Everyone gets spam that makes them scratch their head and wonder, “just what was this spammer thinking?” Well a cartoonist wondered the same thing and has started a website where he lampoons the worst of the spam with hilarious and clever daily drawings.
You can check out the rest at ASpamADay here. Thanks to Neatorama for the link.
If there’s one thing that Sony knows how to do well, it’s commercials. They’ve done another “tour du chapeau” with their latest ad, promoting various models of their digital camera line. This commercial was filmed in Miami using the world’s largest foam machine, which was custom-built for the very purpose of the shoot. Enjoy!
By Mark O’Neill
Some of us (including me) have shocking short-term memories. Mine is so bad that I constantly consider buying shares in the Post-It Notes company since I rely on them full time to run my life.
But if you could have a computer chip implanted in your brain that would turn your memory into a Google-like search engine, would you do it? How much would you be willing to pay for something like this? And what would be the possible side-effects of such a medical procedure? Would it impair your ability to be a normal human – to love, to feel or to think?
These are the questions posed by Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, who is the author of “Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind
“. It’s a very provocative question and one definitely worth thinking about.
The NYT article I have linked to above briefly examines how the human memory works compared to computer memory and then discusses how a human brain has problems recalling some things where a computer doesn’t. It’s a fascinating article and one worth reading. I am definitely going to buy Professor Marcus’s book also.
By Mark O’Neill
It’s not often that I am speechless. Whilst perusing through the New York Times Technology section, I came across a story about a search engine specifically for black people, called RushmoreDrive. I thought it had to be a joke and I checked the calendar to make sure it still wasn’t April 1st. Nope, it’s the 14th so I had to see if this was something serious. It turns out it actually is. What the….
From the New York Times article :
“Rushmore Drive analyzed search results for 3,000 of the most popular search terms in areas with large black populations and found that when people in those areas searched for recipes, they were much more likely to click on pages with soul food. Those searching for hair products, dance, cars, fraternities and sororities also ended up on vastly different Web sites than people who lived in areas with smaller black populations.
Rushmore Drive moves the Web sites preferred by black people near the top of the search results. “It’s not just prefixing ‘black’ into the search query,” Mr. Taylor said. “It’s sound technology.””
Now I want to be careful here as I don’t want to be accused of being racist (as I most definately am not and I have fought racism all my life). But doesn’t RushmoreDrive play into the whole “whites versus blacks” thing? If you set up this perception that we are two different peoples who have two different worlds then doesn’t that create barriers and problems, not break them down? Yes, it’s only a search engine but come on. Do we really need a “black people’s search engine”?
Please, I want us to have a constructive intelligent discussion about this. No insults, no racism accusations please. I’m genuinely interested to hear your take on this, whether you’re black or white yourself. I would especially like to hear from someone at RushmoreDrive about your motivations for setting up the site in the first place.
By Mark O’Neill
If you’re an avid Twitter user, you might from time to time find it difficult to keep track of who is following you. I personally only have a couple of hundred people following me and I don’t religiously follow everything that they all say (not that I’m rude, I just don’t have the time). But if you’re a really heavy user with a couple of thousand people following you, you might find it difficult sorting through everyone. You might also miss a good message or two. That’s where CrowdStatus comes in to mix things up and make things interesting.
Ever wondered about what’s really inside a U.S. blended cigarette? If you are a smoker and haven’t been given enough reasons to stop smoking yet, you’ll want to watch the following documentary. I know most smokers will dismiss everything said in the video as sensationalism, but as someone who lost 4 dear friends (who were heavy smokers) to lung cancer, and who died horribly by the way, I can assure you that the fact that they caught the disease was no coincidence.
By Mark O’Neill
Here’s a sneak preview of the upcoming Star Wars “Clone Wars” series that George Lucas is bringing out later this year. I am not a fan of animated programmes so I probably won’t watch it myself, but I’m sure there are a lot of die-hard Star Wars fans out there with their light-sabers and Jedi cloaks who will lap this up. Enjoy.
By Mark O’Neill
I am closely monitoring an online conversation today over a Twitter user’s decision to sell his account on eBay. This has raised the following questions – is a Twitter account worth anything financially? Is the guy betraying his “followers” by selling their loyalties and direct private messages to someone else? Thirdly, is he scamming the successful eBay buyer by selling them an account that may ultimately prove to be worthless?
More to the point, is there any value at all in a social networking account – period? What about a Facebook account? A Stumbleupon account? A Digg account? Is there such as a thing as “social network account squatting”? Set up an account, build up lots of nice contacts then sell it for a profit?
To be sure, this isn’t the first time someone has tried to sell online accounts for a profit. World of Warcraft accounts have been sold on eBay, and my girlfriend’s brother, who is highly active on Dark Age of Camelot, has seen high level accounts being sold for ridiculous prices on eBay. I have also seen people trying to hawk Stumbleupon and Digg accounts online for a few hundred dollars. I’ve even had direct sales pitches via instant messaging.
But I have never been able to get a satisfactory answer to my question – what REAL value is there to these accounts when the members or followers realize the account has been sold on? For example, If I bought Mr BabyMan’s Digg account tomorrow and everyone realized I wasn’t Mr BabyMan, what value would that account then have? Probably not very much.
As someone pointed out to me today, if it was a Facebook account with valuable contacts in it (phone numbers, email addresses, etc), that’s a whole different ballgame. But a Twitter account? Now that word is out that the Twitter account is being sold, that account will be toast and the followers will drop off like flies. If you were following that account, how would you feel being bartered and sold like a commodity?
I’d be extremely interested to hear your opinions on this one. Is there such a thing as “social network account squatting”? Is what Andrew Baron doing a bit on the low side or does he have the right to do what he wants? Readers, it’s over to you.
Johnny Lee, whose amazing Wii Remote hacks – which turn the $40 device into a digital whiteboard, multi-touch display, and 3-D viewer – have been a massive hit on YouTube, was invited to speak at the TED conference. Watch and be amazed by what a brilliant mind can do with a child’s toy.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dell will soon launch a low-cost laptop with a base price of approximately $399. With all that’s been happening in the world of cheap mobile computing in the past year, it’s not really surprising that Dell wants to have its own share of the cake. Since Asus and HP have already released their own low-cost ultra-mobile solutions recently, Dell doesn’t really have much of a choice but to release a similar product if they want to remain in the game.
The only details we’ve been able to get so far are that this notebook will feature a 8.9-inch display and be manufactured by Dell’s Taiwanese sub-contractor, Compal.
Dell’s new mini-laptop could be available for purchase as soon as June 2008.