Saturday, March 22, 2008
Easter Bunny Tracker
There are rumors that NORAD may create an Easter Bunny Tracker much as they have already done for tracking Santa as he hands out presents during Christmas.
The Easter Bunny Tracker will reportedly track the progress of the Easter Bunny as it hops from one house to another, handing out Easter baskets with Easter eggs, gifts, and candy all along the way.
Easter 2008 is on March 23. We'll update once we learn more details about the Easter Bunny Tracker.
In the meantime, some Easter Bunny videos:
Easter Bunny Attacks Comedy:
Easter Bunny Boogie:
Labels: Technology
Watch the Beatles 1962 Star Club Performance in Hamburg
Recordings of Ringo Star's first performance in the Beatles may be released soon by online music store, Fuego Entertainment. They were made during the Beatles 1962 Star Club performance in Hamburg, Germany. Among the tracks are Paul McCartney singing "Lovesick Blues" and John Lennon singing "Ask Me Why."
However, Apple Corps, which is in charge of protecting the Beatles intellectual property, says that they are simply bootlegs that Fuego doesn't have the right to sell. It's looking for $15 million in damages.
Luckily, avoiding the legal mess, you can already watch a couple recordings of the Star Club performance on YouTube.
The Beatles - "Red Sails In The Sunset":
The Beatles - "I'm Talking About You":
You can watch "Where Have You Been All My Life" here.
Stuff White People Like: Blog to Book for $350,000
The Canadian behind the humor blog Stuff While People Like has reportedly signed a book contract with Random House for a staggering $350,000 advance.
The blog has only been around since January of this year, but it's already gotten more than 16 million hits. Top posts on the blog cover topics that "white people" supposedly like including Asian Girls, Coffee, Having Gay Friends, and Dinner Parties. The book will be two-thirds new material mixed in with one-third blog posts.
How the blogger, "clander", describes Stuff White People Like: "This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. They are pretty predictable."
This isn't the first time a massively popular blog has gotten a book deal. I Can Haz Cheeseburger and Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle both have books in production.
Labels: Technology
Friday, March 21, 2008
Moonvertising: Rolling Rock Advertising on the Moon
Moonvertising involves shining a powerful laser at the moon and projected an advertising message that can be seen from around the world. Coca-Cola tried to do it in 1999 as the millennium approached, but the FAA was worried about interference with aircraft (i.e. "cutting flying airplanes in half").
Now, Rolling Rock Beer has announced plans to broadcast their corporate logo at the moon on March 21, 2008. Of course, they won't really do it even though moonvertising is technically feasible. It's just part of their viral marketing campaign to get people to check out their website.
On the website, you can leave messages of your own on the faux moon for other visitors to read. You can also watch videos and download a presentation from Ron Stablehorn, a fake advertising executive, on moonvertising.
The Boston Globe notes:
The brainchild of the advertising firm Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, the billboard directs curious consumers to a website for Rolling Rock beer, where an elaborate back story is spun about the campaign, featuring a faux vice president for marketing and a gimmick that lets viewers write their own ad on a screen version of the moon. To repeat: This is viral advertising; the company isn't actually going to project a laser beam 237,000 miles into space. Still, this spoof comes a little too close for comfort. With all nature merely a canvas, cloudvertising, lakevertising, and beachvertising are probably already on someone's drawing board.
Labels: Technology
Obama Passport File Breached
Barack Obama's confidential passport file was accessed without authorization at least three times in the past several months. Three contract workers for the U.S. State Department were responsible, viewing his file on January 9, February 21, and March 14. Two have been fired, but one is still staying on the job.
The apparent reason: "imprudent curiosity" on the part of the three individuals, according to the State Department.
What kind of information can be accessed? "Passport application data includes such details as date and place of birth, e-mail address, mailing address, Social Security number, former names and travel plans."
Any employee can access this data. All they need to do is agree to abide by the Privacy Act to access passport records, but after clicking "Yes", the computer system lets them access any record they like without any controls.
