December 2009
46 posts
The End of the 00s: Made in New York, by Joel... →
New York is a town without time, but it has a date. I moved to the city after the attacks. These are the things that made me a New Yorker.
I lived in a studio built illegally on the roof of…
Uniforms For the Help Desk? →
An anonymous reader writes “I am an IT worker in a mid sized company with approximately 500 employees. There are 30 people on the IT staff, 6 of whom are on the help desk. Our help desk does have…
NetBIOS Design Allows Traffic Redirection →
iago-vL writes “Security researchers at SkullSecurity have demonstrated how the NetBIOS protocol allows trivial hijacking due to its design, through the use of a tool called ‘nbpoison’ (in the…
TSA Wants You To Keep Your Seat, and Your Hands In... →
An anonymous reader excerpts from an AP story as carried by Yahoo News about changes stemming from yesterday’s foiled bombing attempt of a Northwest Airlines flight: “Some airlines were telling…
The Fake Decade →
The years from 2000 to 2009 were unified by fakeness — high-profile charlatans penetrated virtually every area of life (as Frank Rich also pointed out). From fake celebrities to fake…
Why? (19)
Hymie’s Basement (9)
auto-tune the news (5)
Richard Vission & Static Revenger (featuring Luciana) (1)
Leo Laporte and the TWiTs (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
The 87 Lamest Moments In Tech, 2000-2009 →
harrymcc writes “The last ten years have been an amazing era for tech — and full of amazingly dumb moments. I rounded up scads of them. I suspect you’ll be able to figure out which company is most…
Marketing disasters: Westpac’s monkey business... →
It’s been a big year of marketing disasters for some unfortunate brands, with Westpac taking the mantle as the biggest loser in Mumbrella’s top ten list of the year’s Biggest Marketing Disasters,…
Detective draws gun at Twitter hyped snowball... →
A snowball fight on steroids (thanks to Twitter) on a busy street in Washington D.C. took an interesting turn when a cop pulled a gun on some kids for pelting his Hummer during the…
The Simpsons, by the Numbers →
¡Ay, caramba! With new episodes airing at least through 2011, The Simpsons, which turns 20 on December 17, has been on the small screen longer than any other comedy or drama in prime-time…
Public Apology: Dear T. →
Dear T.,
Sorry for telling you what I was thinking about when you asked me what I was thinking about.
There are times in life when we should lie. Junior year of college, in your bed,…
By the Numbers: The McSweeney’s ‘San Francisco... →
Last week, McSweeney’s published their gorgeous, 320-page, one-shot newspaper, the San Francisco Panorama. We have not yet gotten our hands on one, here on the other coast, but the reports…
How To Make Jokes and Puns →
Today’s Post reports that “An officer conducting an inspection at a Bronx narcotics unit last week found a soft-core porn movie playing on one of the TVs in the facility, police sources…
Simpson Arcade iPhone Preview: Steeped in... →
The Simpsons has enjoyed a lot of unique video games to its name in the last 18 years. Even the Grand Theft Auto knock-off, Hit & Run, felt special just because it was The Simpsons in all its…
Student Banned From Minnesota Campus Over Facebook... →
Be careful just how you vent online is the lesson from this story pointed out by reader kungfugleek, from which he excerpts: “A University of Minnesota student has been banned from the Twin Cities…
How Serious Is Justin.tv About Fighting Live... →
Justin.tv, one of the most popular live webcasting services on the net, will be testifying in a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning. The topic of the hearing: the…
ESPN "The Ornament" →
I don’t want a lot for Christmas, but if you the reader want to give me one thing….make it this lovely Hallmark/ESPN ornament! Via the Boston Herald…. Who knew Santa had time during his…
The Rock Princess and the Pop Rebel →
Let’s talk about two young women that have both dented the pop charts with hit albums in the past few months. One of them is a singer who’s an old family friend of Miley Cyrus, and has spoken…
Ads To Offset Cost of Unlocked Google Phone? →
CWmike writes “Google isn’t talking publicly about reported plans to sell a powerful Android-based smartphone called the Nexus One directly to consumers next year, but the idea is already raising…
Your Kids Are Bumming Out The Mall Santa →
The Wall Street Journal says that this year, mall Santas are spending their breaks looking bleakly at the wall and salting their mugs of bourbon with bitter tears. Why? Because your kids keep…
Your 2009-2010 Bowl Swag →
Ever since starting this site back in 2006, I’ve shared with you the goodies that each player gets for being in a bowl game. You’d think that college students wouldn’t be able to receive that…
Is Console Gaming Dying? →
mr_sifter writes “PC gamers love to obsess over whether PC gaming is dying, but bit-tech thinks it’s time to look at the other side and examine if console gaming is really as secure as publishers…
The Medium Is No Longer The Message, . . . You Are →
Editor’s note: This guest post is written by Seth Goldstein (@seth), the Co-Founder of socialmedia.com, which is building the first ad server based on people not pages. Its platform…
The Limits To Skepticism →
jamie found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: “Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever…
Porkers or Prophets? →
I think there comes a time in every young teenagers life where they realise this whole music thing is really, really cool. You’ll have some out there going on about how they listened to their…
The Key to Success: Do Stuff →
It goes without saying that you can’t be successful if you don’t do anything, but blogger Charlie Hoehn down how important failing and trying new things—even if it doesn’t fit any set path—is to…
Patton Oswalt (4)
Maria Bamford (2)
Cobra Starship (2)
Blakroc (2)
MaximumFun.Org (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Should journos have their Twitter profiles taken... →
So The ABC’s new comment and analysis site The Drum is up and running.
