January 06, 2009

LiveJournal laying off 70% of its staff

LiveJournal: The Russian Bear Slashes a Social Network



The bubble in social networking has burst, decisively. LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut about 20 of 28 employees — and offered them no severance, we're told.


. . .


The company's product managers and engineers were laid off, leaving only a handful of finance and operations workers — which speaks to a website to be left on life support. Matt Berardo, a Yahoo executive hired on last summer, is also believed to be gone.


The company's Moscow-based management has told employees it blames the "global economic downturn" — the kind of pat excuse every boss is giving for layoffs, even when mismanagement or a bad business plan is really to blame. The brutal, abrupt cuts suggest something different: That Sup founder Andrew Paulson (above), who paid an estimated $30 million for LiveJournal a little over a year ago, has realized his expensive mistake in buying at the top of the bubble. Someone familiar with the company tells us Paulson lost the CEO job last summer to Annelies van den Belt, a former News Corp. executive, and was given the meaningless title of chairman; he's essentially out of the company now.

Mac-Based Jewelry

Etsy :: creativedexterity :: Creative Dexterity




Just in time for Macworld, via Violet Blue's Techyum.

Twittering "The Twits"

Twitter / twitTheTwits


Friend of the Newswire Sheilamonster has embarked on a bold new project: twittering Roald Dahls' classic children's book "The Twits." She's due to start any second now. Hit the link above to follow the book and cheer her on.

Britney's four-foot vagina

Twitter's veracity chewed up by Britney's four-foot vagina • The Register

Micro-blogging site Twitter had to temporarily suspend accounts belonging to Barack Obama, Britney Spears and other celebrities after they were hijacked by miscreants and used to spread scandalous and false information that appeared to come from their owners.

The attack on 33 celebrity accounts caused Fox News to apparently admit that news commentator Bill O'Reilly was gay and prompted a confession from pop celeb Spears that her vagina was four feet wide "with razor sharp teeth."

January 05, 2009

1970s Cracked Magazine accurately predicted 2009

cut cracked.jpg

** Jack ** says: Jesus. I mean, I'm happy for Cracked, but this also makes me sick. I mean, c'mon, CRACKED?? That was the best vision-for-the-future we could come up with? We've fallen so far.
Shaved heads, emo music, ipods, poorly-conceived government tax rebates, aging self-involved baby boomers (admittedly no stretch), it's all there.

1970s Cracked Magazine accurately predicted 2009 | Cartoon Brew

This post is slightly OT, as I am discussing print cartoons, not animated cartoons. I received several old issues of Cracked Magazine over the holidays and I couldn’t help noticing how one humor piece, predicting life in the 21st Century, was surprisingly accurate.

“Today’s Swinger is Tomorrow’s Square”, illustrated by John Severin, appeared in the 1974 annual Super Cracked (It was most likely a reprint from a 1970 issue). In it, the writer predicts that young people will embrace the “skinhead” look, home computers (”Electronic Home Teacher”) and even the ipod: as “electronic brain stimulators” and a “musical computers” that young people are hooked on.

The Daily Show: Farewell Mr. President

onegoodmove: The Bush Years: Farewell Mr. President


The Best Television Episodes Of 2008

The Best Television Episodes Of 2008 | The A.V. Club



7. Generation Kill, "A Bomb In The Garden"


The title says everything that needs to be said about the final episode of Generation Kill, Wire creator David Simon and company's brilliant adaptation of Rolling Store reporter Evan Wright's book about his experience as an embed with a Marine recon battalion in the Iraq War. In a stunning three-week campaign through the country, the Marines have forged their way through Iraq, overcoming poor armor, equipment failure, and inept, potentially disastrous decision-making at the top in order to get to Baghdad. Once they arrive, the war has created such chaos and destruction that the best they can do are little things, like defusing an unexploded bomb lodged in a garden where children play. It fits beautifully into an ongoing theme both here and on The Wire: That decent, well-intentioned people can make a small difference, but they're doomed to be let down by their leaders.

Commentary the musical -- the lyrics

Sing-Along Blog (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)


Commentary the musical is the hidden bonus musical on the "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog" DVD. It's surprisingly awesome.



02. Strike!


Music and Lyrics by Joss Whedon


Performed by the Writers


WHEN YOU START NEGOTIATIONS

WITH INTEGRITY AND PATIENCE

AND THEY JUST CRY “BATTLE STATIONS!”