Because Obama is a prominent individual, his record has a "flag" set to warn of unauthorized access. A State Department spokesman says:
"In each of these three cases the system that was set up to detect any authorized access of these kinds of records worked. These unauthorized accesses were detected by the State department and immediately acted on," said McCormack.
Undersecretary Pat Kennedy said some records have "what computer people call flags -- we put flags on certain records that trigger a report to a supervisor that the record has been accessed," he said.
An Obama spokesman, reacting to the news of the breach, replies:
"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. "Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes."
"We demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," the Obama spokesman added.
An incident like this has happened before:
In 1992, a similar breach took place when State Department officials looked up data on then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton, amid rumors that had tried to renounce his citizenship in order to dodge the draft while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford during the Vietnam War.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Andreia Schwartz: Eliot Spitzer's Downfall Revealed (Pictures)
Andreia Schwartz has a rare opportunity: a get-out-of-jail-free card named Eliot Spitzer. The former madam and prostitute's deportation to her native Brazil has been halted while the Manhattan district attorney's office and the FBI try to determine what she knows about Spitzer's connection to her former employer, Emperor's Club VIP.
She has allegedly given prosecutor's checks made out to the Emperor's Club VIP as evidence of Spitzer's entanglement with the high-end prostitution ring.
The former call girl used to work for the Emperor's Club before striking out on her own as a madam. She was charging $750 to $1500 per hour for her girls. Since 2001, she claims to have made an impressive $1.5 million from prostitution. Tax free, which led to her conviction on charges of prostitution and drug possession.
Schwartz has a history of bringing down high-profile clients. The CFO of Time Warner, Wayne Pace, was named as one of the people funding her "investments." Schwartz claims "I got up to $200,000 ... from just one guy, who worked for AOL, in cash, mortgage payments, checks and other things."
But her ambition doesn't end there: she tried to buy an entire floor of the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue using money from a group of Italian investors. Now she gets to keep only $150,000 of her hard-earned gains, losing her $1.2 million Manhattan apartment and $300,000 in her bank account.
Andreia Schwartz Photo Gallery
Andreia Schwartz, Brazilian call girl
Andreia in a blue bikini
Andreia in a white bikini
Andreia on the front page of the Daily News
Google Gets Hacked?
Google hasn't had the misfortune of many well-publicized hacking incidents except for minor incidents on Google's official Blogger blogs.
So what would Google look like if it actually got hacked by script kiddies? Maybe something like Google H4k0r, which is one of many official, cute alternative Google search interfaces. The only big difference between regular Google and hacker Google is how words are spelled.
Hacker jargon basically switches numbers for letters on a case by case basis and alternates capitalization of letters. So "Google Search" becomes "Google s3a|2ch", and "Preferences" becomes "PR3F3R3N(3Z."
The only things that are left unchanged are the basic interface and the word "Google." Might we suggest "G00gl3"?
Labels: Technology
Ashley Alexandra Dupre Girls Gone Wild Video
One year after running away from home, Ashley Alexandra Dupre did a "Girls Gone Wild" Spring Break 2003 video when she was just 18-years-old. Scroll to watch Ashley's video and photos. This was long before she became known as Spitzer's call girl "Kristen" and started working as a high-class prostitute for the Emperor's Club VIP.
"Girls Gone Wild" explains how Ashley wound up partying on their tour bus:
Dupre visited Miami in 2003 to celebrate her 18th birthday. After fighting with a friend and getting thrown out of her hotel, Dupre found a nearby "Girls Gone Wild" bus, the company said.
She signed legal papers and spent a full week on the bus, filming seven full-length tapes which included nudity and same-sex encounters
The founder of "Girls Gone Wild", former convict and tax evader Joe Francis, was planning on offering Ashley $1 million to appear non-nude in his magazine, but that offer was quickly withdrawn after they discovered the archive footage. Francis says she looked better at 18 than 22.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre Girls Gone Wild Video
You can download and watch the "Girls Gone Wild" preview clip of Ashley here.
