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Google, Web

Philip Garrido Kidnapping Case Displays the Reach of Google

Philip Garrido Case Displays the Reach of Google
Philip Garrido is, to put it mildly, a creepy dude. (We prefer to describe him as a tad 'rapey' looking). Everything surrounding the case of the confessed kidnapper, rapist, and now suspected serial killer is unsettling. The case gets truly bizarre and horrifying when you start looking at all of the online elements.

The most immediately disturbing, and most revealing, is Garrido's blog -- Voices Revealed. The Blogspot site, which he penned using the screen name themanwhospokewithhismind, is filled with religious ramblings, claims of controlling sound with his mind, and vague claims of being cured of a "problem," which may be a reference to pedophilia.

While the blog does offer rare and disturbing insight into the mind of the criminally insane, it contains little evidence of the true nature of Garrido's depravity. For even more horrifying direct imagery, you can turn to Google. The tent and tool shed compound that Garrido built in his backyard, where he is alleged to have held his victims, is clearly visible in the satellite imagery on Google Maps.

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Google, Web

Judge Orders Google to Identify 'Skanks' Blogger


Remember back in January when model Liskula Cohen was the target of a blog called 'Skanks in NYC?' The Google Blogger-hosted site featured embarrassing, personal photos of Cohen, and the anonymous author said of her: "I would have to say that first place award for 'Skankiest in NYC' would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen." The site was quickly taken down when Cohen decided to try and take legal action, but Google refused to hand over the blogger's identity, unless ordered to do so by a court.

Well, Miss Cohen has succeeded. According to the Telegraph, the Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden ordered Google on Monday to hand over the blogger's e-mail and IP addresses. Google gave the information to Cohen's lawyers, who plan to sue the blogger for defamation.

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Web

Cute-Seekers Overload Zoo's Panda Cam


The birth of a baby panda at the San Diego zoo attracted so many online viewers (perhaps one-upping the panda sneeze) that the zoo's webcam-feed up and crashed

Three-hundred-pound panda mom Bai Yun gave birth to a 4-ounce cub last Wednesday in front of a streaming webcam at the San Diego Zoo. Baby animals are always exciting (apparent after the Webby-award-nominated Shiba Inu puppy cam changed our lives), but the Internet may not be able to handle the fervor. Last Thursday, the video feed crashed as a mob of cute-seekers clicked to watch the one-day-old panda cub, the AP reported.

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Web

'Awful Library Books' Blog Showcases Absurd Texts

Awful Library Books Showcases Absurd TextsThere are tons of one joke blogs out there, but most of them are a tad low brow. It's a relief, then, to see Awful Library Books marry our love for quick, cheap laughs with something a little more sophisticated than stripper moms.

Awful Library Books was started by Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, a pair of Michigan public librarians who have taken it upon themselves to point out some of the outdated and absurd tomes clogging up library shelves across the country. The blog features scans of the covers of books like 'Dee Snider's Teenage Survival Guide' and the 1985 computer program guide, 'Star power: Mastering WordStar, MailMerge, SpellStar, DataStar, SuperSort, CalcStar, InfoStar, StarIndex, CorrectStar, StarBurst, ReportStar & PlanStar.'

Yet, if this blog becomes popular, it may drive interest to some of these obscure and ridiculous titles, annulling at least part of their argument for retiring these texts. [From: Boing Boing]

Web

Sorry, Your Blog Won't Make You Rich

Blogs are a dime a dozen (or, perhaps, a dozen a thousand). But don't think that just because there are over 133 million blogs out there, according to blog tracker Technorati, all of them are actually active. In fact, according to a 2008 survey by the company, of the estimated 133 million, only about 7.4 million had been updated in the four months preceding the survey.

The New York Times sought out some of these failed and retired bloggers to find out what had caused them to abandon their digital diaries. The Times found plenty of people who had just become too busy to keep a blog, whether it had been kids, school, or a job that eventually caught up with them. Others, who actually enjoyed some success, rebelled against the scrutiny and lack of privacy that came with their blogging.

