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“Mad Men” recapped via Facebook updates

Wed, 01 May 2013 21:15:00 +0000

If you are behind on the current season of "Mad Men," you could read Heather Havrilesky's recaps to understand how the ad execs at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce are faring in 1968.

But if you're really short on time, you should check out these amusing Facebook recaps, via HappyPlace.com.

Here are a few from season 6:

Head over to HappyPlace.com for more.

Facebook is blowing it

Wed, 01 May 2013 20:24:00 +0000

While waiting for my coffee to brew this morning, I checked my Facebook News Feed on my iPhone. But instead of amusing updates from friends and family, in the space of just a few flicks of my thumb, I was assaulted by not one, not two, but three different advertisements for online dating sites. Worst of all, there she was, again! That giant-breasted zombie stalker from Mate1.com who has been chasing me across Facebook for years!

I know she's not real. I know she's just an advertisement. But I'm still terrified of that woman. I have nightmares of getting crushed by her mammary glands, squeezed to death like a boa constrictor kills a wild pig. I don't ever want to see her again, but no matter how I try, I just can't quit her.

When first we met, in my pre-smartphone days, she flashed her soulless come-hither eyes at me from Facebook's right-hand column. I swiftly learned how to click "hide this ad" and "hide all from Mate1.com." I'm a social media take-charge kind of guy -- tweaking privacy and ad settings comes naturally to me. But then, a couple of years later, not long (and not uncoincidentally) after Facebook's IPO, she invaded my News Feed. Once again, I dutifully clicked "hide this ad" and "hide all," albeit this time with a little less faith in the honorable intentions of Facebook's ad-targeting algorithms.

71 names so awful New Zealand had to ban them

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:59:00 +0000

You thought "Apple" and "Facebook" were bad?

Some New Zealand parents were getting so creative devising unique names for their newborns that the country's Department of Internal Affairs has stepped in to stop the shenanigans.

New Zealand released an official list of rejected names on Wednesday that includes "4Real," "Mafia No Fear" and "Anal." Other gems — like "." and "*" — didn't even bother with the alphabet. All of the names on the list were at some point proposed by parents, soon to be rejected by the government, which deemed the names too offensive.

In some cases, parents appeared to have lost any inspiration for coming up with a moniker for their offspring, naming the family's latest addition simply "2nd", "3rd" or "5th."

He made me his drug mule

Wed, 01 May 2013 11:45:00 +0000

Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away.

I used it to find the guy who, without my consent, made me his drug mule.

It was 1989, long before Israelis were involved in the international ecstasy trade. I was a University of California, Santa Cruz, student in need of a break. My plan was hardly original: Go to Israel, live on a kibbutz, learn some Hebrew.

Before leaving, I attended a Jerry Garcia Band show at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. After the show, my friend and I got a ride back to Santa Cruz with some random guys, one of whom was Israeli. When I mentioned I was going to Israel in a few days, he asked if I would take a birthday present to mail to a friend. It was already late.

Given my strong Israeli-dar, I knew he would do no harm to Israel. What I failed to consider was whether he would cause any harm to me. He told me it was jewelry. He wrote his name and return address in Israel on the back of the envelope, and his friend’s on the front.

My mom was adamant that I not take it. Duh. But I was 20. I believed that my fellow Deadhead and Jew could be trusted; he was a brother.

Mark Zuckerberg is not trying to drill in ANWR

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:28:00 +0000

It was the kind of ThinkProgress headline sure to get environmentalists riled up and retweeting furiously: "Mark Zuckerberg's New Political Group Spending Big On Ads Supporting Keystone XL and Oil Drilling."The implication was awful, and unsettling. Cash from the billionaire and the rest of the bevy of Silicon Valley contributing to Zuckerberg's new FWD.US PAC is bankrolling an effort to start drilling in ANWR. Sound the alarm! Better yet, change your Facebook avatar in protest!

