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Posts Tagged ‘internet madness’

A Coal/Nuclear/Solar Energy Faceoff That Is Almost Real

Seth Schiesel wrote a fascinating piece in the Times about a new collaboration between game maker Electronic Arts and the energy company BP in designing the latest version of E.A.’s SimCity computer game. In case you don’t know, SimCity “focuses on building and managing a modern metropolis.” As Schiesel tells us, “coping with environmental pollution has long been part of . . .



Here Are the Answers to Your Craigslist Questions

Courtesy of Craigslist Last week, you submitted lots and lots of questions for Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, the founder and CEO, respectively, of Craigslist. They couldn’t answer every question but I think you’ll agree they’ve given us a lot of good answers, time, and ideas. I was particularly intrigued by Jim’s statement that investigative journalism has actually been damaged . . .



Questions About Craigslist? Ask Craig (and Jim)

Raise your hand if you’ve never visited Craigslist. Just as I thought: I don’t see many raised hands out there. In my opinion, Craigslist is one of the most revolutionary elements of the Internet revolution: simple, scalable, useful, powerful, and therefore omnipresent. So I am very happy to announce that Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, the company’s founder and CEO, . . .



The FREAK-est Links

Does the Internet need replacing? Airport security to focus on remote-control toys. (Earlier) Can cheating in online games be stopped? (Earlier) Woman sues for $1 million over iPhone price cut. (Earlier)



Salvation for a Chronically Late Adopter

Two weeks ago, I blogged about my inability to recognize how new technologies would change my life for the better. I typically wait years to adopt things, then do so grudgingly, only to find within days that I don’t know how I ever lived without them. I asked our readers to offer suggestions about my next life-changing technology. The enticement: . . .



Is OpenID the Solution to Online Identity Theft?

In March, Dubner and Levitt tackled the realities of identity theft. Now, with phishing scams getting ever cleverer, state government databases leaving sensitive private information accessible to the world, and identity thieves expanding their schemes into Web giants like Facebook, it’s worth asking: how will the problem of identity theft be solved? Technology innovators have been plugging away, of course, . . .



Advice for a Chronically Late Adopter?

I’m a notoriously late adopter of technologies. It is not a conscious decision, and I don’t take any pride in it. I just do not have enough imagination to figure out ahead of time how much I will like things once I actually have them. E-mail is a good example. I couldn’t see how e-mail would be of much use . . .



The FREAK-est Links

Send in your nominees for the Blogging Scholarship Award. Venezuelan government considers regulating baby names. Sure, Michigan lost, but in revenue terms, they still won. (Earlier) Do teacher credentials affect students’ achievements? (Earlier)



The FREAK-est Links

Starbucks to take Russia by storm. Now in Travelodge rooms: the Bible and Alastair Campbell’s memoir. (Hat tip: MR.) Clothes beat computers in online sales. Medical Hypotheses journal trapped in the Dark Ages?



Conspiracy Theory of the Day

On his excellent blog, the Harvard economist Greg Mankiw (written about most recently here) posted a one-line item about a new ranking of economics blogs. The rankings are apparently determined by the number of incoming links for each blog. A commenter named Karl Smith had this to say: Freakonomics I believe is artificially high because it has a shadow blog . . .



Chris Napolitano on George Bush, the State of Porn, and Why Playboy is Still Hot

Courtesy of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. Last week, we solicited your questions for Playboy editorial director Chris Napolitano. You responded with vigor. And now, so has he. This may be the longest Q&A in the history of the printed word. Unlike our previous Q&A subjects who picked five or ten of your questions to answer, Napolitano answered every last one of . . .



The FREAK-est Links

Are cows really the next energy source? U.S. Internet surfing time to surpass TV time. Good thing stars don’t care about privacy: Google Earth launches. (Earlier) Do Jim Cramer’s picks make money? (Earlier)





Why Spend Time on Second Life?

We got an e-mail the other day from a certain Sara in Chicago. She had a question about the virtual world Second Life, but it could be asked of many pursuits, virtual and otherwise. (Even though I’ve never visited Second Life, I have been thinking about this issue lately since I have become a gold farmer for my own kids, . . .



Meet Newser.com

There’s a new news aggregator in town, called Newser.com, and from the quick look I gave it this morning, it immediately looks like one of the best I’ve seen. It summarizes the major news stories in a good paragraph or two, then provides prominent links to the major newspapers and wire services that did the original reporting, which makes the . . .



And Today Is…

August 1 is the 26th anniversary of MTV, which launched in 1981 with “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. Appropriately enough, during the 2006 MTV Video Awards the Raconteurs performed a parody of that song, called “Internet Killed the Video Star.”



