August 2009
8 posts
You want your mail? YOU CAN'T HANDLE YOUR MAIL. →
Nicholas Moore, a postman who had two jobs, was so tired in the mornings that he habitually ran late and hid almost 6,000 letters and parcels rather than deliver them.
As the largest U.S. Lutheran denomination accepts... →
The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination took openly gay clergy more fully into its fold Friday, as leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to lift a ban that prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian people from serving as ministers.
People with complex Starbucks orders are why we... →
Starbucks Corp. is raising prices on certain harder-to-make beverages – and cutting the costs for simpler ones like a plain cup of coffee, the company said Thursday.
Failure at life / scandal-ridden former-NYT... →
Disgraced former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is now … wait for it … a LIFE COACH. Here’s a bit from his web site. Among the things he helps with: Career problems. Fair play, he knows all about that.
London Aquarium resorts to using Barry White tunes... →
The London Aquarium have tried everything to entice their tiger sharks to mate, but the frigid elasmobranchs just refuse to rut. Now, the piscatorial attraction have turned to Barry White and Wet Wet Wet records in an effort to boost the sharks’ sex drive.
Mark Cuban has a search engine. This is news to... →
Icerocket, the search engine backed by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, needs some help. Compete says it attracted just 224,000 unique visitors last month, and hasn’t done much better in the past year.
Microsoft continues to be the most uninnovative... →
From SAI: Microsoft is starting to shoot back at some of Apple’s strengths. Its latest move is to release a free, simple video editing tool to compete with Apple’s iMovie.
This week in Cool Ideas:Empty ink cartridges... →
We all know that those ink cartridge refills never really function perfectly as advertised, so rather than paying too much to have a lackluster printing experience, boxlightbox has decided to repurpose his empty Epson boxes into prepossessing lighting instruments.
July 2009
63 posts
Rich NY town tries to shut down children's library... →
Library Director Dennis Fabiszak has said that the East Hampton Village Board of Zoning Appeals has expressed concern that an expanded children’s collection would lead to more library usage by those who live in the less affluent areas of Springs and Wainscott.
Cartoon win! →
Cartoon by Mike Lukovich
Pay for your soda with blood money. No, seriously. →
While Japanese banks have been using the technology for a few years, now Hitachi has introduced a vending machine that eschew coins and credit cards for the veins in your fingers.
LOVE IT: In a Savings Shocker, the Government... →
With the budget deficit soaring toward $2 trillion, the Department of Justice has figured out how to play its part: double-sided photocopying.
And the Mom Of The Year Award goes to ... →
Thought you had it all set with a 14-inch TV and an NES in your room as a kid? Then you might want to look away for a minute, lest your childhood memories be diminished. Everyone else can take a good look at this 98-inch screen that Patti Deni had installed flush in the ceiling of her son’s bedroom.
It's a monkey/fox/cat/lemur! →
Fabio Röhe of the Bronx Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation Society and his colleagues just announced the discovery of a new monkey in the Brazilian Amazon, a petite saddleback tamarin with a foot-long tail and a pelt of rust, gray and dappled gold, while other scientists with the conservation group have lately detected new primate species in Bolivia, India and Tanzania.
Q: Is the AP run by idiots? A: Maaaybeee →
The actual declaration of war is a registry that will supposedly allow the organization to track all use of everything it creates, giving it the information it thinks it needs to twist arms.
Travel etiquette site explains how not to be a... →
Every culture has its distinct customs and traditions. Web site Travel Etiquette breaks them down by country to help teach you how to behave before you head off on your trip so that you can represent yourself and your home country well.
This week in LOLWTF: Really Weird Bird Anatomy →
The closer you look, the weirder Mother Nature appears. Some birds that look absolutely common on the outside have anatomical features that will surprise you.
'S.F. Chronicle' debuts massive two-page weather... →
The San Francisco Chronicle became the first client of the Weather Underground to sport its new, two-page weather map, color and all.
Holy crap it's a 250GB thumb drive →
Kingston Technology Europe Ltd, a subsidiary of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, has launched the world’s first 256GB USB flash drive, the Kingston Technology DataTraveler® 300.
Japanese phones are too hard to use for... →
In Japan people not only pocket far more advanced cellys than here, but use them productively. More than twice as many people use smartphones there than do in the States (despite less than half the population), but the companies making those phones have been hopeless when it comes to catering to the international mobile space.
Kazaa Wakes Up From Lawsuit-Induced Coma, Vows to... →
Kazaa has been reborn as a legal, paid music download service. $20 a month gets you unlimited downloads, 2005-style: in WMA format, wrapped in tons of DRM.
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iPhone turns AT&T into "a big, steaming heap of... →
Its visual voicemail system — which is the only way to be notified of voicemails on the iPhone — has been down for many users for days, if not weeks. And AT&T apparently didn’t bother to tell anyone. What does this mean? Thousands, or hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of missed connections, that could be vital for personal lives, business and a host of other things. I’m simply...
Rampaging toilet terrorizes children (!?!)
→
BEST HEADLINE EVER.
