suicide

Foxconn, the company that manufactures Apple's iPhone and iPods, has agreed to compensate the family of a Chinese worker who apparently committed suicide over a missing prototype.

A Foxconn official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the company will give Sun Danyong's parents a one-time payment of 360,000 yuan ($52,600), according to an Associated Press report. The company also agreed to pay an additional 30,000 yuan ($4,385) for each year either of the parents is alive, the AP said.

That figure is higher than that reported Monday by The New York Times, … Read more

Now you can get your weekend 404 fix with throwback episodes coming atcha every Saturday! We're always open to suggestions on which episodes you guys want to hear, so hit us up at th404(at)cnet[dot]com and let us know your favorites.

First up, check out this episode from wayyy back in May 2008: it's the first official appearance of yours truly, Justin Yu, as the OFFICIAL HOST of the show! Before you judge me though, take note that I'm still learning the ropes and exactly what I can, and more importantly, CAN'T say … Read more

Lori Drew, the woman convicted of using a hoax MySpace profile to harass a teenage girl to the point of suicide, was acquitted by a Los Angeles judge on Thursday, Wired reported.

Judge George Wu overturned Drew's guilty verdict, which was issued in November, saying that if Drew had been convicted of a felony in the case, she would already have been sentenced. But because she was convicted of three misdemeanors--a significantly lighter offense than prosecutors originally sought--the constitutionality of the guilty verdict was less clear.

Drew, a Missouri resident, had been convicted of three misdemeanor counts of "… Read more

The hopeless choose to do things in ways that crush the mind.

A 40-year-old car parts worker for Volkswagen and Audi was apparently suffering extreme work-related stress.

He decided to commit suicide. But he reportedly did it with painful precision and a heartbreaking consideration for the welfare of strangers.

The Telegraph reported that the man scoured Google Earth in order to find a suitable place to kill himself. Then he printed the images from the Web, images that police subsequently found in his car, the article said.

No one will ever know why he chose Bone Hill Rocks parking lot … Read more

This weekend, Justin Yu made an appearance on Tom Merritt's and Roger Chang's podcast, East Meets West. Ostensibly, it sounds like a podcast about technology and Asian and Western cultures, right? Nope. Turns out it's half an hour where Tom and Roger ream Justin and The 404 for our use of "curse words."

Also in the news this weekend, "Adventureland" came out. Contrary to its marketing campaign, it's not a film in the vein of "Superbad," but is actually kind of deep. As for way less deep films, "Fast and Furious" topped the charts with a cool 72.5 million bones. Michael McCarthy, ace reporter Caroline McCarthy's little brother, joins the show today to lend us his opinion on movies and provide a laugh track.

Twitter, for all the problems that it's caused in the world, may have actually saved the life of a suicidal woman. Apparently, if you @reply Demi Moore, you can get saved. There's some more bummer technology stories in there, too.

In happier news, Rick Moranis might make an appearance in "Ghostbusters III." We just hope that Seth Rogan, Michael Cera, Paul Rudd, and Jonah Hill aren't the new Ghostbusters. Also, Queen Elizabeth II gets an iPod from Barack Obama filled with show tunes. And finally, Domino's gives away 11,000 pizzas, accidentally.

Listen to this episode of East Meets West and let us know what you think. We're available via voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET (2638) or via e-mail at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Does bad language really bother you? Does it make us juvenile? Or are we just getting lectured by padre?

All the lonely people.

The echo that is so often heard late at night across social networks.

In the latest case, a 16-year-old girl in Maryland learned that one of her Facebook friends, a boy in Oxford, England, was in distress. Late on Wednesday night, he wrote: "I'm going away to do something I've been thinking about for a while then everyone will find out."

The girl didn't know the boy's address. But she immediately felt this was a serious situation and told her parents.

They contacted the British Embassy, who in turn got … Read more

Twitter is frivolous. Witness Ashton Kutcher, who tweeted a photo of his wife's bottom just the other day.

However, that wife, Demi Moore, shifted her bottom Friday when perhaps another star might have turned the other cheek, in an act that showed Twitter has its serious uses too.

On her own Twitter feed, Ms. Moore received a message from sandieguy, an apparently unemployed woman from the Silicon Valley area: "Getting a knife, a big one that is sharp. Going to cut my arm down the whole arm so it doesn't waste time."

As if this wasn'… Read more

The man who police say killed five members of his family before turning the gun on himself in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday was identified Tuesday as an engineer at Yahoo, according to an Associated Press report.

Devan Kalathat, who had worked at the Internet giant since 2004 as an analytics engineer, shot his 11-year-old son, Akhil Dev; his 4-year-old daughter, Negha Dev; his brother-in-law, 35-year-old Ashok Appu Poothemkandi; his sister-in-law, 25-year-old Suchitra Sivaraman; and the couple's daughter, 11-month-old Ahana Ashok, according to the report.

Kalathat's wife is the only survivor and remains in critical condition with multiple … Read more

You know that this will not be the last time.

Facebook has now replaced the gossip, the social event, even the news. That is one explanation as to why 30-year-old Paul Zolezzi, a sometime model, used the social-networking site to announce that he would kill himself. (His body was found hanging from monkey bars in Brooklyn's Mount Prospect Park Playground.)

His status update had read: "Born in San Francisco, became a shooting star over everywhere, and ended his life in Brooklyn...And couldn't have asked for more."

His mother, Stephanie Zolezzi, told the Daily News: "… Read more