WHAT’S TO LIKE?

WHEN YOU ASK A SMALL AMOUNT AND

THEN ENCOUNTER COUNTER’S COUNTER

AND THE DEAL IS TANTAMOUNT TO

“TAKE A HIKE”

YOU CAN’T SIT AROUND WITH YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND

YOU PULL IT OUT, YOU STAND UP AND

YOU STRIKE

Photo Gallery: Ice

Icy days and nights - The Big Picture - Boston.com





Ambulance crew arrested for letting man die, lying about it

Ambulance men arrested for 'ignoring dying man' - Telegraph



"Apparently their first reaction was to comment on the untidy and unkempt state of the house. Then they are heard to comment on seeing Mr Baker and allegedly saying that it was not worth bothering to try to carry out resuscitation to try to save him. They then are heard discussing what to tell ambulance control and allegedly decide to say that he was already dead when they arrived.


"Obviously the crew did not realise that the phone was still connected and, of course, the 999 call was all recorded on tape," said the source.


The unnamed ambulance staff were arrested after the tape was handed to the Sussex Police Major Crime Team.

Al Franken elected next senator of Minnesota

Panel to declare Franken winner of Senate race - CNN.com


Though Norm Coleman will still challenge it.





The canvassing board on Monday will say a recount determined Franken won by 225 votes, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told CNN.


However, Coleman's campaign, which contends the recount should have included about 650 absentee ballots it says were improperly rejected in the initial count, has indicated it will challenge the certification.


Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said his team believes the recount process was broken and that "the numbers being reported will not be accurate or valid."

Michael Ondaatje gets the worst questions

ondaatje.jpg (JPEG Image, 679x497 pixels)



XKCD: A Guide to Converting to Metric

xkcd - A Webcomic - Converting to Metric

Kids In The Hall -- Premise Beach

Kids In the Hall - Premise Beach

January 04, 2009

How the city hurts your brain

How the city hurts your brain - Boston.com

After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

"The mind is a limited machine,"says Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan and lead author of a new study that measured the cognitive deficits caused by a short urban walk. "And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations."

One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard. Even these fleeting glimpses of nature improve brain performance, it seems, because they provide a mental break from the urban roil.

This research arrives just as humans cross an important milestone: For the first time in history, the majority of people reside in cities.

Twilight of the color photo

Twilight of the color photo | As printed snapshots vanish, we're losing more than shoe boxes full of mementos - The Boston Globe

Our rituals have already shifted. We no longer hand vacation photos around patiently at dinner parties. If we do reach for our photo albums, the collections start to thin out around 2006. Family pictures migrated from our desktop to our "desktop," and showing off a wallet photo is suddenly very rare. Instead, we flip open to the snap on our cellphones, where our beloved's low-res face competes brightly with the time, date, and number of bars. (Many of our friends are smiling away inside that camera phone.)

Printing is still just as easy and cheap as it ever was, but given the option, we now prefer to save - or upload - instead. That tells us something about our appetite for convenience, but even more about what we want from photographs in the first place. The object itself, no matter how crisp and permanent, how lush or mysterious, turns out to matter less than our ability to capture, store, and share an image. Without the print, photography's magical power - to freeze a moment in time - is still ours. In fact, although we continue to think of the photograph as a physical thing, we are finding out that it better serves our needs without being printed.

But as with each of our advances, something else is being lost. It is easy to think of the print and the digital image as the same thing, but they're actually very different. Even as cameras tout their ever-increasing megapixels, nearly everything we view is projected out at 72 dots per inch, the standard resolution of a monitor. The resulting pictures are back-lit, vivid, and very easy to scan, so we hardly notice how hard it is to look into them.

You Rant, We Pay!

Poor Mojo's Alamanc(k) (under the auspices of her dread and noble Editor-in-Chief, the Giant Squid) is running a new $33-and-a-Third Meritorious Boon rant contest.

We're looking for rants on MY TRAVEL FIASCO:

  • There is NO entry or "reading" fee.
  • The best rant wins $33.33 and publication on Poor Mojo's Almanac(k)
  • All entries are due by FEBRUARY 28

    Check out all the details: The Current 33-and-a-⅓ Contest

  • Israel using cluster bombs in Gaza

    Think Progress -- Reports suggest Israeli forces using cluster bombs in Gaza.




    The indiscriminate killing of civilians is a war crime.