The FREAKest Links: Pay Kidneys Forward Edition

Here’s a unique solution to the problem of incentivizing organ donations: ABC News reports that a chain of kidney transplants has been started by a 28-year-old father of four, who donated his kidney to a stranger he found online. His generosity led the recipient’s husband to donate to another stranger, whose mother is now donating, and so on. Miguel Helft . . .



More Spam

I wrote last week about the “invitation” I received to give an interview that would only cost me $3,995. Today I get another amusing spam email. This one is from Worldwide Law Enforcement Consulting Group, Inc. They are putting on a conference. There was nothing notable about the email, except for this one line: DUE TO GREAT RESPONSE EARLY REGISTRATION . . .



The FREAKest Links: John Jermajesty Jingleheimer Smith Edition

For those seeking a little variety in the name department, the U.K. Times ranks the fifty “craziest celebrity baby names,” including such gems as “Aurelius Cy,” “Fifi Trixibell,” “Moxie CrimeFighter” and “Jermajesty.” Lucky for them, none of the featured celebrity parents live in Malaysia. Reader John Wilson alerted us to his blog, WhereIsJohnWilson, which documents his quest to have his . . .



The Full Tilt/CNN Phishing Scam, Resolved

Last night, Levitt posted this discovery of what seemed like a phishing expedition (and revealed to the world his late-night poker habits). As of 9:10 a.m. today, the site in question (http://www.fulltilt-cnn.com) was down. (Back when we wrote a column about Steven Peisner and identity theft, a fake Bank of America site was also summarily disabled, showing that if nothing . . .



Am I Crazy, or Is This a Great Idea for a Scam?

I was playing poker at Full Tilt Poker tonight when across the chat board comes an official-looking message saying that an employee of Full Tilt was arrested for stealing $200,000. The message says for full information go to http://www.fulltilt-cnn.com. (Don’t go clicking on things there until you read further!) The URL seemed fishy. So I went to Google News and . . .



The FREAKest Links: Use MySpace, Lose Your Identity Edition

Following Steve Peisner’s infiltration of the Texas state database, BBC News reports that Equifax, a credit information service, is warning that users of social networking sites are heightening their risk of identity theft by putting too much personal information on their MySpace and Facebook profiles. Via the New York Times: Despite efforts by U.S. communications companies to bring high-speed Internet . . .



The FREAKest Links: Second Life Sex and Hotel Towels Edition

More on the clash of sex and legal issues in Second Life: Tech.Blorge.com reports that one Second Life user is suing another (in real life) for copyright infringement over a virtual “sex bed” that lets avatars simulate 150 different carnal acts. Plaintiff Kevin Alderman, founder of Eros LLC, alleges that the defendant, “Second Life resident” Volkov Catteneo, copied and is . . .



You Know the Blogosphere Is Real When …

Although I’ve been writing journalism in one form or another for a long time, I would like to think that I am not the kind of journalist who makes friends or family uncomfortable about saying something casually that that they don’t want known publicly. That said, it does happen that someone will mention something over dinner, e.g., and then quickly . . .



A Banner Day at Reddit

In response to yesterday’s post about how our site was overwhelmed by Reddit traffic, which was a response to a post two days earlier about the economics of libraries, Reddit co-founder Alexis (knOthing) Ohanian has weighed in on the matter, going so far as to make our Freakonomics apple/orange the Reddit logo of the day. I don’t know whether to . . .



I.D.-Theft Watchdog Finds the State of Texas is Wide Open for I.D. Thieves

Steven Peisner, whom Dubner and Levitt wrote about recently in a column on identity theft, has made a career out of trying to stop people from hacking or otherwise stealing valuable information from websites. So Peisner’s ears perked up when he learned of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott‘s announcement on May 31 that Texas now requires companies to shred documents . . .



The Perils of Popularity, or: How Is a Frozen Website Like a Sick Person?

It is hard to predict, in nearly every pursuit, what will be popular and what will not. Blog posts are no exception. Sometimes a blogger posts something that would seem to generate a lot of interest and it fades without a trace; sometimes you post something that seems like no big deal and, for whatever reason, people care a lot. . . .



Stay Off the Internets If You Know What’s Good for You

New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, unhappy with an official probe into the e-mails he sent to a former girlfriend who was also the state union president, has decided to swear off e-mail entirely. (In related news, stocks in smoke-signaling firms surged in overnight trading.) Meanwhile, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has also found that old online exchanges can come back . . .



Nigerian Oil Spam Meets “Three Kings”

My spam filter is so good that I barely ever get to see all the Nigerian oil-scam spams any more. But this one poked its way through today. It is always nice to see people thinking creatively. My name is Sgt Kenny Baker, Jr. I am in the Engineering military unit here in Ba’qubah in Iraq, we have about $10, . . .