But hang on there just a sec. The ThinkProgress headline is misleading. Zuckerberg's PAC -- or rather, the two subsidiary PACs it has launched, one leaning Democratic, and one leaning Republican -- are not spending big pushing drilling in Alaska and the Keystone pipeline. They are spending big supporting senators up for reelection who just happen to support the Keystone pipeline and drilling in ANWR. Yes, the ads cite those positions as points in favor of those politicians, but that's not quite the same thing as a big political ad campaign pushing a specifically pro-drilling agenda.

Facebook helps solve 45-year-old murder

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:59:00 +0000

Some wounds never heal – even after 45 years.

That's what the family of Carolee Sadie Ashby is finding out after her 1968 hit-and-run death was solved with the help of a Facebook post. Now, the family of the 4-year-old girl in upstate New York is grieving—online and off-—as they come to grips with the fact that nothing will be done to punish the drunk driver responsible for the death.

On Wednesday, the Fulton Police Department announced that Douglas Parkhurst, 62, of Oswego was the person who struck and killed Carolee on Halloween night nearly half a century ago. The Associated Press reported that Carolee was walking with her sister and cousin after going to the store to buy candles when Parkhurst failed to stop for the children at an intersection. Parkhurst had been drinking that night and was questioned by police but denied ever seeing the girl or hitting her. The case went unsolved for years, but police continued to track down leads.

GOP official’s Facebook status: She’s “hot enough to almost make me register Democrat”

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:44:00 +0000

His Facebook friends call him "an honorable man" who was just "being funny." They say that "People are way to [sic] sensitive in this day and age." But when Steve Kush, the executive director of Bernalillo County's (New Mexico) Republican Party, went on a social media rampage during a local commissioners' meeting about the minimum wage earlier this week, his party chairman, Frank Ruvelo, saw things differently.

Seems his fellow Republicans did not appreciate what Kush said on Twitter and Facebook regarding a 19-year-old female at the meeting, "Nice hat Working America chick but damn you are a radical bitch." Nor did it enjoy his remarks depicting the organization's state director Chelsey Evans as "Uh oh another Working America chick," or his observation that she had "nice boots…I know she makes more than min wage." And they definitely didn't find it too amusing when he declared that she "was hot enough to almost make me register democrat."

He's currently suspended, indefinitely, without pay.

"It was an ill-fated attempt at humor," Kush told Watchdog.org Wednesday. "Do I regret it? Yes … I absolutely crossed the line."

Is Saudi Arabia deporting men for being too handsome?

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:11:00 +0000

According to a recent Time Magazine report, three men were deported from Saudi Arabia for being "too handsome."

Now The Telegraph is weighing in, explaining:

A statement in Arabic-language newspaper Elaph, translated by The Telegraph, added, "A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices] members feared female visitors could fall for them.

Why can’t America unite on the economy?

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:57:00 +0000

We come together as Americans when confronting common disasters and common threats, such as occurred in Boston on Monday, but we continue to split apart economically.

Anyone who wants to understand the dis-uniting of America needs to see how dramatically we’re segregating geographically by income and wealth. Today I’m giving a Town Hall talk in Fresno, in the center of California’s Central Valley, where the official unemployment rate is 15.4 percent and median family earns under $40,000. The so-called “recovery” is barely in evidence.

As the crow flies Fresno is not that far from California’s high-tech enclaves of Google, Intel, Facebook, and Apple, or from the entertainment capital of Hollywood, but they might as well be different worlds.

Being wealthy in modern America means you don’t come across anyone who isn’t, and being poor and lower-middle class means you’re surrounded by others who are just as hard up. Upward mobility — the old notion that anyone can make it with enough guts and gumption — is less of a reality.

Facebook incorporates “chat heads” feature into iPhone app

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:15:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook has updated its iPhone and iPad applications to let people keep using its chat feature even when they are doing other things, such as reading friends' updates.