    Haaretz reports that, as Israeli ground forces entered Gaza yesterday, “hundreds of shells were fired, including cluster bombs aimed at open areas.” FireDogLake’s Siun writes, “The use of cluster bombs — which have a large footprint when initially dropped and then remain a threat for decades — in a location like the Gaza Strip which is so packed with people is horrifying.” (FDL notes that video footage seems to confirm the use of cluster bombs.) Last summer, a former Israeli defense official said that “the Israeli military used cluster bombs for two weeks during the 2006 Lebanon war without telling the Israeli government.” At the time, the UN decried the use of the bombs as “completely immoral.”

    Update: The "English has 1 Million words" thing is a hoax

    Language Log -- The “million word” hoax rolls along


    Essentially it's just an author trying to sell a book.



    In a previous installment of the Payack saga, I wrote that the Million Word March was "a progression that he turns on and off based on his publicity needs." So I can't say I was terribly surprised to learn that April 29, 2009 just happens to be the publication date of the paperback edition of Payack's book, A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting The World. What a stupendous coincidence that Global Language Monitor's word-counting algorithm has timed itself to accord with Payack's publishing schedule!


    A quick review for newcomers to the story. Payack's million-word claim first popped up on our radar in early 2006. In February of that year, Payack told The Times of London that "the one millionth word is likely to be formed this summer." Then in August 2006 he said it would happen that coming November. In early 2007 I observed that the Million Word March seemed to have gotten stalled, and speculated that it might have had something to do with the serious debunkage the claims had received from Jesse Sheidlower on Slate and our own Geoff Nunberg on NPR's "Fresh Air." As it turns out, the more likely reason for Payack's slowdown had to do with rolling out his book to cash in on the lexico-quackery.

    >Internet Archive: Details: Minutemen Live at 9:30 Club on 1985-01-03

    Internet Archive: Details: Minutemen Live at 9:30 Club on 1985-01-03

    I just got done watching "We Jam Econo," the very fine documentary about San Pedro, California's own The Minutemen. I had to watch it tonight because my wife is pissed I'm hogging the Netflix -- I couldn't bring myself to watch it. I didn't want to get to the part where D. Boon dies. But the filmmakers did a great job.

    Excellent audio quality on this set, the audience is into it and you could do far worse than to get to know this music.


    English Language to Have One Million Words

    ABC News: English Language to Have One Million Words by April

    ...from The Economist comes a reminder of a notable date of an altogether higher order. Is your stylus poised?

    It's April 29, 2009 -- plus or minus a few days. That is when the English language is expected to acquire its millionth word. This prediction comes from Global Language Monitor, an organization in Austin, Texas, which uses proprietary software to track and analyze trends in language. "Global English" is its particular focus.

    A million words doesn't really seem excessive, given 1.35 billion speakers of English on the planet. That works out to only one word for every 1,350 speakers.

    But the decision about just what is "a word" is not always absolutely clear cut. And just how do you count? Is dogs a separate word from dog? The Economist exudes skepticism but can't resist at least a brief celebration of the richness of English vocabulary, from the Scottish Highlands to Australia to India.

    CNN: US weapons 'killing innocent civilians' in Gaza

    The Raw Story | CNN: US weapons 'killing innocent civilians' in Gaza

    As Israeli warplanes continue to bomb Gaza, attention is turning to the role of American-made weapons in the deadly attacks, which have now killed over 400 and wounded 2000, including many civilians.

    CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr believes that Israel's use of American weapons against civilians "is becoming very problematic." She notes, for example, that the 2000 pound bomb which killed a Hamas leader and members of his family on Thursday "is part of the billions of dollars that Israel has spent buying weapons from the United States."

    Israel's use of American-made weapons in attacking Gaza has been a matter of offical concern for years. In 2002, the State Department announced it was monitoring possible violations of the Arms Export Control Act after the Israeli military used an American-made jet to drop a laser-guided bomb that killed a Hamas leader and 14 civilians in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood.

    January 03, 2009

    Creepy video: Strict Rules For Dating My Teenage Christian Daughter

    Strict Dating Rules Pay Off


    They all have the dead eyes of a shark.


    A collection of optical illusions

    Look At This...: Optical Illusions




    The orange circles are the same size.


    I just blew your mind.

    Israel and Hamas now engaged in texting war

    grinding.be --Text messages and phone calls add psychological aspect to warfare in Gaza



    srael and Hamas have mounted psychological warfare on each others’ civilian populations. Hamas says it is firing threatening text messages at Israeli mobile phones and jamming radio stations while Israel is bombarding Palestinians with menacing phone calls and leaflets.


