Offbeat posts

It isn’t the first time that 4Chan has gone down and it won’t be the last, but this one is special. There were 3 consecutive days with very little uptime, something that the photo-sharing, meme-creating website has never experienced.  A massive DDoS is to blame. For it to keep the site down for this long, a site that is accustomed to supporting 1.6 million visitors a day, “massive” might be an understatement. It comes as founder Moot prepared to turn the site’s community support towards American Censorship Day. The site was back up just in time to assist with the protest….

At first glance, it doesn’t seem real. This video of time lapse sequences from the International Space Station crews of expedition 28 and 29 use a special low-light 4K-camera. Shot from August through October, 2011, these spectacular images make the world seem small and wonderful while highlighting the awe-inspiring view from the ISS. If you ever dreamed of being an astronaut, do not watch the video. It’s bound to re-ignite the flames that once drove you. Here is a list of the shooting locations: Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at…

The precedent has been set and it’s a very bad one. A US judge ruled that Twitter must release all of the details of Birgitta Jonsdottir’s account, as well as two others. Their links to WikiLeaks has put them under the scrutiny of the Justice Department after last year’s video of US helicopters shooting two Reuters reporters in Iraq. Speculation is that Jonsdottir is not the target but rather a piece of the case they’re currently building against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “This is a huge blow for everybody that uses social media,” said Jonsdottir. “We have to have the same civil rights online…

When Honda unveiled ASIMO a few years ago, most were amazed by its human-like movements. Some claimed there was a short person in a suit rather than an actual robot. Earlier this month, they unveiled the “All-New” ASIMO that can run forward, walk backward, hop on one leg or two, and serve drinks. We’re probably still years away from mainstream robotic servant and a couple of more years away from being overrun by our own creation, but we can still look at them with wonderment today. (H/T Columbus Indiana Ram)…

In design, typeface can be everything. People associate a brand with certain typefaces. Personalities of individuals can be expressed with the appropriate typeface. For something that we often take for granted, its benefits and potential drawbacks can be huge. In this infographic by our friends at Rasmussen, we take a look at the history of the typeface. Modern technology has made it more robust and easier to manage what typefaces we use and how we use it, but understanding the past gives us a good insight into how presentation of the typed word has evolved. Click to enlarge. …

The founder and face of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, is facing extradition and possible charges in Sweden for sexual misconduct. The website and organization are caught in a financial stranglehold as many of the means through which it receives donations and funding are cut off. If the man is jailed and the organization crumbles, can Wikileaks survive as a movement? That’s the question that the NY Times attempts to answer. While many of their points are valid, is it realistic to believe that this Pandora’s Box can truly be closed now that the demand for this sort of transparency and accountability…

Most would admit that President Obama did a phenomenal job of working social media during his presidential campaign in 2008. Twitter and Facebook were all a good portion of his campaign even back then when social media was still in its infancy. It’s debatable whether it had an effect or not, but things are different for 2012. Social media will have an effect on next year’s election. Bank on it. How do the current GOP candidates stack up against each other on social media? Twitter can be a good indication of effort and focus as well as sentiment when it comes to political social media. Here, we’ll take…

I hate spam. Who doesn’t? I tend to hate it more than others because a relative fell victim to phishing a couple of years ago, so I tend to actually look at phishing emails to see what’s happening in the world of Nigerian Princes and people trapped in London. This particular email struck me as oddly awesome simply because of the “Trust Factor” (an important component in the world of phishing) that they employed at the end. “This message is never sent without Google Mail Accounts Trust & Safety Authenticator.” The message was sent, therefore the Authenticator must be working in full force. The…

The wagons are circled at the Netflix camp as hundreds of thousands of subscribers cancelled in the last few months, but that doesn’t seem to scare the folks at Disney as they just renewed and expanded the contract between Netflix and ABC. Stocks have dropped by over 70% since the summer after recent debacles and poor decisions by the entertainment provider. That didn’t stop ABC from renewing current shows and adding Alias and Switched at Birth to the Netflix catalog. They also added Lost and Ugly Betty to the streaming segment….

One aspect of social media that is widely understood but rarely discussed is the ego-boost through empowerment that it allows. In most cases, the “empowerment” is perceived more highly than the reality, but it’s present for many of those who have never had a public voice but who now can use social media to reach people. Klout changed its algorithm earlier this week and there was (apparently) an outcry. I checked mine when I heard about it. I wasn’t sure whether it went up or down (I hadn’t checked it in months) but it has never been important enough to follow. For others, it really struck a cord. People…