up with a creative way to reach this next generation of union workers,” she said.
Earthquake warnings
Posted on | April 7, 2009 | No Comments
A week ago, Gioacchino Giuliani (some news reports are calling him Giampaolo Giuliani), a seismologist at the nearby Gran Sasso National Laboratory, predicted that a large quake could occur soon after several small tremors. According to Reuters, his warning prompted vans with loudspeakers telling residents to leave their homes.
Authorities, however, told locals that the tremors were not unusual, accused Mr. Giuliani of “spreading alarm” and forced him to take his findings off the Internet.
Time reported Guido Bertolaso, head of Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, saying last week, “These imbeciles enjoy spreading false news … Everyone knows that you can’t predict earthquakes.”
After the quake, Mr. Giuliani demanded an apology for the denouncement. He told an Italian news outlet that “there are people out there who should be offering me apologies — and whose conscience should bear the full weight of what has happened.”
Seismologist Was Forced to Remove Earthquake Warning From the Internet
TwinPeaks/Paul/Ringo
Posted on | April 6, 2009 | No Comments
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr made a rare joint appearance, in which they reminisced about meeting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and meditating in India. They were followed by Donovan, Paul Horn (”You guys haven’t changed a bit in 40 years!”), Mike Love of the Beach Boys (”We came after the Beatles. We’re used to that, particularly on the charts”) and Moby (”I do feel like I’m at a meeting of Meditators Anonymous”).
David Lynch Live-Streams Paul and Ringo Reunion
Craigslist murder
Posted on | April 3, 2009 | No Comments
A 20-year-old Minnesota man who killed a woman he lured to his home with a fake Craigslist ad was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole yesterday.
According to news reports, in October 2007, the victim, Katherine Olson, 24 years old, responded to a help-wanted ad for a babysitter. She arrived to find Michael Anderson, who shot her in the back as she tried to leave. She was found in the trunk of her own car.
The prosecutor said that Mr. Anderson called himself “the Craigslist murderer” in conversations with other inmates.
A Life Sentence for “Craigslist Killer” (04/02/09)
Symantec/netbooks/Onion
Posted on | April 2, 2009 | No Comments
Speaking of the Conficker virus
Posted on | April 1, 2009 | No Comments
Cyber/Genius/Ghost-Twittering/20%
Posted on | March 30, 2009 | No Comments
AT&T has experimented with Second Life-like virtual environments to test its response to attacks. Its researchers, who are scattered around the country, create avatars that “visit” labs and run experiments. “We invented it because we were trying to cut down on travel,” he says. “We weren’t doing it to be cute. We were doing it to solve a problem.”
Showing a new contact-management feature called “Genius” that lets users see similar deals, he said “We stole the idea out of iTunes!” Kraig Swensrud, Salesforce’s vice president of product marketing, clarified: It’s copying Amazon, too, not just Apple.
He admitted that some of his tactics, like encouraging followers to re-broadcast another site’s RSS feed, are ethically murky. “If I do it, it’s clever marketing. If it’s done to me, it’s spam,” he said.
The section, called YouTube Edu, is the result of about a year’s work on the part of Google employees using their 20% time for outside projects, said Obadiah Greenberg, a partner manager at YouTube. Several of the search giant’s products and services, including Google News and its social-networking site Orkut, had a similar start.
Tags: academic > att > google > internet > law > security > twitter > wsj > youtube