The New York Times found that most, however, simply expected blogging to lead them to financial independence and were sorely disappointed when no one showed any interest in reading about their innermost whining thoughts. Judy Nichols started 'Rantings of a Crazed Soccer Mom' with dreams of book deals and a vibrant reader community. Instead the blog she started in late 2004, filled with complaints against the Bush administration and the heavily moralizing right wing, was dead by the end of 2005.

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Web

Career Bloggers Soon to Outnumber Attorneys in US?

As more and more major newspapers fold, in the face of dwindling advertisers and subscribers, bloggers are usurping their roles in record numbers. According to The Wall Street Journal, over 20 million people now blog in the United States. Of those, 1.7 million earn money doing so, while 450,000 primarily earn their livings through the blogged word.

Those statistics indicate that there are now more professional bloggers than there are computer programmers or firefighters. Career bloggers now also rival attorneys in number, which leads us to a question. When bloggers outnumber lawyers, who is going to file all of those libel and slander suits?

The authors, Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne, investigate some intriguing aspects of this journalistic shift. For instance, they ask whether or not bloggers deserve an official union, along with health and unemployment benefits. They also manage to throw in a few condescending and elitist shots at the blogosphere, accusing bloggers of having "limited standards and, for most, no formal training." It must be humbling to lose readers to the unwashed, untrained, and ethically-challenged masses.

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Top Lists, Web

Best Things Ruined by the Internet



The Internet has mostly made our lives better. We love Google for putting piles of information at our fingertips, and, without the Web, there would be no Switched. That being said, it's undeniable that the Internet has ruined some good things, as well.

The blog OMG Lists has compiled a list of nine good things ruined by the Internet (one of those things being lists). So, what good things in life will never be the same thanks to the Interwebs? Cats (thanks to the efforts of I Can Has Cheezburger and the LOLcat meme) are the saddest thing to make the list. We used to think cats were adorable; now, we just stand around them with a camera waiting to take funny photos to pair with a funny caption. Rick Astley also made the list, thanks to our least favorite Internet trend ever -- Rick Rolling.

Journalism also made the list, and it's hard to argue. Journalism used to be a highly respected, well paying occupation. Now, journalistic publications are fading and being replaced by blogs and news aggregation sites like the Huffington Post (and, uh, Switched). Not that there is anything wrong with blogs, of course. It's just that saying, "I'm a reporter for the New York Times," still carries a lot more weight than saying, "I'm a blogger."

Check out the rest of the list here. [From: OMG Lists]

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Web

Typealyzer Determines Your Personality Based on Your Blog

Typealyzer Tells You What Kind of Person You are Based on Your Blog

It isn't particularly revolutionary to suggest that your blog or Web site, and the language you use on it, could give a glimpse of your personality type. Using an automated language analysis tool to determine your personality type, however, is pretty interesting... if not entirely accurate.

The Web site Typealyzer, created by Mattias Östmar of the research firm PRfekt, uses an algorithm to measure the occurrence of certain words within a Web page and, using data from psychological research, renders a personality diagnosis of the page's author. Of course, Typealyzer isn't 100-percent accurate. It characterized the Switched staff as "guardians" -- highly organized, efficient, and respectful of authority. Five minutes hanging around the offices would completely disprove that.

You can see what your blog says about you by visiting Typealyzer.com and putting in its URL. Are you a guardian? An executive? A doer? Let us know in the comments, and tell us how accurate you think Typalyzer is. [From: Business Week]

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Computers

Desperate Wall St Housewives and Girlfriends Start DABA Blog



While their men sit in front of financial Web sites sobbing, Wall Street wives and girlfriends are now logging onto their own Web sites and commiserating, according to the London Times.