In addition, you can download and watch a cellphone video of Ashley dancing with another girl in a restaurant here.
Some higher resolution photos of Ashley partying in the "Girls Gone Wild" video:
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Michelle Paterson Admits to Affair
Will a detailed recounting of past sexual misdeeds be part of the political vetting process after the Spitzer hooker scandal? It certainly looks likely with both Gov. David Paterson and his wife, Michelle Paterson, admitting to having affairs during a difficult time in their relationship.
In an interview with the Daily News, the legally blind Paterson explains his extramarital affair:
Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.
As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.
He said members of his Albany legislative staff often used the same hotel when they visit the city.
Michelle also confirmed that she had an affair, but did not go into further detail. Her view on Paterson's future fidelity is:
When asked if she worried about "other women," given how much time she and her husband spend apart, she replied, "Not really. I have a philosophy in life: You have to let people live their life. I feel my husband loves me and is devoted to the family. And I know he loves me. I am not going to worry about that stuff."
Is this what Silda Wall Spitzer thought about her husband before the revelations of his infidelity with prostitutes?
David and Michelle Paterson Wedding Photo
Days Inn - Broadway and W. 94th Street
Charlie Rose Black Eye, But Saves MacBook Air
Charlie Rose isn't known for being very flashy. Every episode of his show features a black background with two people talking in front of it so it might have come as a shock to regular viewers to see Charlie Rose sporting a fresh black eye.
TechCrunch reports that Rose got a black eye after tripping "in a pothole while walking on 59th street in Manhattan." Incidentally, he was also carrying a new MacBook Air and make the fateful decision to sacrifice his face to protect his laptop from the fall.
Rose's producers say:
"In doing so, he pretty much hit the pavement face first, unfortunately," they said.
Luckily the MacBook Air survived the fall. "The Macbook Air is fine, he showed us the blood stains on it this morning."
If you don't understand Rose's decision to shed blood for his laptop, you need to familiarize yourself with the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is touted as the world's thinnest laptop computer and sports a 13.3 inch screen and full-size keyboard, weighing a mere 3 pounds.
Although the latest episode featuring the black eye isn't available yet, you should be able to catch it on the Charlie Rose online video archive next week.
Labels: Technology
Monday, March 17, 2008
Dina Matos McGreevey Picture Gallery
Scroll down for the Dina Matos McGreevey photo gallery.
Before Spitzer and "Kristen", there was gay Gov. Jim McGreevey and Theodore Pedersen.
Former aide Pedersen says that he, McGreevey, and wife Dina Matos McGreevey had weekly trysts from 1999 to 2001. They would begin the evening at T.G.I. Friday's (you can't make this stuff up) and conclude at McGreevey's condo. These encounters were called "Friday Night Specials."
This contradicts Dina Matos McGreevey's portrayal as an unsuspecting wife:
Matos McGreevey claims the onetime Woodbridge mayor duped her into marriage in 2000 to further his political career, and that she had no clue about his sexual preference until just before he resigned in August 2004, when he announced he was gay and had an affair with an aide.
To bolster her claims that she was unaware he was gay, she writes in her book "Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage" that "the sex was good."
Matos McGreevey also recounts a surreal conversation before McGreevey's resignation speech:
Two days later, Dina writes, he went further, using a certain three-letter word for the first time: "I think I might be gay."
She didn't learn he was certain he was gay - "a gay American" - until she read a draft of his speech a few hours before he delivered it.
"You have to smile," he reportedly reminded her on the way to the announcement.
"And if reporters ask you why you're here, you should tell them, 'I'm here because he's my husband and I love him.'
"And if the reporters ask you what you think of gay marriage, you should say, 'I'm sensitive to the issue.'"
"Make sure you smile a little more when I ask for forgiveness and thank you for bringing joy to my life," he added.