And it’s off to a speedy start – not least because editor Jonathan Green was able to get the message out to his 1800…
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UK Judge Orders Wikipedia To Reveal User's... →
BoxRec writes with this excerpt from The Daily Mail: “A mother trying to identify a blackmailer who posted ‘sensitive’ details about her child on Wikipedia has won the right to find out who edited…
Man "Beats" World of Warcraft →
Precision pointed out that a Taiwanese man has been named the first ever person to successfully beat World of Warcraft, getting all 986 achievements, completing 5906 quests and /hugging 11 players….
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The John Waters Interview: Sheila Dixon,... →
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The Troubles of Korea’s Influential Economic... →
Cloaked in anonymity, Park Dae-Sung became Korea’s most influential economic pundit. That’s when the trouble started.
This is a really good read on the anonymity of the internet and how the masses apply trust to people.
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New Zealand’s Space Mission Is Adorable →
In a quest to be EXACTLY the place where Jemaine, Bret, and Murray WOULD come from, New Zealand has managed to launch a wee little rocket just slightly beyond our atmosphere into a stratum of area that could technically be called space. It then triumphantly fell into the Pacific Ocean.
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Somali Pirates Open Up a "Stock Exchange" →
reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy…
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Scientology Charged With Slavery, Human... →
A formal complaint was filed in California (caged PDF) last week by John Lindstein naming David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology International as defendants. Lindstein claims that for sixteen years (from age 8) he was forced to work as a slave at Gold Base, a secret CoS site run by Golden Era Productions with ‘razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts, and three roll...
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The Awful Rise of Snuck →
Things are getting hectic over at Language Log, in a conversation about the rise of “snuck” instead of “sneaked.” (The chart at left: usage in the Times over the last few decades.)
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Special Delivery →
Best article from The Daily WTF in a long time.
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Reviews Of New Food: Canned Brown Bread
This fucked me up. Bread came in a plastic bag, not a can. I took the canned item from her and inspected it. It read: “canned brown bread.”
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Buy A Home, Get Free Can Of Food →
As if the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers wasn’t enough, Clayton Homes, a Tennessee-based seller of manufactured, modular, and mobile homes, is offering a little something to sweeten the deal: a can of pork and beans.
November 2009
94 posts
The Roots (9)
Owl City (5)
Daniel Johnston (3)
The Postal Service (3)
Jeffrey Lewis (2)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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‘Secret Millionaire’ episode held over debt... →
Nine was forced to drop one of its episodes of The Secret Millionaire after one of its benefactors, Leanne Wesche, accrued debts said to be in the ‘hundreds of thousands.’
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Media after the site →
Tweet: What does the post-page, post-site, post-media media world look like? @stephenfry, that’s what.
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India Hanging Up On 25 Million Cell Phones →
“India is about to pull the plug on 25 million cell phones in the name of fighting terrorism and fraud. ‘The ban by India’s Department of Telecommunications has been unfolding gradually since Oct. 6, 2008, six weeks before the attacks in Mumbai killed 173 people and wounded 308. A memo then directed service providers to cut off cellphone users whose devices didn’t have a...
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Arrington's CrunchPad Dies →
Michael Arrington announced the death of the CrunchPad on Monday morning in a blog post heavily spiced with angst and drama. According to Arrignton, the Cruchpad, a 12-inch Web tablet expected to be priced at about $300, was just days away from launch. At the last minute, however, Arrington received an email from Chandra Rathakrishnan, the chief executive of manufacturing partner Fusion Garage,...