Salon.com > Internet Culture http://www.salon.com Fri, 04 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Internet-connected devices now outnumber people in the U.S. http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/internet_connected_devices_now_outnumber_people_in_the_us/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/internet_connected_devices_now_outnumber_people_in_the_us/#comments Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:10:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13160987 Everyone stay calm, but a new report from market researchers NPD Group shows that we are now outnumbered by our gadgets. That's right, there are currently more smartphones, computers, tablets and game consoles in this country than there are humans.

There are currently 315 million people in the United States, but NPD estimates that there are 425 million devices operating in U.S. households. And with cheaper tablets and other devices hitting the market at a rapid clip, that number is sure to continue to grow.

The way I see it, we either start reproducing or learn to speak binary code -- fast.

h/t BetaBeat

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/internet_connected_devices_now_outnumber_people_in_the_us/feed/ 0 Resolved: In 2013, I’ll stop paying attention to Rush http://www.salon.com/2013/01/01/resolved_in_2013_ill_stop_paying_attention_to_rush/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/01/resolved_in_2013_ill_stop_paying_attention_to_rush/#comments Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13159054 I've never been one for New Years resolutions, but, then, I've never been a father before, either. That means up until now, the symptoms of my early onset Old Jewish Man Syndrome -- anxiety, neurosis, self-hate and attendant gastrointestinal distress -- mostly affected just me, and not a small child. So I figure if there's a first time for everything, then 2013 is as good a year as any to come up with 10 resolutions that, if fulfilled, hold out the hope of making me a better and healthier dad, husband, writer and overall person.

Some of these will seem trivial, and others will seem more serious. My guess is that at least a few will ring true for you - and if they don't, well, at least you can have a good laugh at my expense. Here they are in no specific order:

1. I will stop lying to my exercise machine: When it comes to my relationship with workout machines, I am nothing short of a pathological liar. Whether at home or on vacation, I tell the machines I meet that I weigh 173 pounds when I really weigh about 10 pounds more than that. In other words, when I program my workout, I tell the machine I'm the weight I want to be, but not the weight I actually am. Why do I do this and what the hell do I really think I'm getting away with?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/01/resolved_in_2013_ill_stop_paying_attention_to_rush/feed/ 37 Zynga slashes games and jobs in effort to regroup http://www.salon.com/2012/12/31/zynga_slashes_games_and_jobs_in_effort_to_regroup/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/31/zynga_slashes_games_and_jobs_in_effort_to_regroup/#comments Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:42:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13158563 Zynga dealt a blow to time wasters and procrastinators when it ended several of its games yesterday as part of a wider retrenchment, TechCrunch reported.

The social gaming company skyrocketed into the collective brainspace with addictive fare like the simulation "FarmVille" and "Words with Friends." But the public markets haven't been kind to the company. Its ongoing restructuring effort involves cutting more than 100 jobs, closing offices and eliminating more than a dozen of its titles.

TechCrunch wrote that, "Investors feared it had become bloated, free virality on Facebook had been curtailed, competitors were proliferating, and the shift of Facebook users to mobile from Zynga’s stronghold on the desktop canvas would break the company."Zynga went public in December 2011 at $10 per share. On Monday morning it was trading at $2.37. It has not traded above $4 since July.

Games shut down this month include "PetVille," "Mafia Wars 2," "FishVille," "Vampire Wars," and "Treasure Isle."

TechCrunch:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/31/zynga_slashes_games_and_jobs_in_effort_to_regroup/feed/ 0 Top 10 Wikipedia pages of 2012 http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/top_wikipedia_pages_of_2012/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/top_wikipedia_pages_of_2012/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2012 22:29:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13156051 Johan Gunnarsson, a computer science student in Lund, Sweden, has assembled a list of the most viewed Wikipedia pages of 2012.

The Daily Dot speculates, probably correctly, that the top two answers, "Facebook" and "Wiki" owe their popularity more to clumsy computer users than genuine curiosity. The rest of the list, though, can be read as a guide to the things people want to know about that they don't want others to know they want to know about. Except maybe Google.

1) Facebook

2) Wiki

3) Deaths in 2012

4) "One Direction"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/top_wikipedia_pages_of_2012/feed/ 3 Rainn Wilson explores “life’s big questions” http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/rainn_wilson_on_the_office_it%e2%80%99s_really_time_for_the_show_to_end/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/rainn_wilson_on_the_office_it%e2%80%99s_really_time_for_the_show_to_end/#comments Sat, 15 Dec 2012 18:20:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13131857 Most television viewers identify Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, the constantly high-strung, testy "Battlestar Galactica" nerd on "The Office." But where his character is cynical and negative in the extreme, in conversation Wilson comes across as effusive, spiritual and upbeat. As the hit sitcom comes to a close in its final season, Wilson is branching out with other projects, many which veer from comedy, but stay close to his greater vision of bringing people together.

