Written by Ray Villard

My Take: Ray Villard takes on some of the more popular doomsday theories, debunking each in turn.

In the early days of computers, when hard drives weighed as much as a piece of furniture, a popular phrase was “Garbage-in, Garbage-out” (GIGO). It meant that computers would unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data and produce nonsensical output.

“GIGO” describes the abysmal lack of intelligent thought and critical thinking on the Internet when it comes to all the hysteria about the end of the world coming on December 21, 2012 — just in time to ruin Christmas.

I’m getting e-mail about this weekly and I expect the nonsense to ratchet

more at the Daily Beast

Mike Arrington from Techcrunch was the first person to call me, literally minutes after my Goodbye Microsoft blog post. Mike called as a friend, not as a reporter looking for a story. I will always remember his kindness. Jason Calacanis and Robert Scoble also called soon after. Scott Kirsner (Boston Globe), Walt Mossberg (Wall Street Journal), Ina Fried (CNet) Brier Dudley (Seattle Times), Henry Blodget (Silicon Alley), and many others contacted me too. Not for a story, just to express their shock and condolences. In a world where getting the story first is all that matters, they showed great class. Thank you.

The VC world responded too. Brad Feld, Ann Winblad, David Hornik, Michael Skok, Jonathan Seelig, Ross Levinsohn, James Geshwiler, Dave Barrett, Richard Dale, and many others were also quick to offer support. VCs are the busiest, most connected, people in the world. They took the time to drop what they were doing and reach out.Thank

Written by Jason Fitzpatrick

Computer viruses are increasingly sophisticated and pervasive. If you can’t afford to run your computer without some sort of antivirus software installed, check out these five popular options to protect your PC.

Photo by Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M University Archives.

Note: For each entry, we reviewed the lowest cost option available from the company in question. Most companies offer premium packages of varying cost and with varying additional bells and whistles, save for the always-free Microsoft Security Essentials. For the purpose of this comparison, we stuck to the free/entry level options.

Avast! (Windows/Linux, Basic: Free, Premium $39.95 per year)

Bonus: I really want you to go outside ))) …

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Written by Jason

If you end up hitting the bars tonight, we’d like you to be prepared. Sometimes knowing when and who to buy a drink for can be a challenging task for young men. We’ve developed an extremely basic reference guide to help you step up the plate and score some (probably married) tail. Good luck young Jedi.

Bonus:

Meanwhile, though, here’s an example of me actually doing interactive narrative – and a newspaper writer, from the Guardian (of course), who seems to totally grok what it is we’re after:

But a Vancouver-based studio named Smoking Gun Interactive may be about to merge the worlds of console and alternative reality gaming into one experimental new form. The team has yet to announce a name for the project – its codename is currently X, and there’s an intriguing online preview named, Exoriare, a title drawn from Virgil’s ‘Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor’ – let an avenger arise from my bones.

more…

Get in. Get game. Get out.

Battling the hordes of shoppers, holiday seasons, and seasonal influenza we march on through the jungle of commerce towards the ultimate prize: New Game Day. For some of us this day is a rarity and understandably so, with the economy being in the dumper. But what if there was a way — a handy guide, perhaps — to coast through the consumerism and avoid the headaches and hurdles of the holidays? Now there is. So polish your luckiest pair of boots, zip up your over-sized jackets and get ready for the smell of fresh plastic tearing open on a crisp winter day.

Quagmire is by far one of the most popular characters from any animated series, and with good reason. This perverted pilot has given us a wealth of sound bites and, of course, the ubiquitous ‘giggity’. The following is a list of our favorite Quagmire moments, styled as part of our “Timeless Wisdom” series:

Here’s the preview, along with a trailhead:

http://exoriare.com/

It should be available as a printed volume of 120 pages or so in a few months.

Writing for gamers is harder than writing for regular people because I actually feel more obligated to make it work on many levels at once. Gamers spend thousands of hours in a world, so it really has to be true down to levels of granularity an author could ignore in almost any other medium. But it’s great to know people are going as deep into this material as I am. Way more intimate a sensation, really.

Today I start thinking about the next chapter in my life. It is always exciting to look beyond your normal boundaries and think about new possibilities. Being totally consumed with my job and traveling every week has left no time to think about other opportunities. That changes today. I couldn’t be more excited about the future.

I will be blogging more often now, and that excites me. There are lots of topics that I have wanted to dive into but just haven’t had the time. I will be seeing more friends too. Again, I have been so busy traveling that I haven’t had time to connect with friends all over the world. It’s all good.