Dina Matos McGreevey Picture Gallery
Gov. McGreevey, Theodore Pedersen, Matos McGreevey
Dina Matos, McGreevey, and (far right) Theodore Pedersen
Dina Matos McGreevey smiling at resignation speech
Dina on "Good Morning America"
Joseph Lewis: "I Lost $1 Billion in Bear Stearns"
The mortgage meltdown continues this week with JPMorgan buying arch rival Bear Stearns (BSC) for a 98% discount, about $236 million (i.e., next to nothing). In fact, the Bear Stearns building on Madison Avenue itself is worth more than the entire buyout. The biggest loser, other than the American people who are essentially putting up $30 billion to guarantee Bear's mortgage securities, may be Joseph Lewis, who lost $1.16 billion as a result of the deal, which values each share of Bear Stearns at $2.
As the second largest underwriter of mortgage-backed bonds, Bear Stearns was uniquely exposed to the subprime collapse. Last summer, two of its hedge funds failed, a precursor of the firm's eventual demise. What's makes it more surprising is that Bear had $1 billion worth of offsetting, short positions to hedge its exposure to subprime mortgages.
Joe Lewis's total wealth is estimated at $2.5 billion so this is a major blow to the former currency trader. Just last week, the billionaire was even planning to increase his stake in Bear, seeing the falling share price as an opportunity to snap up more at a bargain price. Bear was trading close to $63 that day. He had originally bought his 9.4% stake at $107.
His nickname is the Boxer, a reference to his success trading currencies as well as an homage to his names similarity to boxing champion Joe Louis. He initially set up a computerized trading operation in the Bahamas where he speculated on the movements of foreign currencies. Like George Soros, Lewis is thought to have made hundreds of millions by betting against the British pound. He also made a killing during the Mexican peso crisis.
His previous investments would have painted a much different picture of a well-diversified investor:
Since then Lewis has shrewdly invested his profits through the Tavistock Group, which has interests in 75 companies in areas including property, financial services, life sciences, energy, industry and consumer goods. Among his property holdings are 3,600 acres in the Bahamas and 8,000 acres in Florida. In Britain he was recently involved with a group of investors who sold their stake in housebuilder Countryside Properties for a profit of about £10m. Other assets include property and a stake in Tottenham Hotspur football club.
Joe Lewis on his yacht
Empty lobby at Bear Stearns
The Complete Guide to Free File Hosting Services
Free File Storage Services
File hosting services let you store files online so you or anyone else can access them from anywhere in the world.
There are many reasons to use a free online file hosting service, but some important ones are:
- They are oftentimes free with unlimited online storage capacity
- You can use them to share files that are too big to send over email with family, friends, or colleagues.
- They provide extra redundancy when you backup important files.
- By far the most important for many users, you are a file sharer looking for a place to upload and distribute movies, games, or software.
Limitations of Online Storage Solutions
Most file hosting services have some sort of upload and download limit, but you'll find several in the list below that are very generous with their bandwidth. Also keep in mind that files stored in free accounts may be automatically deleted if no downloads are detected for some period of time (such as 30 consecutive days).
Many sites also offer uploading tools to make it easier to bulk upload files.
In the list below, I mainly focus on ease of usability with regard to end-users a.k.a. downloaders. That means I'm mainly looking at whether or not there are download limits or CAPTCHAs put in place to conserve bandwidth or prevent automated downloads. However, I also point out upload limits in certain cases, but for the most part, restrictions on uploaders are less extreme so they are less important in evaluating file hosting services. In the worst case, it's generally more important to determine whether you can get your file off a remote server that you have no control over and with the least amount of hindrance.
The Complete Guide to Free File Hosting Services
1. MediaFire is my favorite file hosting service. No CAPTCHAs are required to download files, and there are no download limits. Review
2. SendSpace is another site that doesn't require CAPTCHAs, but may sometimes run out of bandwidth. Uploads are capped at 300 MB per file.
