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While I will not focus on the direct implications of the Spitzer Scandal, let’s call it HookerGate, I do like the peripheral reporting and news that it generates.
First, the NY Times has excellent coverage about everything you might want to ever know about ‘Kristen,’ a.k.a. Ashley Alexandra Dupre, yes, including her real name and her MySpace page. Let’s welcome the nations new Monica Lewinsky with open arms (never mind, that will cost extra). I have to ask though, was the MySpace page really necessary? Kind of seems like more of something that would go around the net and be posted on a bunch of blogs, did the NY Times really need to link to it? (of course I am just feeding into the frenzy). Can we also note the six fake Facebook pages created int he last 24 hours or so (all using pictures from her MySpace page) and that no one bothered to make a fake Friendster page for her (though talk about an impressive LinkedIn Network).
Next up we have a set of photos from NPR from Monday called Standing by Their Men. The images show images of politicians at their low points (Teddy Kennedy leaving court after pleading guilty, Nixon resigning, Marion Barry admitting his involvement in smoking crack, etc.) with their wives standing by the them during their moment of disgrace. An interesting set of pictures especially since most of the scandalized men are answering allegations that they were cheating on their wife. My favorite by far are the McGreevey’s who just look like they are having a blast. And, of course, guess who the last picture is of… Eliot and Silda standing side by side and looking none too pleased that she has to put on her game face to deal with this whole mess.
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Classmates.com is not content to just be irrelevant, now they want to be incorrect.
The social networking dinosaur known for their annoying Web ads has now decided quote fabrication is the way forward.
As I was checking my Yahoo! Mail via My Yahoo! Homepage (now with bigger display ads), I noticed the latest Classmates.com display advertisement. I am afraid to report there are no interchangeable faces on the circa-1986 school book photos, nor are they proclaiming this man is now married to that woman. Rather, they decided to jazz up their decades-long banner campaign of data farming by including a photo of William Shakespeare (you may’ve heard of him) inserted into the mix. I suspect this is to insinuate that Bill went to school with you, and put his profile up on their site. Wacky hi-jinks ensued.
But the picture wasn’t enough. Above his smiling school book photo is a quote from the ever quotable man:
“I count myself in nothing else so happy in a soul remembering my good friends.” William Shakespeare.
Being the victim of a liberal arts degree, and having spent a lot of time with 500 year old English plays, the quote immediately sounded off. Read more »
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I’m a complete freak for organizational tools. I don’t subscribe to a particular system (such as Franklin Covey, which my friend Rick has mastered), but I do give a lot of thought to ease of use and effectiveness, especially as compared to slickness and coolness.
So I was a little too excited at running across D.I.Y. Templates, which features a directory of To Do List templates. They range from the quirky (the note card template seen here) to more complicated layouts that include daily or weekly timelines and checkboxes. There are forms for work stuff, finances, money, blah and even blahblahblahblah (spoken quickly).
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Every now and then criminals do things that just baffle me. Like posting details about their crimes on the internet.
Associated Press has an article today about Lt. Charles Cohen who goes around talking with police officers and detectives about the internet, specifically sites like MySpace, Facebook and Second Life.
Basically what Lt. Cohen is lecturing about is how folks, specifically criminals, don’t quite get that the internet is not their private diary, and that things posted on the web are visible are available to the public and can be tracked back to them. He is also working on breaking the police department mindset that the internet is another realm, not worth monitoring. Read more »
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I just learned about Criticker today.
Criticker is to movies what GoodReads is to books, for the most part. Though there is a bit more work required on your part here.
Basically you go in and rank a bunch of movies, after you have ranked 10, using their TCI (Taste Compatibility Index), they match you up with other people who have similar tastes. Of course, the more films you rank allows the system to better match you with folks who have compatible tastes. You must sign-up though to see folks with similar tastes. Ideally folks with a low TCI (the lower the better) will have seen movies you haven’t seen and you’ll find some great ones to watch, maybe films that will become your favorites, plus it means you can use Cricker as a gauge, unlike Amazon’s user’s comments which lets you see how everyone feels and what they have to say about a film, with Criticker you get an idea of how similar your tastes are to the folks whose movies you are looking at. Could be fun…
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