Offbeat posts

Every now and then you come across a piece of art (in this case, a very elaborate drawing) that makes you explore it, stare, and contemplate for several minutes (an eternity in Internet time). This is one of those pieces. It is apparently blown up from an old Canadian publication and is, as QuieroBits puts it in Spanish, an “Incredible Geek Poster.” Take it down to Kinko’s and blow it up, or just recreate it on your own walls. Shouldn’t take too much time. Click to Enlarge. …

“I sent one stupid, meaningless text – ‘LOL’ – and killed a man.” When AT&T launched their campaign against texting while driving in March, 2010, they decided that the most important demographic to focus upon were teens and college students. The mixture of inexperience and irresponsibility in the demographic combined with the potential to break a habit before it got started made the most sense. Since then, very little has been done that was extraordinary enough to be more than a gesture of “we’re doing good” that could be used in public relations campaigns. That changed today with the release…

Being online is part of our lives in civilized cultures. Most of us are online at some point during the day. Many of us carry the Internet around in our pockets. When it comes to being online, few of us think twice. We just do it. The question has been asked and evidence is strong for both sides – does the Internet help or hurt? Keeping us off the streets and out of the skies helps the environment as the Internet makes traveling to meetings across town or across the world less necessary, but if you convert the monthly searches processed by Google into CO2 expenditure, it’s equal to powering a freezer for 5,400…

As a Canadian, I am well-versed in the art of snowcraft. The frozen North tempers us with flakey hides of frost-resistant skin-maille as we build our monolithic winter totems, which you in warmer climates dare mock as ‘snow-men’. May a thousand seals feast happily on your remains. Hey, speaking of snowmen, science recently decided to continue its campaign against human limits by creating the world’s smallest one – and you can be sure this won’t be a record beaten anywhere in the near future. At 10µm (that’s ‘micrometers’, but I prefer the phoenetic ‘moo-meters’), this little dude is 1/5th the…

Alright, before you read too far into that headline, let me immediately reassure you that we’re not talking about that kind of tweet. Indeed, a mouse that could post inane quips and lulzy links to Tweetdeck would be a marvel of science indeed, but this is infinitely more basic (and infinitely more complex). Science hath wrought a mouse that quite literally tweets. Like a bird. The absolutely adorable mouse came about purely by chance, as researchers at the University of Osaka carried out their ‘Evolved Mouse Project’, which had them breeding mutation-prone mice willy-nilly, unsure of what the…

Feuds between neighbors have been known to get ugly. This one just got stupid. Earlier this week, Vincent Ardolf of Blaine, MN, confessed to hacking into Matthew and Bethan Kostolnik’s wireless Internet connection to send child porn and threats to politicians in their name. His neighbors had accused him in 2008 of kissing their 4-year-old son and called police. While no charges were filed, Ardolf’s animosity stayed. In February, 2009, he hacked the Kostolnik’s WiFi and created Yahoo! and MySpace accounts in Matthew’s name. There, he posted the child porn on MySpace and sent the pictures to…

From the file labelled ‘stuff you didn’t expect to hear about today’ comes this puzzler: LG has announced that it’s teaming up with film score icon Ennio Morricone to produce exclusive ringtones and music for its devices. The music will come preloaded on LG’s entire range of smartphones, beginning with the Optimus 2X, and will feature 10 Morricone classics, as well as 15 new pieces developed specifically for LG. For those of you who aren’t hip to Morricone, he’s an extremely influential legend in the world of composing. Hell, I thought he was dead until wikipedia-ing him a couple minutes ago. Even…

Cyber Monday broke the $1 billion mark for the first time as online shopping grew across the board in 2010. From November 1 through December 10, nearly $22 billion was spent through online shopping. With Facebook looking at eCommerce for businesses in an effort to become the hub for for online shopping, 2011 will likely continue to demonstrate big jumps around the holidays. This graphic by BuySight breaks down the numbers for us and shows that even in a down economy, people are shifting more of their dollars towards digital. …

Everyone knows that the Internet is serious business. Many are starting to understand that blogging is now serious business as well. Professional bloggers have an average of 3.5 blogs each and work over 10 hours a week on blogging, something that most would equate with (gulp) work. The reality is that blogging is a business and as a result has its own economy. This graphic by Grasshopper Group depicts the economy surrounding blogging and breaks down the ins and outs of it as a profession. …

Memes have been a staple of the Internet since emails were sent out with subject lines that started with “RE: FW: FW: FW: CC: RE: FW: RE: FW: FW: FW:”. 2010 was another stellar year for memes as old celebrities unintentional hit the spotlight and regular folks joined them in utter memeness. This graphic by MySpace takes 10 of the best ones from the year and visualizes them for us nicely. Below, you’ll find the live memes all on one nice page for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy….