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29 May 2009 20:38

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Culture, Tech: Scientologists looking to game Wikipedia can no longer do so

  • Wikipedia banned the group after a hard-fought war of edits. Yesterday, the tribal council – a.k.a. the site’s arbitration council – decided to ban the religion and many members associated with it, due to a high number of self-serving edits. The money-laden religion, which claims that humans are reincarnations who lived on other planets, often gets criticized for supposedly bilking its members of their lifesavings. We personally think Tom Cruise should be making movies instead of editing his Wikipedia entry, personally. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 May 2009 14:29

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Culture, Tech: Twitter finally gets the kind of animated parody it deserves

  • It’s about time someone decided to parody Twitter in the way it deserves. Best part of the video is when the Failwhale shows up.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 May 2009 11:01

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Tech: The lack of DRM on “The Sims 3” makes it easy to pirate

  • 180,000 copies ganked via piracy source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 May 2009 21:46

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Politics, Tech: Is web music retailer Lala’s business model evil and bad?

  • One CEO’s criticism Perennial startup CEO Michael Robertson, most famously of the jerked-around MP3.com, claims that Lala’s model attempts to lock users into evil major-label-supported DRM for their most popular product, ten-cent web songs. He pointed specifically to a patent they own. Robertson has a personal claim, by the way – he currently owns competitor MP3tunes.com. source
  • One CEO’s criticism Perennial startup CEO Michael Robertson, most famously of the jerked-around MP3.com, claims that Lala’s model attempts to lock users into evil major-label-supported DRM for their most popular product, ten-cent web songs. He pointed specifically to a patent they own. Robertson has a personal claim, by the way – he currently owns competitor MP3tunes.com.
  • Lala’s defense Lala, which we use here pretty regularly (it hosts our Saturday Mixtape feature), claims that there’s nothing nefarious about what’s going on. “We’re trying to provide a way so that users can have more access to their music than they had in the past,” says CEO Geoff Ralston. It’s important to note, by the way, that you can also buy MP3s of most songs available at the site. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 11 Comments • Permalink

28 May 2009 21:04

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Tech: Wow. CNet says Microsoft’s Bing search engine tops Google

  • Google keeps improving in the area of in-search collation and display as well, but Bing makes Google look complacent, and that’s not good for Google. For the moment, Bing’s on top in this game.
  • CNet reviewer Rafe Needleman • On Microsoft’s Bing, the funnily-named new search engine designed to compete with Google big time. Needleman says Bing doesn’t consistently top Google, but it does it enough to make it look competitive. That’s OK, though; Google should be fine. Heck, MS totally got upstaged by Google today. But that said, Bing launches fully on June 3 keep an eye out. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 May 2009 19:14

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Tech: We’re convinced Google is showing off again with Google Wave

Google Wave screenshot
  • Look, Google, we get it. You’re better than us. In fact, unbelievably so. So stop rubbing stuff like Wave into our faces, OK?source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 May 2009 10:53

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Offbeat, Tech: Yelp is saying “Gulp” after ticking off an anti-rape advertiser

“Put the fun between your legs” perhaps wasn’t the right headline for an article on biking sponsored by an anti-rape organization. *oof* source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

28 May 2009 10:15

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Biz, Tech: Time Warner’s ready to drop AOL like a bad habit

  • AOL was a haven for newbies that was fairly popular, distributed too many free CDs and ran Netscape into the ground. source
  • AOL was big enough in 2000 to buy out Time Warner for $106 billion. Then Time Warner became bigger than AOL again. source
  • A decade later, AOL has completely lost relevance and Time Warner’s planning to spin them back off. Good riddance. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 May 2009 23:49

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Biz, Tech: Want to make money as a blogger? Post a freaking lot.

  • I found pretty early that the more you blog, the more people will come back. I had asked a friend to step in when I went on vacation. When I got back, the statistics had skyrocketed because he was blogging over 20 times a day versus the one or two posts I did.
  • Writer Mark Frauenfelder • Founder of BoingBoing.net, who quit his job at Wired to post blogs all day. He eventually hired more staff, including the friend who stepped in for him. Boing Boing began as a zine and now earns its founder a six-figure salary. It can be done. According to BlogAds.com founder Henry Copeland, pro bloggers can earn between $2,000 and $10,000 a month putting funny stuff on the Internet. So, there is hope for us guys tilling the soil at Caribou Coffee! • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 8 Comments • Permalink

27 May 2009 22:33

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Tech: Twitter creator Jack Dorsey and his fear of the Fadwhale

  • The buzz is definitely good right now, but it’s also potentially dangerous. It may put us into a fad.
  • Twitter creator Jack Dorsey • On the site’s biggest danger. He says the site works best when people don’t worry about the hype and just use it. We agree. He also talks about what extra services could be added to the site. That’d be awesome. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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