Salon recently caught up with the actor and comedian on the phone to discuss “The Office,” his SoulPancake project and his new TV special "Oprah and Rainn Wilson Present SoulPancake" premiering this Sunday on OWN, which focuses on exploring “life’s big questions.” This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

Why did you and your friends (Joshua Homnick and Devon Gundry) start SoulPancake?

Before the series, our goal was starting a website, called SoulPancake.com. I really wanted to do something positive on the internet. I wanted to try to get young people talking about, thinking about, life’s big questions--make it cool and OK to wonder about the heart, the soul and free will and God and death and big topics like that, big human topics.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/rainn_wilson_on_the_office_it%e2%80%99s_really_time_for_the_show_to_end/feed/ 0 Online privacy’s new iconography http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/online_privacys_new_iconography/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/online_privacys_new_iconography/#comments Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:52:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13124296 The online syndicate Disconnect has joined forces with Internet nonprofit Mozilla and a team of designers to demystify web privacy for the masses. Their weapon of choice? A visual rating system that pops up in your browser bar. Since reading the fine print on how your personal information gets used is time-consuming and confusing, which is why you don't do it. As a result, average web surfers (Hi!) has absolutely no idea what information sites are mining for, or how they use it. That's where the icons come in.

There are currently nine symbols representing different degrees of compliance with privacy standards. If a website sells your data to outside parties, it gets a dollar sign inside an orange circle with an upward pointed arrow. If it doesn't, it gets a plain old green circle around a dollar sign. Confused? You're not alone. The new set of icons is complicated, and that's pretty much by design. As Casey Oppenheim of Disconnect explains, Internet privacy is a hard concept to boil down to a visual language. "How do you convey data, intent, all these different things?"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/online_privacys_new_iconography/feed/ 0 US blocks UN telecom treaty http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/us_blocks_un_telecom_treaty/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/us_blocks_un_telecom_treaty/#comments Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:39:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13124371 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A disappointed American delegation led a Western snub of a U.N. telecommunications treaty Thursday after rivals, including Iran and China, won support for provisions interpreted as endorsing greater government control of the Internet.

The unraveling of the conference displayed the deep ideological divide at the 193-nation gathering in Dubai, where envoys grappled with the first revisions of global telecom codes since 1988 — years before the dawn of the Internet age.

A Western bloc led by a powerhouse U.S. delegation sought to stop any U.N. rules on cyberspace, fearing they could squeeze Web commerce and open the door for more restrictions and monitoring by authoritarian regimes that already impose wide-ranging clampdowns. The head of one tech industry group said it could "forever alter" the Web.

A rival group — including China, Russia, Gulf Arab states, African nations and others — favored U.N. backing for stronger government sway over Internet affairs and claimed the Western dominance of the Internet needed to be addressed.

The battles were over language that could influence perceptions of what the Internet means as a modern tool for business, communications and societies — and not directly about specific practical regulations.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/us_blocks_un_telecom_treaty/feed/ 0 My husband’s secret gay life http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/my_husbands_secret_gay_life/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/my_husbands_secret_gay_life/#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2012 02:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13118523 “I’ll be the jailer and you be the naughty prisoner.”

When I read those words, a chat conversation between my then-husband and another man, it felt for just a moment like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. I remember putting my hand on my chest, gasping for air, as the world I thought I knew shattered around me.

He was surprisingly conciliatory and accommodating in the divorce negotiations. In the Deep South state we lived in at the time, within 30 days it was final. Our eight-year marriage was over before the indentation from my wedding ring had even faded from my finger.

Because I couldn’t bear the thought of enduring other people’s pity — or ridicule — and because I had two very small children to raise, I made the decision to pack up and move two states away. We’d get a brand-new start, my children and me, away from anyone who knew that we’d once been a different, complete family.

While unpacking my desk in our new home, I came across the transcript of the chat that had brought down my marriage. As I quickly scanned the now-familiar words, something new jumped out at me. The “jailer” made reference to my ex-husband’s website. Website? I googled his screen name.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/my_husbands_secret_gay_life/feed/ 45 Twitter still loves Psy http://www.salon.com/2012/12/08/twitter_still_loves_psy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/08/twitter_still_loves_psy/#comments Sat, 08 Dec 2012 02:13:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13119046 [embedtweet id="277177678338064386"]

[embedtweet id="277191027553611776"]

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[embedtweet id="277098312530812928"]

[embedtweet id="277200998768988162"]

 

 

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/08/twitter_still_loves_psy/feed/ 3 Conference takes up how to govern the Internet http://www.salon.com/2012/12/05/conference_takes_up_how_to_govern_the_internet/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/05/conference_takes_up_how_to_govern_the_internet/#comments Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:10:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13116001 The Internet is a contested space. Just like any place in the physical world, if it is left unguarded, someone will assert control over it.

