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Babies Behaving Badly

18 Mar

Sometimes kids do the darndest things.

1) Baby’s First Swear Word: This little kid must have been around a potty mouth parent. She learned a colorful word really quickly.

2) Children Using the Internet Earlier: 80 percent of all children between the ages of 0 and 5 use the internet on a weekly basis. Between the ages of 0 and 3, 47% of technology use occurs in front of a television. With that in mind, 60 percent of children under age 3 watch videos online. Kids are also multitasking, using the internet and the TV simultaneously. You know, because they have to live-blog their favorite episodes of “Dora the Explorer” from their smartphones.

3) World’s Youngest Alcoholic at Age 3: A British child has been treated for symptoms of alcohol dependency at a local hospital. What’s truly horrifying is that the child is 3. Doctors believe the baby was given alcohol on a regular basis for at least 6 months. Alcoholism remains a huge problem in the UK.

Alcohol

 

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New York Times Paywall Goes Up March 28

17 Mar

It’s here. After months of hearing about it, The New York Times will finally implement its paywall starting March 28. Consumers will have to pay $15 a month for unlimited access to all of the site’s content. A certain amount of content remains free, though. Readers get the first 20 articles of the month for free, and much of the content on the front page will be available without cost as well.

As many of us who read The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times know, there are ways to duck the system. Users can search for the articles by Google or Bing and find the full text versions easily available. The Times knows that too, and will limit the number of articles you can access by Google to 5 per day.

Just several years ago, many claimed consumers would never pay for online news content. Journalists hoped that online advertising would increase quickly enough to make up for gaps being formed by decreasing print sales. Unfortunately, they did not and print media companies must look for new sources of revenue.

This move should be seen as necessary and ultimately fair. Most of us don’t read more than 20 articles per month (certainly not more than 5 per day). Those of us that do should pay up.

That being said, the Business Insider already has a guide to getting around the paywall.

New York Times

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Viral Videos You Should Watch

17 Mar

These are some of the best videos I’ve seen over the past day

1) Jimmy Wong (Response to Alexandra Wallace): This Middlebury alum performs a mocking video of Alexandra Wallace. Really catchy. Well done Jimmy.

2) “Bless You” (Remake of “Fuck You” by Cee Lo Green): Because everyone asked for a Christian version of the explicit “Fuck You,” these guys delievered.

3) Stupid Internet: Now this poor boy never knew that 15 years after he sang (and danced) his little heart out to Mariah Carey’s “Emotions,” YouTube would be invented and his life would be ruined.

4) Steve Kardynal (“Born ThiS Way”): Apparently, this guy is famous. He sure freaked out most of NYC by singing Lady Gaga’s latest hit in drag. Was it not cold when he filmed it?

5) Wesleyan Students (“I Have Sex”): If you haven’t heard, the Republicans in the House want to cut all funding for Planned Parenthood. The students at Wesleyan don’t think that’s a good idea and this video shows how many of them have used that organization’s resources.

 

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2 Unbelievably Stupid Tweets

11 Mar

The power of social media allows us to share information quickly and share news with one another. Twitter is a large part of that sharing process. At the same time, allowing us to post information instantaneously often removes a critical period of evaluation that used to exist before publishing something. That’s a lesson two people have learned the hard way.

1) State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley: In this case, Crowley somehow thought this tweet made sense. It reads, “We’ve been watching hopeful #tsunami sweep across #MiddleEast. Now seeing a tsunami of a different kind sweep across Japan.” So, he compared the volatile situation in Middle East to the 8.9 earthquake that could have killed thousands of people in Japan. Just stupid. But apparently saying stupid things is nothing new to Crowley.

2) Unnamed ex-employee of Marketing Firm: An employee with access to the Chrysler official Twitter feed accidentally posted something to that account instead of his personal one.

Now, this is particularly bad since the company just spent millions on a Super Bowl campaign that touted its people, driving and cars. The marketing employee was promptly fired, but the marketing firm, New Media Strategies, will not have its contract renewed by the car giant at the end of this year. It shows that one erroneous tweet can cost you an important account. All it takes is a second.

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If You Bought Apple Stock Instead of Products

11 Mar

A UC Berkley computer science major looked at the history of Apple product releases and the prices of those items. Then, he imagined investing the money into Apple stock, instead of actually purchasing the products. The results are pretty sobering.

The winner of this is the Apple PowerBook G3 250. In 1997, it retailed for $5,700. If that money had been invested in Apple stock, it would be worth $330,563. The winner of this is featured below. Now, it’s important to point out that many people considered Apple destined for bankruptcy in the near future in 1997, but still.

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda…

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