Loose feeds sink scoops
Posted: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 11:39 PM by Will Femia
An interesting twist to the
Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy story you can't avoid is that it
appears to have leaked as a result of someone getting into OK Magazine's servers and taking a peek at their unpublished upcoming cover.
UPDATE: "Getting into their servers" may be a little dramatic. Hearing the story from others, it sounds like OK's site published the cover accidentally just long enough for the image to land in a few RSS readers before they could yank it down again. (The phrase this blog used was "found to be on the server for..." which is actually a totally appropriate way of explaining that the source is legit. It was my own imagination that read it as "found on the server after I hacked into it.")
Currently playing with
TheSixtyone.com, yet another social music site. The Web 2.0 feature of choice here is the vote up - or here, "bump." Interestingly they've mixed in a point system so there's a bit of a game to it all. As you know, the bottom line for me is always whether I get to hear full songs for free, and on this site you do, so thumbs up for that. Thumbs down for the fact that I don't recognize any of these musicians, but that's probably part of the point. This system is better than waiting for a corporate DJ to tell me what's a "hit."
I had heard about the movie Look being shot as though it's a compilation of candid captures from security cameras but that sounded like a weak gimmick to me so I didn't pay much attention. Now that it has opened in theaters I'm noticing all the positive reviews.
Here's the trailer.
NOTE: It starts with a girl in a changing room (of course). Any forbidden flesh tones are pixilated but for those first few seconds it feels a little like something you wouldn't want to be caught watching at work.
Google Talk adds translator bots. Just like Star Trek, it runs while you're chatting an offers a live running translation. There are no other Star Trek similarities, however. The way it works is that you arrange a group chat with the person who doesn't speak your language and the bot. Then just type.
At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star - In case you looked at the free online courses offered by MIT and were too overwhelmed to do anything but close the browser, it looks like a popular place to start is
Professor Lewin's physics lectures.
By now you've heard that Peter Jackson is making two new Hobbit films. You may also recall that Jackson is good about keeping a production blog when he's making a movie. So...
The Official Hobbit Movie Blog.
Perhaps the most refreshing "
Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers" list I've read. Not polluted with stuff about making money or growing traffic. When was the last time you saw blogging advice that mentioned humility?
"Toshiba has developed a
new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks." No offense to Next Energy News but this article didn't inspire a lot of confidence so I poked around for some confirmation but everyone talking about this seems to be pointing to the same link. I also don't see it on
Toshiba's nuclear site. Anyone know any more?
USB wine‘Alarming Alliance’ of Mafia and Street Gang Is Broken Up - Remember that headline next time you scoff at the premise of a late night cable movie from the late 80s starring Steven Segal and Ice T.
Here's the follow-up to yesterday's item about the viral video with the unauthorized photo.
They recut the video with a new photo and a big list of credits. Problem solved.
Sort of.
I don't see a perma link on this so in case it moves down, what you're looking for is
a Facebook parody called pensionbook. I didn't get it until I read it closely. It's what happens when the Facebook crowd gets old.
A practical joke is being auctioned on eBay. He'll send crazy postcards from Poland to someone you know just to mess with their head.
Lately I've seen a few explanations in the British press of the American subprime loan situation. Here the BBC explains it with
a series of charts and diagrams. And this TV interview show
explains it with classic British humor.
The only thing we learn from the
Forbes list of Web celebs is that there is not yet any such thing as a Web celeb.