My email at Microsoft will go dark in a day or two, so my new contact is DonaldDodge@gmail.com or send me a note on Facebook or Twitter @DonDodge 

Thanks to all the fine people at Microsoft. You know who you are. There are thousands of talented people there and I enjoyed working with all of them. I’m sure we will see each other again at conferences and industry events. Its a small world…and getting more connected every day. I’ll see you on the web.

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Keep Your Metabolism Burning

Quick kickstarts to keep you going all day

Not all of us are blessed with bodies like David Beckham. Furthermore, many of us can’t find the time to fling ourselves crazily across a soccer field in search of an improved set of muscles (lke David Beckham), but still, don’t we deserve some dietary success? Just because we mysteriously inherited Aunt Linda’s thick thighs and Uncle Danny’s giblet means we’re doomed to wear sweatshirts to the beach, right? No, silly, of course not. It simply means you’ll need to give your metabolism a little TLC, a little time to repair, a lot of inspiration and (surprisingly) a lot of food.

Early Morning Meals

Okay, here’s the first big problem in the American meal plan. In Europe, breakfast consists of a small croissant and/or fruit with coffee – something simple to start off consumption with ease. In America, we cram pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon and various other staples of gluttonous deliciosity down our throats and sit around wondering why our pants don’t fit. Well, that’s why. To consume such heavy carbohydrates so early in the morning stunts your metabolism and lulls it back to sleep. Your rest/digest rhythms are extremely important to your overall health.  Says, Paolo Sassone-Corsi, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Pharmacology

Startups play poker, big companies play chess – This “failure is not an option” discussion reminded me of the huge differences between startups and big companies. Success is not easy in either case, but the approaches are radically different. Using a game analogy, startups are more like poker players. They take big risks, they bluff, they make quick decisions, change direction constantly, and they keep their competitors off balance. Poker is an aggressive game where if you play your cards right you win big, and win fast. If you lose a hand you can come back and double your money in the next hand. There is no time to wallow over a loss. You did your best. Move on and your luck will be better next time. Chess is a different game. Both require incredible skill and talent. A great poker player is rarely a good chess player.

We’re just gonna come out with it: This clip is amazing. Some editing genius named Ricardo Autobahn had the incredible idea to make a song out of … movie clips. Now before you start imagining some medley you’d watch at the Oscars, let’s talk about the fact that this guy’s managed to string together the clips in a way that rhymes AND has a beat.

We’ve been playing our own personal game of Guess the Movie and nodding our head to the rhythm for about 20 minutes now. Join us in watching and try to imagine just how much time this guy had to invest in movie-watching to put this together. The mind boggles. Enjoy!

Translation BY bspcn:

My life here is pretty bad.
Work conditions are horrid, benefits are nonexistant.
But don’t worry, each day only about ten people get seriously injured,
while I am very cautious.
We opened a little shop, business is going well.
Although my English isn’t very good,,I can still understand some of what these white people are saying.
I hope one day I can be very successful! While I’m here I’ll work hard and
take care of myself.
How are you doing?
Are you guys well?
I miss you very much, hope we’ll meet again.

Written by Simon Slangen

Over the past months, we’ve written quite a few PDF manuals for you, on all kinds of diverging subjects, including BitTorrent, iTunes, iPhone, Twitter, Mac, Linux, Photoshop and several other topics.

Initially available only for subscribers, there are now multiple manuals released every month, for everyone to enjoy. After releasing 15 manuals and nearly half a million downloads we thought it was about time to look back and review what has been published so far.

Enjoy! No sign up need, downloads are free, no strings attached.

Do us a favor by sharing those manuals friends!

1 – Internet Guide for the Movie Addict

Written by Saikat Basu, this entirely free PDF production will show you anything you’ve ever dreamed about knowing related to movies on the web. Whether you want a quick heads-up, are looking for download and streaming possibilities, or even want to fix broken AVI’s – you’ll find it in there!

Alas, he’ll be visiting via magnetic recording tape, and not in the flesh. He’s the next in our series of Media Squat Classics – people whose ideas and approaches form the basis of the media squat ethos.

Collected by Sharenator

This is my favorite 4chan meme. I’ve spent half of my boring day in the office looking for the best rage threads and made this collection. I’d love to credit authors but most of them seem to be… anonymous. I found some of these on 4chan, some on sites like digg, some on google (and it wasn’t easy to find something with unknown number of F’s and U’s in the file name), etc. These are the best of them in one place. Enjoy!

