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Pirate attacks rise 14% year over year

Pirates, aaargh. A new report from the International Maritime Bureau says that piracy and armed robbery attacks against ships rose 14% year over year.

From the report: In the first nine months of the year, 198 attacks were reported versus 174 attacks reported in 2006 during the same time frame. A total of 15 vessels were hijacked, 172 crewmembers were taken hostage, 63 were kidnapped, and 21 were assaulted. If this trend continues, the decline in piracy attacks begun in 2004 will have bottomed out. Crew assaults, kidnapping and ransom rose dramatically from 2006.

If you want to freak yourself … Read more

Who reads this blog? And where?

I've been blogging for CNET for nearly two months now, and wanted to take stock of readership. Volume of page views (and length of time on the site) is strong, but that's less interesting to me than the quality of readership and the conversation that it sparks.

On that front, The Open Road (OR) seems to be doing even better.

Here are some interesting factoids:

Who are the top employers of OR readers? (Clearly, I need to start saying nice things about some of them.... :-) Sun, Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Novell, Oracle Germany (??), Intel, and HP. Microsoft and Red Hat were nearly equal. Novell was half of both of them, and Oracle can't be bothered to read it here in the US (well, not very much). The only reason Oracle Germany was happy to read it was because apparently "fork" translates into something positive in Germany. "Gabel? Zeit f?r Abendessen!!"… Read more

New reality show lets you beat up your co-workers

This post has been corrected to provide the correct URL for Red Line Films.

If you thought Kid Nation was pushing the envelope, wait till you hear about this one. Production company Redline Films has just announced that you can now audition for its latest creative masterpiece, Office Fight. It's exactly what you think it is: it'll take co-workers who don't like each other and make them go face-to-face in a boxing ring.

Do you find this as supremely awesome as I do? Of course! To make it even awesomer, getting involved with Office Fight is easy … Read more

Can't come up with any awesome ideas? Here, try this

Ever wish you could come up with the next big thing? The Directors' Bureau's Idea Generator can help you out. It's a Flash app that will tell you how to make a million dollars by randomly choosing a set of words that comprise a potential "idea."

Let's overlook the fact that I wound up with "erotic rubber appliance." Then I re-spun and was given "scary paper book." Okay, now I think we're getting somewhere.

(Via Core77)

Amtrak wants you to hop on board the party train

Riding on a sleeper train for several thousand miles seems a bit silly sometimes when you can just hop a plane for a couple of hours and get to the same destination in a fraction of the time, especially when it's often cheaper to fly anyway. Amtrak, however, is attempting to counter that image by promoting its train service as the landlubber's equivalent of a luxury cruise--a booze cruise, that is. According to an Associated Press article, the passenger rail service is trying to "gin up new business" (Ha, ha! You slay me, AP!) by offering … Read more

Party gossip, Silicon Valley style: Just check out that Craigslist Missed Connection

A Silicon Valley networking party hosted by TechCrunch last Friday was rife with start-up demonstrations and new product buzz, but it appears to have been a little bit lacking in the scandal department. But, hey, this isn't exactly Perez Hilton's territory. (ASIDE: There was the whole Julia Allison thing, which received the sort of reception as, say, Lindsay Lohan at Coachella.)

There was, however, one minor blog-gossip legacy of the event: a Craiglist "Missed Connection" post called "cute at techcrunch party" in which a shy female partygoer solicited contact with a fellow attendee with … Read more

How to make Google all nice and cuddly

Want a conversation starter? Just toss a pillow that lists off terms like "Orlando Bloom," "podcasting," and "bankruptcy" onto your couch, and your guests du jour will likely be so curious that they won't even notice you forgot to dust the top of your TiVo box.

This is, for the record, the Google News Cushion from Spring Design & Art. Those seemingly mismatched list items are, in fact, the top ten Google News searches of 2006. The company also sells a few other years' worth, too. (What do you want to bet the '… Read more

Death in a supermarket

This vid's been making the viral rounds in my Twitter friends list and such, accompanied by claims of "greatest prank ever" and what-have-you. Personally, I think it's clever, but I can't seem to believe that people actually fell for it--and the camera angles and quality are suspiciously professional, not hidden-camera caliber. Still good for a few laughs, though.

What does Lindsay Lohan have to do with 'Wii Fit'?

Nothing, actually. But I think this is pretty funny nonetheless.

As we've all heard over and over and over again by our faithful news media, troubled actress Lindsay Lohan was arrested on Tuesday night for driving under the influence, driving with a suspended license, and cocaine possession. (Last we heard, she said the coke wasn't hers.) Another day, another celebrity party-girl drug bust--same old, same old. But for those of us who went to the E3 Media and Business Summit in Santa Monica earlier this month, this one was particularly funny because the intersection where Lohan was arrested--Main … Read more