    “The messages say that the Palestinian resistance missiles will reach you wherever you are and your government won’t be able to protect you,” said Abu Mujaheid, spokesman for the Palestinian Resistance Committees.


    Hamas says it can send up to 70,000 text messages but so far there have been reports of just dozens. “[Israel is] sending text messages and interrupting Palestinian radio and trying to scare Palestinians with their messages so we are running a counter campaign by sending text messages to Israelis,” Mujaheid said.

    Matt Smith named as new Dr. Who

    BBC NEWS | Entertainment | New Doctor actor is youngest ever





    Matt Smith has been named as the actor who will take over from David Tennant in Doctor Who - making him the youngest actor to take on the role.


    At 26, Smith is three years younger than Peter Davison when he signed up to play the fifth Doctor in 1981.


    Smith will first appear on TV screens as the 11th Doctor in 2010.

    Eddie Izzard gives private performance to survivor of Mumbai attack

    Izzard Gives Private Performance to Terror Victim | The Underwire from Wired.com





    Will Pike, a 28-year-old Englishman, was badly injured in the tragic Mumbai terror attacks -- shattering his body in a failed escape attempt. He has since returned to the U.K. and a spinal unit in a London hospital, hoping to walk again.


    During Pike's ongoing recovery, he and his girlfriend missed their eagerly awaited night out to see British comic Eddie Izzard. Pike's father wrote Izzard, asking if the comic could send along a note to ease Pike's disappointment and depression.


    Izzard refused. Instead, the star of The Riches and Valkyrie showed up at the hospital and performed his entire 90 minute stand-up set at Pike's bedside.

    January 02, 2009

    JPG Magazine now a fucked company, after fucking its founders out of the company

    LOL, kharma being a bitch and all that.

    The Raw Story | JPG Magazine shutting down next week

    JPG Magazine, a print and Web publication featuring pictures contributed by amateur and professional photographers, is shutting down.

    JPG Magazine editor-in-chief Laura Brunow Miner, in a post on the magazine's blog on Thursday, said that jpgmag.com would close next week and publication of the print version of the magazine would be halted....

    Nearly 200,000 photographers have contributed material to JPG since it was taken over more than two years ago by 8020 Publishing, now known as 8020 Media.

    Flashback: Poor Mojo's Newswire: Fucked out of your own company: The Real Story of JPG Magazine

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned about community-building, it’s this: Do Not Lie. People are too smart and well-connected to believe a lie anymore. So, with that in mind, the story I’m about to tell is absolutely true as I experienced it....

    In September, 2004, Heather and I went for a walk in Buena Vista Park and started dreaming up a community project. The idea was to create a printed venue for all the awesome photographers we saw online. That afternoon I checked: jpgmag.com was available. A couple months later, we launched the site. ...

    Discussing it later, Paul assured me. “It’s no big deal, it just means I’ll have some extra stuff to do, but otherwise we’ll be equal partners.” I believed him.... After 11 years of working at other people’s startups, I was finally the cofounder of my own. It was a dream come true....

    Unfortunately, issue 10 will be the last one that Heather and I will have a hand in. We are no longer working for JPG Magazine or 8020 Publishing....

    In one evening, Paul removed issues 1-6 from the JPG website, removed Heather from the About page, and deleted the “Letter from the Editors” that had lived on the site since day one.

    Fed funding for TV converters exhausted

    ABC News: Digital TV Subsidy Program Running out of Money

    The Feb. 17 transition from analog to digital television broadcasts looms and as many as 8 million households are still unprepared, but the government program that subsidizes crucial TV converter boxes is about to run out of money.

    People who still rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air signals — whether it is through rabbit-ear aerials on TVs or antennas on the roof — will see their screens go dark when the changeover happens. To avoid that, those people have to switch to cable or satellite TV, buy a television set with a digital tuner or buy a converter box that can translate digital signals from the airwaves into analog.

    To subsidize the converter boxes, most of which cost between $40 and $80 and can be purchased without coupons, the government has been letting consumers request up to two $40 coupons per home. But any day now, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the arm of the Commerce Department in charge of administering the coupon program, expects to hit a $1.34 billion funding ceiling set by Congress.

    Photo Gallery: the Ski Jumping World Cup

    Ski Jumping World Cup - The Big Picture - Boston.com