3. iFile, formerly known as Mihd, is a very nice hosting service that lets you download files with a download accelerator such as Free Download Manager or FlashGet. No CAPTCHAs necessary and no download limits.
4. RapidShare is at the moment the most popular file hosting service in the world. Downloads are generally fast, and you can find virtually any kind of file on RapidShare. However, the download limits are very strict.
5. Megaupload is number one in the US, but trails RapidShare at number two in the worldwide ranking. Download limits are more generous than RapidShare's, but Megaupload does limit the number of download slots per country.
6. zSHARE offers unlimited downloads, and you can upload files up to 100 MB. The service is completely ad-financed so there isn't any premium service.
7. Badongo lets you upload files up to 1 GB without space limitations. Non-registered users get to download 4.8 GB per day.
8. Driveway offers a clean interface for managing your files online. However, you can only get 2 GB of storage space free. No download limits though.
9. PicsHome lets you store both files and images online. The free account does support download accelerators, but caps bandwidth at 30 KB/s.
10. FileFactory lets you upload regular files along with slideshows and software. Annoyingly, you have to click through multiple pages to download files however.
11. Deposit Files requires both a CAPTCHA and 60 second waiting time before download starts.
12. Furk.net lets you upload files of any size with unlimited downloads. The catch is that big files are split into multiple RAR archives so you can't download large files as one file. A premium feature even lets you download BitTorrent files over HTTP.
13. DivShare debuted strongly with many nice features, but it has slowly restricted service (even banning users in China and Southeast Asia from using the service). You can upload files up to 200 MB. Download limits depend on account type.
14. FlyUpload lets you upload files up to 2 GB in size. No CAPTCHAs needed to download. No download limits.
15. GigaSize offers somewhat generous download limits for free users with upload sizes capped at 300 MB.
16. Uploaded.to doesn't require CAPTCHAs to download files, but you might have to wait a couple seconds for the download button to become active.
17. Files.to is fully ad-supported so everything is free. You can upload files up to 100 MB with unlimited downloads.
18. TurboUpload lets you upload files up to 100 MB, but limits downloads for free users.
19. SaveFile has upload limits of 60 MB per file, but has unlimited downloads.
20. WebFileHosting doesn't have daily download limits and allows unlimited uploads. They even include a searchable catalog of files that have been uploaded.
21. Suggestions?
Power Tip: Use File Distributors/Mirrors
What if instead of choosing one service from the list above, you could store your file on several of them? At once?
That's the power of using file distribution or mirroring services, which automatically share your files across multiple file hosting sites. Here are two good ones:
1. TinyLoad is a file distributor. Instead of hosting files on its own servers, it distributes them to other file hosts like RapidShare, Amazon S3, and Megaupload.
2. MassMirror does the same thing, mirroring your files across file hosts around the world. Review
3. Recommendations?
Labels: Technology
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Client 6: Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
The Spitzer scandal continues to unravel. The identity of "Client 6" a.k.a. Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster has been uncovered.
The Duke of Westminster is the richest man in Britain worth 6.6 billion pounds, listed as the 46th richest person in the world by "Forbes." He has a history of frequenting prostitutes, reportedly "hiring four hookers over a six-week stretch in late 2006 and early last year."
His appointment with Emperor's Club VIP escort "Astrid" on January 12, 2008 was caught on tape. For his one hour appointment, he paid 500 pounds ($1000). Apparently, he was only willing to shell out for a 3 diamond model, who cost $1000 an hour. Emperor's Club models were rated from 3 to 7 diamonds.
"Astrid", an escort based in London, is described as:
Beautiful, unforgettable…Astrid. After a few years of successful experience in finance, Astrid turned to her true passion in life… fashion. Now, a celebrated fashion consultant, Astrid holds Masters degrees from one of France’s top universities. Golden hazel eyes illuminate her pretty face making her a delight to the eye. Such sophistication and beauty make Astrid your ideal date for any social function, leisure escape or private evening date. Meet Astrid once, and you’ll welcome her into your life forever.