Facebook Inc. also said Tuesday that it's bringing its "chat heads" feature to its Apple apps. It's called chat heads because friends' profile photos pop up when they send you a message.

Chat heads is part of a broader integration that Facebook is doing with a new Home app on some phones running Google's Android operating system.

Unlike with Home, iPhone and iPad users will have to stay inside the Facebook application to use chat heads. The update is already available in Apple's App Store, but Facebook says the chat heads feature will roll out in the coming weeks.

US Internet ad revenue up 15 percent ove 2012

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:40:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) -- A new report says U.S. Internet advertising revenue grew 15 percent to a record $36.6 billion in 2012.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers said Tuesday that mobile ad revenue more than doubled to $3.4 billion, accounting for 9 percent of total Internet ad revenue last year. In 2011, the $1.6 billion in mobile ad revenue made up 5 percent of the total. Mobile ads represent an area of growth for many companies, including Facebook Inc. and Google Inc.

Search ads still account for nearly half of all online advertising revenue, at $16.9 billion in 2012.

The IAB, which represents media and technology companies, releases online advertising revenue numbers each quarter. Management consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers compiles the data independently based on information from companies that sell advertising on the Internet.

Patton Oswalt helps save the day

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:08:00 +0000

We crave catharsis after trauma — think of the Onion’s brilliant 9/11 issue, or its weary, pitch-perfect “Fuck Everything, Nation Reports” response to the horrific Newtown shootings last year. Feelings of helplessness can pile up only so far before despair sets in, and despair is a formidable enemy. Sometimes we need to be shocked out of it, and comedians are our best public friends in those times, unfettered by the ties of propriety and message that bind political and religious leaders.

The old chestnut “comedy is tragedy, plus time” still holds true — really, there is such a thing as “too soon” — but in dark times, we still need comedians to tell the truth. Patton Oswalt’s Facebook post in response to the Boston Marathon bombing shows us why comedians can offer the best response to tragedy, even when they’re not being funny.

Mark Zuckerberg launches political group

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:01:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley leaders have formally launched a political group aimed at revamping immigration policy, boosting education and encouraging investment in scientific research.

Zuckerberg announced the formation of Fwd.us (pronounced "forward us") in an op-ed article in The Washington Post late Wednesday. In it, he said the U.S. needs a new approach to these issues if it is to get ahead economically. This, he wrote, includes offering immigrants a path to citizenship.

"We have a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants," Zuckerberg wrote. "And it's a policy unfit for today's world."

The move comes as a bipartisan Senate group is expected to roll out a comprehensive immigration bill in the coming days. Zuckerberg's goal echoes the proposed legislation. Zuckerberg, whose great-grandparents were immigrants, said he wants "comprehensive immigration reform that begins with effective border security, allows a path to citizenship and lets us attract the most talented and hardest-working people, no matter where they were born."

The week in 10 pics

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

From Easter Sunday to Opening Day, a look at the week's most enduring images

Meet the blogger who says “Hey, parents! STFU!”

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:20:00 +0000

Blair Koenig is not the enemy, parents. Sure, she's been portrayed in certain whipped-up media venues as everything from "mommies' worst nightmare" to one of the scolding "sancti-childless." Earlier this week, "Good Morning America" helpfully introduced her as a "childless blogger" who has "a lot of moms and dads up in arms." And it's true, she does provocatively declare on her site that "You used to be fun. Now you have a baby."

Yet Koenig, in reality, is an eminently reasonable, very funny 30-something Brooklynite whose STFU, Parents happens to sum up the exasperation that plenty of us – the child-free and breeders alike – feel when dealing with the parental self-righteousness and oversharing that permeates our social media feeds.

Facebook Home capitalizes on Google

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook Home, the new application that takes over the front screen of a smartphone, is a bit of a corporate home invasion. Facebook is essentially moving into Google's turf, taking advantage of software the search giant and competitor created.

