Archive | January, 2011

Introducing the Tumbeasts

31 Jan

The Internet is a crazy place. For the latest example, look at the story of Matthew Inman, creator of the popular web comic “The Oatmeal.” Last week, coinciding with the timing of President Obama’s “State of the Union” address, Inman published his “State of the Web” comic (hilarious, by the way).  In one of the panels, he references the infamous day that Tumblr went down for more than 12 hours, robbing thousands of bloggers of the ability to update their sites.

He suggests blaming future outages on an imaginary animal like Twitter has previously done with the “Fail Whale.” His suggests adopting his newest creation, the TumblBeasts, as the face for future outages.

Four hours later, the head of Tumblr contacted about Inman about using the “animal” for the official 503 error page. Inman agreed, and Tumblr renamed them “Tumbeasts.” The story was picked up by national media. Today, he posted another comic, which both celebrates and pokes fun at his newest creation. Keep drawing dude!

Man Sues Facebook for $500K Because They Shut Down His Account

31 Jan

A Staten Island man claims that Facebook shut off access to his personal photos and his friends overseas when it closed his account for no reason. He asks for $500,000 and the restoration of his account in his lawsuit.

Mustafa Fteja, 39, had 340 friends on the site, which averages out to $1,470 per friend if his suit succeeds. An immigrant from Montenegro 19 years ago, Fteja claims that Facebook was one of his primary ways to communicate with them.

He told The New York Post, “I’m not doing this for money. I’m doing this for justice. I know one thing — I didn’t do anything. I didn’t violate anything.” He claims to have contacted the company several times, but only received a form letter in response, claiming he violated the company’s user agreement.

Super Bowl Increases Risk of Heart Attacks

31 Jan

Be careful when watching the Packers play the Steelers next week. If you’re at risk for heart disease, rooting too hard for a team that ultimately loses could increase your risk of suffering a heart attack.

Researchers utilized data from the Los Angeles County health department to study two week periods immediately following the 1980 and 1984 Super Bowls. The L.A. Rams played in both games, losing in 1980 in a close game to the Steelers, but crushing the Washington Redskins in 1984. In 1980, the number of deaths rose 17 percent while in 1984 they actually decreased immediately following the game.

Their strategy for preventing heart problems: Tape the game and wait to hear the results. Yeah, we’ll see if that one catches on.

Not Enough “Working Class Heroes” in the Music Industry?

30 Jan

The BBC asks if the music industry “Has Gone Too Posh?” in a recent article online.

They point to a rise in privately-educated musicians with pop hits, rather than stars who came from poverty to conquer the industry. As always, the story is slightly more complicated. For every star musician that rose from extreme poverty, like Roger Daltrey and Keith Moon, there were those who came from middle class backgrounds, like John Lennon and Pete Townsend.

With that said, the BBC compared the current Top 40 chart with one from 20 years ago, and discovered that back in 1990 nearly 80 percent of artists were educated in state schools. Rolling Stone recently pointed out new hit artists, like Nicki Minaj, who attended drama schools.

With all that said, do you think the music suffers from private school pupils?

Would they have made it today?

 

Inside the Catacombs of Paris

29 Jan

Be sure to check out the February issue of National Geographic for more of these stunning pictures.

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