The blog, called Dating a Banker Anonymous, affords "DABA Girls" the opportunity to bemoan the dwindling passions (and allowances) they face in the wake of the economic downturn. Precariously perched between sarcasm and arrogance, the site's wit is undeniable, but its morality is questionable. One poster, under the alias "Jen," remarked, "I hope the government earmarked some bailout money for ex-DABA girls. Without my FBF [DABA slang for 'Finance-Guy Boyfriend'] subsidizing my lifestyle, I am seriously over leveraged with Saks," adding, "And I'm not talking about Goldman."

While it is easy to lambaste these women (and their male cohorts) as shallow and materialistic (if not delusional), it is more appropriate -- we think -- to look upon them as the embodiments of the United States' worship of wealth and its impending demise. We can only hope that, in light of the present economy, we here in the States can quit lusting after Paris vacations, coveting Paris fashions and -- above all -- admiring Paris Hilton. Maybe, then, we can again esteem those lamentably antiquated ideals of hard work, humility and charity. [From: DABA via London Times]

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Computers, Celebrities

Michael Ian Black Has a Love/Hate Relationship with Facebook


Poor Michael Ian Black. First 'The State' got canceled, then 'Stella.' He's since been reduced to one-liners on VH1's 'I Love the (fill in the blank)' series, and now he's had his Facebook account disabled.

The under-appreciated comedian had his account disabled for unspecified reasons, which led him to post a scathing and hilarious rant on his blog:
"How am I supposed to receive invitations to events to which I have no interest in attending? How am I supposed to keep up with what various high school students I have never met are doing? How am I supposed to install and then uninstall various applications because they are annoying? Facebook, don't you realize that these activities take up most of my waking hours?"
Black did get his account reactivated a day later, though that hasn't made him love Facebook anymore. He thanked Facebook's customer service for quickly reinstating his account, then went on to bemoan the company's 5,000 friend limit:
"Now I can go back to not being able to add more friends to my account because of your stupid f---ing 5,000 friend limit... for the first time in my life, people want to actually befriend me, and I am forced to ignore them... A lot of these people are dying. A lot of them are orphans. And quite a few are dying orphans with adorable puppies... Remember Friendster? They hated orphans and puppies, and look what happened to them."
We didn't even realize that Facebook had a 5,000 friend limit. Guess we're just not that cool. [From: Michael Ian Black, Via: Valleywag]

Cameras, Computers

'Cat Photographer' Takes Pictures With Collar Cam

Cooper the Cat Photographer Makes Our Heart Grow Three Sizes
We're not really sure why this is so interesting. It's no Puppy Cam, that's for sure, but Cooper, the Cat Photographer is oddly irresistible.

Michael and Deidre Cross embarked on a project about a year ago in which they strapped a light-weight digital camera to neck of their orange tabby, Cooper, once a week. The camera snaps a new pic every two minutes and the Crosses post them on a blog and on Flickr for the world to see.

Take a gander at the read link below to put yourself in the shoes of a cat for a while, and marvel at how the cat takes better photos than you. [From: Urlesque]

Computers

Release Iranian "Blogfather," Says Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Calls for the Release of Iranian Last month, the so called "blogfather" of Iran, Hossein Derakhshan was arrested during a visit to Tehran and accused of spying for Israel. Nobel Peace Prize winner and Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi is now calling for his release. She told a news conference in London, "I very much hope that he will be released soon, because prison is not the place for journalists and for bloggers."

Derakhshan made a name for himself after moving to Canada in 2000 where he started up a blog, in Persian, that taught Iranians how to set up their own blogs and was critical of the government.

Sadly, arrests like this are far from uncommon. Oppressive regimes like those in Iran, Egypt, Malaysia, and China have arrested journalists and bloggers in higher numbers with each passing year. There isn't much that we can do except repeat Ebadi's call for his release and add our voice to the cascade of those opposing censorship and the suppression of dissidents. [From: Reuters]

Computers, Celebrities

McCain Supporters Duped by 419 Scam?