Facebook Home will operate on phones running Google Inc.'s Android software and present Facebook status updates, messages and other content on the home screen, rather than making the user fire up Facebook's app. The software will be available for users to download on April 12 and will come preloaded on a new phone from HTC Corp., sold by AT&T Inc. in the U.S.

Google gives away Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. Compared to ads targeting PC surfers, mobile ads are a small market, but it's growing quickly. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion.

Facebook wants to steal your soul

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:57:00 +0000

The home screen of your smartphone, Mark Zuckerberg told the world on Thursday, is the "soul of your phone." Zuckerberg then proceeded to demo "Home," Facebook's bold new plan to take over the prime real estate of all Android mobile devices, everywhere.

Q.E.D: Mark Zuckerberg wants to steal your soul. I'm surprised more of the reporters who attended the great unveiling at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday morning haven't led with this tidbit in their coverage of the event.

Or maybe, considering how many reporters were actually applauding at various stages during the presentation, the truth is that quite a few members of the tech press have already surrendered their souls to Zuckerberg. Tsk tsk.

The basics of "Home" seem slick, as best I could tell from the streaming video of Zuckerberg's presentation. Think of Home as the uber app that displaces all other apps -- the one app to rule them all! After installing Home, when you turn on your Android phone (or soon, your Android tablet) the first thing you will see is a visually striking "Cover Feed" that occupies all your screen space. The Cover Feed is a gussied-up version of the familiar old Facebook news feed, filled with whatever your friends are up to in the moment: their photos, videos, status updates.

Woman arrested for Instagramming

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:37:00 +0000

20-year-old artist Jennifer Pawluck was arrested Wednesday morning at 10:30am after posting a picture of anti-police street art on her Instagram feed a few days before.

“Many of my friends do not like the police,” Pawluck told the Huffington Post Québec in French. “I thought it would be funny to put the picture on Instagram. I do not even know who he is, Ian Lafrenière.”

Pawluck took the photo in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood of Montreal, where she lives, and police arrived early yesterday with a warrant accusing her of uttering threats to the Montreal police spokesperson Ian Lafrenière.

The photo in question depicts a hand-drawn image of Ian Lafrenière with a gunshot wound to the head flanked by the words “Ian Lafrenière” and “ACAB” — a popular graffiti acronym that stands for “all cop[per]s are bastards.”

Facebook unveils operating system-app hybrid for Android

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:47:00 +0000

Facebook unveiled a system of apps called "Home" for Android on Thursday. At the launch event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that Home is "not" a phone and "not" an operating system, but a series of apps that "sit" on top of Android's current OS. Adding, “You don’t need to fork android to do this, you don’t even need to modify the operating system.”

As noted by Jeff Bercovici at Forbes, "Home is a suite of apps that, together, constitute an interface for Android users willing to let Facebook mediate pretty much everything they do on their mobile devices."

Here is how the "not" app, "not" operating system works, according to The Examiner:

Facebook to unveil new android product

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:53:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is unveiling a new Android product Thursday, a move that comes as a fast-growing number of its 1.06 billion users access it on smartphones and tablet computers.

Advertisers are not far behind. Though mobile ads have been a big concern for Facebook's investors since before the company's initial public offering last May, some of that worry has subsided as Facebook began muscling its way into the market.

Last year, the company began showing ads to its mobile audience by splicing corporate sponsorships and content into users' news feeds, which also includes updates from friends and brands they follow. Among the challenges Facebook faces now is showing people mobile ads without annoying or alienating them.

The mobile advertisement market is growing quickly. That's thanks in large part to Facebook and Twitter, which also entered the space in 2012. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion, from $4.11 billion last year.

As for Thursday's event at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, speculation has centered on a mobile phone, made by HTC Corp., that deeply integrates Facebook into the Android operating system. The move comes as Facebook works to evolve from its Web-based roots to a "mobile-first" company, as its mantra goes.