While cyberspace is often idealized as a transnational and anarchic mode of communication, increasingly, different nations want a role in governing and policing it. This contest for control of the Internet is a topic of discussion at the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union conference in Dubai this week. The ITU is a century and a half old -- the “T” once stood for “telegraph" --  and its members are countries. Just as countries have different ideas about governing their people, they don’t all agree about how to regulate a technology that transcends national borders. This has created an opening for a group of autocracies who want more control of the Internet.

Like many transnational issues -- climate change comes to mind -- the devil is in the less-than-stimulating details. Who has time to worry that all of the world’s IP addresses – those unique location indicators that allow a computer network to function -- keep running?  As long as we can share family vacation photos on Facebook and watch the silly YouTube of the day, all is right in our digital universe. But as Internet usage continues to grow this issue is anything but settled.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/05/conference_takes_up_how_to_govern_the_internet/feed/ 3 Google broke my heart http://www.salon.com/2012/12/04/google_broke_my_heart/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/04/google_broke_my_heart/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13111556 We were going to get married the following year, and I was going to continue writing while he got his new business off the ground, and we were going to be deliriously happy. That was the plan – well, that was my plan. His plan, if he ever had one, remained a mystery to me, and the whole romance faded away in a series of incremental withdrawals and muted hurts. He didn’t know he’d bewitched me with his playful intelligence, his unfairly beautiful body, his dogged search for higher meaning. He had no idea that he was the first man I’d ever genuinely loved, or that I wanted to have 10 kids with him. Worse, maybe he did know. Maybe he knew and didn’t care. I never could figure that out.

The relationship ended after just over a year, not terribly long by relationship standards. Except that it never really ended – not for me, anyway. We went separate ways, to be sure, severing all ties. But I continued to wonder what had become of him, and I filled in the blanks with the only resource available to me: my imagination. This was before Facebook, even before the Internet, and so I envisioned him doing it all – working hard, reading good books, grappling with life’s inevitable sorrows, and, yes, dating women whose faces and breasts were nicer than mine.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/04/google_broke_my_heart/feed/ 11 Julian Assange: The Web can create revolutions — or jail revolutionaries http://www.salon.com/2012/12/02/julian_assange_the_web_can_create_revolutions_or_jail_revolutionaries/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/02/julian_assange_the_web_can_create_revolutions_or_jail_revolutionaries/#comments Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13111803 Julian Assange: If we go back to this time in the early 1990s when you had the rise of the cypherpunk movement in response to state bans on cryptography, a lot of people were looking at the power of the Internet to provide free uncensored communications compared to mainstream media. But the cypherpunks always saw that, in fact, combined with this was also the power to surveil all the communications that were occurring. We now have increased communication versus increased surveillance. Increased communication means you have extra freedom relative to the people who are trying to control ideas and manufacture consent, and increased surveillance means just the opposite.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/02/julian_assange_the_web_can_create_revolutions_or_jail_revolutionaries/feed/ 15 Keep your comments off my baby http://www.salon.com/2012/12/01/keep_your_comments_off_my_baby/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/01/keep_your_comments_off_my_baby/#comments Sat, 01 Dec 2012 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13111797 I am not pregnant yet, but I am already thinking about what the commenters will say.

When I became an Internet writer three years ago, I didn’t know much about the blogosphere, or the ferocious battles waged between different online representatives of feminism, or the popularity of mommy blogs, or the difference between Gawker and HuffPo. I just wanted someone to read my writing, and I wanted someone else to give me money for it. My first paid gig was at AOL; I did author interviews and wrote personal essays for the women’s site. I didn’t know to be embarrassed that only old people still use AOL. I gave them some dramatic stories, like the account of my cosmetic surgery. My husband’s great uncle called to let him know that when he’d opened his browser before breakfast, he learned all about how much I used to hate the way I looked.

I was embarrassed but determined. So what if people I saw once every few years at an awkward Christmas celebration knew my bra size and the details of my struggle with food-related guilt? I was a writer! I was making it big on AOL!

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/01/keep_your_comments_off_my_baby/feed/ 8 William Giraldi trolls entire Internet, again http://www.salon.com/2012/11/30/william_giraldi_trolls_entire_internet_again/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/30/william_giraldi_trolls_entire_internet_again/#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:39:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13111278 After earning the ire of the Internet for a gratuitously nasty New York Times review this summer that seemed more like a cry for attention than a defense of literature, William Giraldi is back -- and baiting Twitter once more.

In a review of Bill Henderson's "Rotten Reviews Redux" on the Los Angeles Review of Books, Giraldi steps back, winds up, and takes a wild shot at the entire online literary world, calling it "a community of coddlers who approach literature as if it were a Sunday knitting circle."