Source: imgur.com Author: Anonymous

Written by Jason Arango

After seeing Reader Digest’s recent list of 13 things your pizza guy won’t tell you, it only seemed fitting to start reflecting on my high school days as a pizza delivery driver. Even though pretty much everything in the article was dead on, I felt like they missed some of the big picture lessons you acquire while motoring around in a 1987 Toyota Corolla passing out pies to an extremely odd cross section of strangers. Nothing brings people from all economic classes together quite like the magic of having pizza delivered to your front door. So, from suburban villas to dilapidated trailers, here are 8 pieces of wisdom I gained from delivering pizza while in high school.

1) Getting customers their pizza as quickly as possible is rarely a priority.

Even though your job is specifically to deliver customers their pizza as quickly as possible, the reality is, they’re the ones that are in a hurry, not you. Obviously the

We’ll be talking about Life Inc, especially in the context of how people create value on the net – and whether there’s a way for any significant number of us to make a living at it, anymore.

If you don’t go to Second Life, you can also watch it as live video on the web.

Written by Julian

As they say, never email anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of the newspapers. So if you’re considering using your work email to send military secrets, a character assassination or even an erotic proposition, then think again – the end result could cost you your job, as well as your dignity. These chumps learnt the hard way.

8. “I haven’t swallowed in years.”

“Yours was yum…”

When is a compliment not a compliment? Perhaps the following might qualify – back in 2000 Claire Swire, an employee of a large internet provider, found herself involved with a less than scrupulous lawyer. One day whilst at work he sent her a joke concerning male bodily fluid (yes, that kind). Claire immediately replied:

“I hadn’t swallowed in years but yours was yum and very good for me too! Apparently it’s a very good conditioner for your hair too…getting a funny picture in my head…”

Ego swollen, he impulsively forwarded the reply to all his friends to show off what a stallion he was in the sack. But compliment quickly

• The Walrus » Global Impositioning Systems
  "As our surroundings have evolved over the centuries, so too have our navigational strategies and conceptions, shaped most recently by urbanization and the advent of high-speed travel.

  "We’re now on the cusp of an even more dramatic change, as we enter the age of the global positioning system, which is well on its way to being a standard feature in every car and on every cellphone. At the same time, neuroscientists are starting to uncover a two-way street: our brains determine how we navigate, but our navigational efforts also shape our brains. The experts are picking up some worrying signs about the changes that will occur as we grow accustomed to the brain-free navigation of the gps era."

  
  
  (tags: gps brain mapping neuroscience endofcyberspace)
  
  
• 
  
  David Hockney's iPhone Passion - The New York Review of Books
  
  
  

Written by Chris Lesinski

Months after the initial announcement, today, it becomes official: Yahoo has shut down GeoCities — one of the original kings of free web hosting services.

Now, all of those GeoCities websites (excuse me, “Web Sites”) are coming down. It’s got me more tear-jerkingly nostalgic than Where The Wild Things Are.

No doubt, GeoCities started a revolution, but many of its ways have gone by the wayside. While Yahoo deploys the virtual demolition crews, let’s make one last toast to a few of the relics they’ll leave in the rubble.

1) Under Construction GIFs

It’s absurd to think that

To that end, I’m doing talks at some of my favorite schools in the area, to meet people and let my intentions be known. Two weeks ago, I had a great time at the New School – where I was truly inspired by the radical stripe of the student body. It did not feel fake.

This Wednesday at noon, I’ll be at Polytechnic Institute of NYU, in Brooklyn, speaking about “The End of Narrative.”

A Lecture by Douglas Rushkoff

Presented by The Brooklyn Experimental Media Center and the Dibner Family Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology

Interactivity changes our relationship to stories as well as the technologies through which they are transmitted. Where the power of a story to influence audiences often depended on the mysteriousness of the medium through which it was told, today’s storytellers must actually engender trust and playfulness – and they must do so on an increasingly violent paranoid playing field.

These are the challenges confronting anyone who wishes to communicate in today’s mediaspace. Do we create myths to compete with the ones we hope to dispel? Or do we abandon myth altogether? Is the traditional story itself a relic, incapable of providing meaning over time? Are the kinds of meaning it can convey biased towards creating childlike passivity in the

He finished in 3h 47min for an 8:40 min/mile pace, but he gave back a full 7 minutes in the last 7 miles of the race. If he had been able to hold an 8:30 pace (shown with the red line) he would have finished in 3hr and 42 min; and he would have been able to take the first 13 miles slower.

In business a lot of times someone will rile up the organization in the name of forward action, but that pace is not sustained for the long haul. (This person then goes off and riles up something else.)

The correct approach, I believe, for a business is relentless forward movement through incremental

Innovation has

Bonus: The Best Google Logo EVER