According to The Latest Word, Mr. Toilet got all crazy last weekend and bum-rushed a big water fountain where a bunch of kids were playing, spreading its “Use Only What You Need” toilet message hither and yon, while the kids were trying to play.
I can see every hobo using this on their iPhones →
iHobo is a spoof augmented reality application for the iPhone which overlays virtual hobo-signs onto real places. What are hobo-signs? They are symbols marked on the ground or other street-furniture so railroad-hopping, homeless bums can communicate over distance and time.
Apple And The Mafia Threatened My Life Via My... →
This is AMAZING.
A California man is suing Apple, claiming the company conspired with the Italian mafia to track and threaten him through his iPods, the Apple insider reports.
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Because on a typewriter everything looks more... →
New York Police Department officials said the city is spending nearly $1 million to purchase and maintain typewriters for the police force.
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Google dares newspapers to block them. Really,... →
Google is tempting online newspaper publishers, currently pressing for aggregation payments from the search site, to block its crawler if they really feel so strongly.
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Twitter has secrets. Shhhhh! →
Twitter has seen the internet flooded with 310 of its most confidential documents including partner agreements, financial projections and security passcodes after it fell foul of hackers. Here are six of the juiciest snippets from the company’s secret files.
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Yahoo! wants to remind you they're still (somehow)... →
Watching the developing battle between Microsoft and Google over operating systems and search market share, it’s easy to forget that Yahoo is kicking rear in its own ways too.
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What's $1 billion between friends? →
Google just announced in-line net revenues of $4.07 billion. But CNBC mistakenly reported Google’s net sales as $3.07 billion before correcting themselves a moment later.
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“I don’t know if they can’t make up their mind or what the problem is...”
–
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Google’s newest invention, Chrome OS. In case there was any doubt, this confirms it: Ballmer is the jealous type.
(via Engaget)
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Technology continues to make it easier to be... →
This clever homemade contraption turns your car’s cupholder into a laptop stand, letting you do work or watch movies while you speed down the highway.
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Q: Has bacon-mania gone too far? A: Probably →
Suddenly, it seems, a serving of bacon delivers a deeper meaning. It’s not the flavor so much as the fact that it gives you flavor.
W T F ?
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BBC to execs: No £££ for you! →
Bonuses for the most senior executives at the BBC are to be suspended indefinitely, the BBC trust said last night. The bonuses for the 10 members of the Executive Board, are being halted until further notice, trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said.
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RIM creates BlackBerry social network, expects to... →
The network, called MyBlackBerry, gives device owners a social profile where they can share opinions on their favorite apps, accessories as well as tips and tricks they use on their devices. More importantly, they can also vent about all of these things with fellow users, and RIM will be there to listen.
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“It’s 10 July 2009 and I’m calling “time of death” on...”
– From now-former Guardian writer Paul Carr’s column on the week-long “Traveling Geeks” events and TechCrunch Europe awards in London.
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Facebook employees can stop whinging and cash in... →
Russian based investment company Digital Sky Technologies (DST) has agreed to purchase up to $100 million of Facebook common stock. The deal will mean Facebook shareholders, who up until now have had to hold on to their shares, will now be able to earn a dollar or two from their commitment to the company.
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Without newspapers how will we make fun paper... →
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Non-news: Young Republicans elect a new... →
A Louisiana woman won the top job in the Young Republican National Federation on Saturday despite a national flap over racial comments about the president on her Facebook account.
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Men realise they screwed everything up, ask women... →
The sexy new discussion in policy circles around the world, thanks to the recession, is whether a significant shift of power from men to women is underway — or whether it should be.
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Techies chomping at the bit about Chrome OS →
Sarah Perez, one of RWW’s feature writers, wrote an insightful post outlining 10 things that people are dying to know about Google Chrome OS.
Asia has been Facebook'd →
The number of Facebook user increased in May by 296% in Malaysia, 257% in Taiwan, 171% in Singapore, according to ComScore Media Metrix data cited by Pandey. The number of users in the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia have also been growing considerably.
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Mel Gibson Hoping You'll Pay $12 to Watch Him Have... →
Noted crazy Mel Gibson will star in the film The Beaver for noted lesbian Jodie Foster, who will direct and co-star. The film, once thought to be a project for Steve Carell, is about a man who finds comfort in a beaver hand puppet.
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Yes this is a taser-shotgun →
Taser has announced two versions of XREP. There’s a finned round for standard shotguns, and a rifled version for the Taser X12 Less Lethal Shotgun, made by Mossberg. The X12 is customised for low-velocity rounds (like bean bags and XREP) and rifled for greater accuracy. The bright yellow color warns users that it is less-lethal only and the weapon will not accept standard shotgun rounds.
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L.A. and Google officially sharing the same bed →
The MTA is the latest transit agency to join forces with Google to connect transit information on the interactive maps. According to the MTA, users will be able to get bus and train route information, schedules and stop locations using Google maps.
Why there are no paparazzi in Sweden →
Four major Swedish newspapers have threatened to boycott a Britney Spears concert in Stockholm because of restrictions imposed on their photographers.