While Giraldi does not mention the dustup and severe criticism he came in for online after his dismissal of an Alix Ohlin novel and story collection, it appears to be on his mind. (Writing on Salon, the novelist and critic J. Robert Lennon said Giraldi's "glee at eviscerating Ohlin overshadows his analysis, and casts doubt on its veracity. It isn’t trustworthy, which makes it no more valuable than the kind of swooning puff pieces most critics write.")

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/30/william_giraldi_trolls_entire_internet_again/feed/ 7 Would you take investing advice from an SEC commissioner? http://www.salon.com/2012/11/29/would_you_take_advice_from_an_sec_commissioner/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/29/would_you_take_advice_from_an_sec_commissioner/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:43:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13110562 An email phishing scam employing the name of Securities and Exchange Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher has reached critical mass, forcing the agency that regulates Wall Street to clarify its role:

The SEC does not endorse investment offers, assist in the purchase or sale of securities, or participate in money transfers.  SEC staff will not, for example, contact individuals by telephone or email for purposes of:

    • seeking assistance with a fund transfer;
    • forwarding investment offers to them;
    • advising individuals that they own certain securities;
    • telling investors that they are eligible to receive disbursements from an investor claims fund or class action settlement; or
    • offering grants or other financial assistance (especially for an upfront fee).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/29/would_you_take_advice_from_an_sec_commissioner/feed/ 0 Her Facebook disaster show http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/her_facebook_disaster_show/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/her_facebook_disaster_show/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13066845 This is a story about a woman named Paula. That’s not even her real name, and my instinct was to call her “girl” because that’s how I remember her: a sturdy, pale girl with greasy, straight-cut bangs and glasses and grey teeth.

Paula and I were never friends, even though we went to middle school together. She was poor (never mind that I, too, was poor), and she didn’t wear the right clothes (never mind that I didn’t, either), and if she wasn’t stupid, it was somehow implied that she was stupid, or that her future was less bright than the rest of our classmates'. It was never talked about, but it was there; it was apparent in the way that everyone ignored her and in the way that she shuffled sullenly from class to class.

And that’s where I would have left her if this story took place 15 or 20 years ago. I wouldn’t know Paula at all today. She’d be forever lost in the shadows of youth, a plump ghost who once ate with me in the small, cramped cafeteria of our middle school.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/her_facebook_disaster_show/feed/ 49 Donald Trump rebuttal of the day: Health care http://www.salon.com/2012/11/04/donald_trump_rebuttal_of_the_day_health_care/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/04/donald_trump_rebuttal_of_the_day_health_care/#comments Sun, 04 Nov 2012 20:27:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13062376 [embedtweet id="265166613727293440"]

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/04/donald_trump_rebuttal_of_the_day_health_care/feed/ 11 Dumb tweet of the day http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/dumb_tweet_of_the_day_18/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/dumb_tweet_of_the_day_18/#comments Fri, 02 Nov 2012 23:01:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13061363 [embedtweet id="264499362426667008"]

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/dumb_tweet_of_the_day_18/feed/ 2 Pictures of our dread http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/pictures_of_our_dread/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/pictures_of_our_dread/#comments Tue, 30 Oct 2012 23:40:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13058113 Even before Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, the bogus photos began to circulate on Twitter and Facebook, with several getting picked up by professional media outlets. There was a 'shopped image of the Statue of Liberty with an ominous cloud swirling behind it and a perfectly legit photo of Midtown Manhattan menaced by a similarly dark cloud — although that picture was snapped over a year ago. An inspirational image of servicemen guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier turned out to have been taken on some other, more ordinary rainy day.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/pictures_of_our_dread/feed/ 8 The Krim family tragedy unleashes an onslaught of trolls http://www.salon.com/2012/10/29/the_krim_family_tragedy_unleashes_an_onslaught_of_trolls/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/29/the_krim_family_tragedy_unleashes_an_onslaught_of_trolls/#comments Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:49:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13056076 Shortly after the news broke Thursday that Marina Krim had discovered her 6-year-old daughter, Lucia, and her 2-year-old son, Leo, had been stabbed to death in their Upper West Side Manhattan apartment, allegedly by the children's nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, my friend and fellow NYC mother lamented wearily that she was bracing herself for the inevitable trend pieces and ugly comments the tragedy was about to inspire. And sure enough, we didn't have to wait long for them to erupt.

It's understandable how the Krim murders — two defenseless children brutally killed by, it appears, the very person entrusted to care for them — would provoke a primal response. It's the stuff of nightmares. The demoralizing aspect of the story is how quickly it's been exploited as an opportunity, both by the media and the sanctimonious troll community, for all kinds of judging.

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