Technically Incorrect

It's not every day that a high school student gets some advice on social networking from a president.

So it was interesting to hear where President Obama's focus lay Tuesday when talking to 40 students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., before his nationally broadcast speech to America's schoolkids.

There he was in the school library. Books abounded. Yet his focus fell on Facebook. According to the Associated Press, President Obama asked the 40 assembled kids, all sitting politely on nice wooden chairs, to think very carefully about their socially-networked content.

"Be careful what you … Read more

Parents have to fight hard to find new ways to get through to their offspring.

Naturally, there are those who might think it pointless to bother communicating with them at all. Yet somehow parents keep trying like the spurned lovers of Cleopatra.

According to The Washington Post, the latest trend in parenting patter is to nag your kids by text.

The article points out some touching nuances. Kids don't like picking up the phone when a parent calls. A text that says, for example, "u little dolt. Where the hell are u?" can be read rather more … Read more

Have you ever written a text message and then failed to correctly multiply 3 by 7 right after you pressed "send"?

Have you ever posted an update on Facebook and instantly reached for your Proust? And have you ever sent a tweet, looked in the mirror, and suddenly believed that you had a twin?

Well, according to the Telegraph, Dr. Tracy Alloway, a psychologist from the University of Stirling in Scotland, can explain all of this.

The good doctor has spent many of her days studying working memory, which allows people to retain and use information. She believes … Read more

I know there are some people who have not slept for fear that Google had finally committed itself to some alien culture.

Well, some outerworldly alien culture. Well, some outerworldly alien culture where all beings were green and no one used phrases like "market segmentation" and "41 shades of blue."

You see, a mysterious doodle appeared on the Google home page. It showed an alien spacecraft making off with the second "O" in the word "Google."

Were we really expected to merely gogle now? Didn't that sound uncomfortably close to ogling?… Read more

September 11, 2001, gave many people pause for thought. But how many can say that such a dark day made them want to cook?

That was the interesting claim made by Preeti Mistry, the 33-year-old executive chef with Google's Bon Appetit management company. She made her declaration on the latest episode of Bravo TV's "Top Chef," in which she was a contestant.

Was.

For Mistry was removed by the judges after serving a paltry pasta salad to the brave and hungry airmen and women at Nellis Air Force Base.

You see, the judges, led by the … Read more

I know it's hard to prevent your children from gaining an early fascination with drugs, violence, weapons, World of Warcraft, and illicit personal behavior.

The phenomenon that is Webkinz is but one brave attempt.

In case you inhabit a particularly large hole in Nova Scotia, Webkinz turns your children into loving, caring humans online.

On the Webkinz site, your children can look after their new pets. Well, as long as they buy the physical, three-dimensional stuffed version at a friendly neighborhood store.

So it is my heartfelt privilege to be able to tell you that should you choose to … Read more

Apple stores seem such ordered and venerable establishments that even when they are populated by far too many people (which seems to happen often), nothing is out of place.

So the footage I have embedded here feels like the desecration of a church.

Some miscreants with nothing better to do in the early hours of Wednesday decided to smash the front window of the Apple store in Marlton, N.J., and make off with as much booty as they could grab.

It all seems to happen so quickly that you wonder if the security guard, who was, according to MSNBC, … Read more

I know many people have strong feelings about euthanasia. And who am I to suggest that old people have few uses?

However, who is Michael Amatrudo to put his parents up for sale on Craigslist?

According to NBC New York, Amatrudo's wife is used to his sense of humor. You might conclude, though, that she has suffered enough. For her loving husband decided, just for a little fun, to put his parents up for sale on America's most useful human exchange.

Amatrudo's ad was a poem to filial love: "I got lots of use out of … Read more

Few could imagine a more chilling tale of depravity than the story that has emerged over the last few days concerning the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

While her alleged kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, has now been revealed to have penned a disturbing blog, some commenters on Boing Boing have uncovered visuals from Google Street View that they believe show him in pursuit of a Google car.

Boing Boing co-editor Xeni Jardin has posted a series of Street View shots in which a van is seen progressing from Garrido's address in Antioch, Calif., toward a Street View car.

At Boing Boing, … Read more