McCain Supporters Duped by 419 Scam
We know that overzealous partisan hacks on both sides of the aisle will buy into any crazy accusation tossed at their political opponents, but this is the first time we've ever heard of a group getting so desperate that they were taken in by a so called 419 scam (like those Nigerian princes that keep e-mailing you about their inaccessible fortune).

In the last, floundering days of the presidential campaign McCain supporters, smelling the encroaching ass-whomping, latched on to rumors of the existence of a tape that contained Michelle Obama admitting that Barack was not a U.S. citizen. What makes this unique is that instead of being the unfounded mumblings of "strategists," the tale of the tape originated from a freely hosted Wordpress blog under the name African Press International (API). Despite glaring evidence of the falsehood of the claim (such as the fact that API was based in Norway and not registered as an NGO as they asserted), it began to ricochet around the right-wing blogosphere.

As defeat at the polls became more likely McCain supporters and conspiracy theorists began to hound API to release the tape. Of course, API hemmed and hawed, claiming to have handed it over to FOX, then demanding money, then implying a vast left-wing conspiracy was preventing the release of the tape.

Somewhere along the line, the tale morphed. Suddenly, the tape in question was of Obama Jew-bashing at a party with William Ayers, and Rashid Khalidi (whom by the way John McCain funneled $500,000 in grants to as chairman of the International Republican Institute). And now it was in the hands of the L.A. Times. Right-wing bloggers started collecting donations to buy the tape (from the L.A. Times and the API). When the bid finally hit $150,000 suddenly API demanded $2 million for the release of the tape.

Though it's not known if any money was ever actually paid to the scammers, the evolution of the scam could easily fill an entire chapter in a sociology or psychology text book. When truly desperate, people will believe almost anything you tell them as long as it agrees with their world view, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence of its falseness. [From: Hard News, Via: Boing Boing]

Computers

Brokers-With-Hands-on-Their-Faces Blog Records Market Woes in Pix


The facepalm is an expression that seems to be getting a lot of use lately, particularly on trading floors around the world as various global economic markets crumble. Traders hopped up on caffeine and sugar seem to be particularly emotive when things take a turn for the worse, making them quite entertaining to look at. That has spawned an aptly titled new site called "The Brokers with Hands on Their Face Blog."

It delivers just what you'd expect: regular samplings of investors wishing they'd chosen another line of work, or at least stayed home with the kids that day instead. The pictures are humorous for sure and it's hard to stifle a chuckle while scrolling through, but don't laugh too hard -- have you looked at your 401(k) lately? [From: Brokers with Hands on Their Face, via: BoingBoing]

Audio/Video, Computers, Celebrities

Ashton Kutcher Launches Gossip Blog

Ashton Kutcher Launches Gossip Blog
Not content to just make terrible films and older women, Ashton Kutcher is getting into the gossip market with a new blog called Blahgirls. The site offers a relatively light-hearted take on traditional celebrity gossip, lacking the nastiness of bloggers like Perez Hilton and the infuriating stalking of print outlets like US Weekly.

The blog is "written" by three animated teenage girls (that look like scraps from the South Park cutting room floor), who also star in short video posts in which they discuss celebrity news and gossip in a ridiculous caricature of what 13-year-old girls sound like.

What makes the site interesting, however, is that comments and e-mails from readers are replied to by the characters: Britney, Krystle, and Tiffany. Many of the responses come not from ghost writers or blog staff, but from an automated chat bot that generates replies and posts them without any input from a person. Believable artificial intelligence of this type is notoriously hard to implement, but as more and more custom responses are generated by the development team, the bot will become more... human, or at least that's what Kutcher hopes, according to an interview he conducted with the New York Times earlier this week.

People want their celebrity gossip, we guess. We're just glad you'll never see these newest members of the paparazzi chasing Britney Spears to her car. [From: NY Times and Blahgirls]

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