Upon leaving her date, "Astrid" said "everything was fine", and "Client 6" reported that "she was very nice." However, he wanted another girl for next time.
Perhaps the Duke had similar predilections as Spitzer: a desire for unsafe sex. A previous fling, then 26-year-old Zana Brazdek a.k.a. "Shanna", describes his idea of bedside manner:
"I thought his conversation was quite boring," the Lithuanian woman told the newspaper. "He talked about the Army, going to Afghanistan and bin Laden. And he wanted unprotected sex. I refused."
Ironically, the Duke also mentioned:
"He told me that British soldiers were getting tested for sexual diseases every three months because they were sleeping with women all over the world."
As rich as he was, he wasn't above asking for a 500 pound discount for his rendezvous. When "Shanna" countered that she would call the Emperor's Club to discuss pricing, the Duke offered an extra 500 pounds for her silence.
Share Files Online: Get Banned from the Internet
Some scary news coming out of Japan suggests that P2P file sharers may be banned from using the Internet. Four Japanese ISP organizations, which together have 1000 ISPs as members, are banding together to ban pirates from the Internet after receiving persistent complaints from copyright holders.
The measures are directed against the 1.75 million file sharers in Japan who mainly use Winny, the most popular P2P software, to share music, movies, games, and software anonymously (and illegally). First-time offenders would initially receive warning emails. This could escalate to being abruptly disconnected from the Internet, and severe violations could result in cancellation of Internet service.
Previous proposals to disconnect users of P2P programs like Winny were abandoned because they were regarded as violations of the right to privacy in communications, but that objection has now been overruled.
According to "The Daily Yomiuri", file sharing has been estimated to cost up to 10 billion yen ($99.5 million:
A brief six-hour survey by a copyright organization monitoring the Internet found about 3.55 million examples of illegally copied gaming software, worth about 9.5 billion yen at regular software prices, and 610,000 examples of illegally copied music files, worth 440 million yen, that could be freely downloaded into personal computers using such software
Labels: Technology
Ashley Alexandra Dupre: $200,000 Music Star on Amie Street
Eliot Spitzer, the "Luv Guv", may have paid $4300 for four hours with "Kristen" a.k.a. Ashley Alexandra Dupre, but now that she's been exposed, Ashley stands to gain much, much more.
The former Emperor's Club VIP escort has rocketed to the top of the charts on Amie Street, a website that lets independent artists sell their music. It's been estimated that she has raked in more than $200,000 in music downloads over the last four days. At her former rate of $1,000 an hour, she would have had to service about 50 clients to make the equivalent amount of dough.
Aspiring RnB and Pop singer Dupre has two tracks currently listed for 98 cents each on Amie Street called "What We Want" and "Move ya Body" (scroll down to listen to samples). "What We Want" can be listened to in its entirety for free on her MySpace page. You can also download the MySpace MP3 for free by using File2HD.
Dupre's also been asked to pose nude for "Hustler" magazine for a cool $1 million with "Playboy" reportedly offering high six figures. A vodka producer even wants to create a line called "Vodka No 9", a reference to Spitzer's code name as Client 9 in the FBI affidavit.
"What We Want" Sample:
"Move ya Body" Sample:
Watch Feature Films and TV Series on Hulu
Hulu, the online video portal owned by NBC and News Corp., has recently opened its doors to the public.
The on-demand video service provides free access to dozens of full-length feature films like "The Usual Suspects" and "Ice Age" along with full episodes of television series like "Saturday Night Live" and "House". It even offers you the option of embedding and sharing your favorite videos.
Videos are generally higher-quality than what you'll find on YouTube. The only limitation is that viewers have to be in the US. Naturally, the site is ad-supported so you'll have to endure ad spots during breaks.
Of course, using OPENhulu, which embeds Hulu videos on its own webpages, anyone could have watched the entire Hulu video library even without being part of the beta test which was an outcome we foresaw in our original article on the Hulu beta.
Labels: Technology
