• 75M number of users Sony’s PlayStation Network has; until now, they were just upset they couldn’t play
• six number of days it took Sony to reveal that users’ data was likely ganked by a hacker
• one number of weeks Sony expects the network to partially get back up to speed source

• » Sen. Richard Blumenthal has your back, gamers: The Connecticut senator and former state attorney general wants Sony to eat the cost of protecting users’ identities. “PlayStation Network users should be provided with financial data security services,” he wrote in a letter, “including free access to credit reporting services, for two years, the costs of which should be borne by Sony.” Bro also wants Sony to get insurance to protect users from identity theft. To put it simply — Sony’s kind of screwed, guys.

• Your emotions get wrapped up in it. It reflected a particular moment in time in our lives.
• Former Friendster user Jim Leija • Reflecting with sorry about the site’s decision to delete information stored on the site by its early users since the heady days of 2003. The current site, which allows people to store photos, blog posts and comments, will become an entertainment-focused site along the lines of MySpace, but with a focus on their current Asian stronghold. For folks like Leija, who met his partner Aric Knuth on the site, the death of the current Friendster is bittersweet. “All of our early exchanges were with each other through their messaging systems. We were writing early love notes back in the winter of 2003.” Fortunately, if Leija wants to keep his old data, Friendster created an app to do just that. (BTW, the NYT quoted Jason Scott — who’s kind of the internet archivist du jour and doesn’t like the cloud for this very reason.) source

• How was it that Brian Williams got on the telly last night and said the typewriter was dead when it really wasn’t? Well, Bri-man got his info from The Atlantic (well, The Atlantic Wire, to be exact). They got their info from The Daily Mail (who wrote a particularly tabloidy story). And The Daily Mail? They got their info from India’s The Business Standard, which quoted the owner of the factory in question, but didn’t check their info. To The Atlantic Wire’s credit, they did an update, noting that Swintec still makes electronic ones — most of which cost more than an iPad. But other sites kept the misleading info in the headline (looking at you Mashable). As Harry McCracken put it, while noting that you can still buy mechanical typewriters on Amazon, “There will still be people using typewriters long after all of us who are writing about this are gone.” Yep. Like prisoners. source

• dirty death Cremation has long been one of the two mainstream methods of corpse disposal. The burnings are not necessarily eco-friendly, though, releasing carbon into the air and using up a fair share of energy to turn a body to ash.
• clean death? Jeff Miller, a California state assemblyman, proposes allowing people to have their remains liquefied, a new process that uses 1/10th the energy of cremation. We can’t help but think this is going to hurt his political career. source

(via John Ness)

• I understand what’s at stake. It is not just getting behind a microphone and screaming ‘Aflac.’ If you’re a spokesperson you have responsibilities.
• New voice of the Aflac duck, Daniel McKeague • Speaking about his view of professionalism and responsibility as a corporate spokesman, which evokes a not so subtle reminder of why McKeague has the job in the first place. When Gilbert Gottfried posted deliberately offensive jokes about the Japanese earthquake and tsunami just after the twin disasters, Aflac cut him loose. We’re wondering, though — will the new Aflac duck voice just be McKeague imitating the old voice? Because the old voice was rather undeniably Gottfried’s creation, a voice he’s been employing in stand-up comedy, film, and television for decades. Getting paid “low six-figures” to imitate a funny voice created by someone else? Good work if you can get it! source

• Earl Albert Moore arrested: The man, sixty-five years old, is being held as the primary suspect in last week’s frightening attempted pipe-bomb/propane explosion at a Denver area shopping mall. It’s being reported that Moore left federal prison just one week before the alleged plot, and that the FBI now considers any relation between this incident and the 12th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings “unlikely.” source

• Farewell to Katie Couric: It was widely discussed recently, but now it’s official: the CBS Evening News anchor will be calling it quits, she confirmed in an interview with People. She helmed the network’s nightly news show from 2006 until now, replacing then-interim host Bob Schieffer. Couric made it clear that she’ll be back on the airwaves, though: “I am looking at a format that will allow me to engage in more multi-dimensional storytelling.” We’re very interested to see where she lands, and wish her all the best. source

• bed bugs… A well known parasitic bug that feeds on human blood for nourishment — they had been declining for decades, but the 1990s saw a return of the bitey little punks. New York City in particular has battled them in recent years.
• bug FOX! Media empires are not immune to bed bugs, either. In 2007, Fox News fought an infestation in their NYC HQ with bug sniffing dogs (!?), an entomologist, and the freezing agent Cryonite, as litigation today revealed. source

• Chernobyl at 25: Today marks 25 years since Chernobyl blew up, plagued as it was by a mixture of poor decision-making by its chief operator, Anatoly Diatlov, as well as a critically flawed reactor design. All these years later, officials and experts still debate the health effects resulting from the crisis; the UN concluded about 6,000 youths would/have suffered thyroid cancer as a result, while other scientists and organizations insist the magnitude of the problem is much greater, in the tens of thousands. Now, the containment sarcophagus around Chernobyl is decaying, to boot, so the building of “the shelter,” an enormous arch that would cover the entire plant, becomes more important than ever for the surrounding areas. source

• I wanted to dig into the whole group buying daily-deal craze and see if it’s as much of a win for merchants as it is for consumers. To test this out, I took one of my outlets and did a Groupon for it, and then did a deal through rival site LivingSocial. Let me tell you right now: It was night and day. Working with one company was a great experience. With the other, it was a mess.
• Entrepreneur Romil Patel • Introing a piece he wrote comparing the two most-popular deals services from a businessperson’s perspective. To put it simply, one had kinda-rough customer service and deals that confused consumers. The other was a pleasure to work with. Can you figure out which one he liked better? source