Advertising

The honest ad your cable company will never make

I'd like to help you work out your frustrations today.

There again, you have so many -- at least judging by the comments section here -- that I don't really have enough time.

Instead, then, here's an ad -- thank you, Techdirt, for exposing it to me -- that will help you be at one with your feelings about your high-speed Internet and cable provider.… Read more

Band claims Street View driver broke Google rules for video

There's nothing like country music to make you believe that life could be simple again.

So this morning, I was delighted to receive a YouTube video of a band called Gunnar and the Grizzly Boys.

It was headlined: "Redneck Country Band Ambushes Google Street View Car!"

I knew this couldn't possibly be true. I feel sure that Google's Street View drivers, who have to sometimes master rough areas and rocky terrain, must be armed.

Still, the video gave some sort of impersonation of a Street View image populated by, well, this redneck country band and … Read more

Apple's new campaign: iPad is still lovable, kids

It's always troubling when a salesman looks into the future and tells me that I'm going to love something.

How can he possibly know? It makes me feel so terribly obvious, devoid of secrets and subtlety.

Oddly, Apple has decided to use the opportunity of this weekend to tell me why I'm going to love the iPad.

How does Apple know I don't? Perhaps I dated it for a while and decided it was too short or too demanding or just too beautiful for me?

A new Web campaign for the iPad swoops in after a similar exercise for the iPhone, … Read more

Phil Jackson's strange first tweet is an AOL ad

Sleep has possibly eluded you since you saw Phil Jackson's first tweet.

You wondered whether the former Lakers and Bulls coach was having severe trouble typing or whether he'd perhaps lost his senses.

You must now decide which of these is fact. For the tweet that read: "11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs" is actually, intake of breath, an ad for AOL.

Indeed, that very same AOL that you have always loved and respected, never more than now.

I am grateful to Deadspin for bringing me this painful information and making me believe that all humans have aspects … Read more

No Google Glassing-and-driving ban likely this year

Those who were planning road trips in West Virginia were worried.

Especially those who were included in Google's list of eminent and lucky people who would be the explorers of Google's wonderful, breakthrough (and possibly insane) eyeglasses known as Google Glass.

For a Republican legislator had proposed a bill -- after reading just one Technically Incorrect post -- that would ban anyone in the state from wearing Google's glasses and driving.

Gary. G. Howell explained very cogently that he was not against the invention, but that he feared it would be just as distracting as texting. And … Read more

Phil Jackson's first tweet is a work of art

When you join Twitter, the elation of suddenly experiencing free access to self-expression can be Zen-like.

You become at one with it. It becomes at one with you. Until the point where you're not sure which is you and which is it.

I feel sure that such feelings overcame Phil Jackson -- the NBA coaching great -- when he joined Twitter and 55,000 people immediately genuflected in the face of his Zen.

His account, @PhilJackson11, has been verified. It describes him as "coach and author." I have not read one of his books, but I suspect they don't necessarily include the character sequences that appear in his first tweet.

For it reads: "11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs."… Read more

Has North Korea Photoshopped its military might?

Some things are hard to believe.

Is it possible that "Dancing With The Stars" is still on television? Is it possible that Victoria's Secret is creating lingerie for tweens? And how likely is it that Dennis Rodman really is a better friend to Kim Jong-un than is Eric Schmidt?

Actually, talking of North Korea, how likely is it that the country has a myriad of hovercraft, hovering in readiness to invade, say, North Carolina?

I wonder only because the country's Central News Agency released a photograph this week that showed many hovercraft in action.

Yet now … Read more

App tracks the wise who hate their bosses on Twitter

Frustration is an essential element of the human condition.

Nowhere is it more essential than at work, where people can be openly hostile, appallingly manipulative or, if you happen to work in the San Francisco Bay Area, passive-aggressive till your toenails crack.

You don't know who your friends are, so you have to be careful where and to whom you air your frustrations. However, given its essentially public nature, perhaps Twitter is not the best place and Twitterers are not the best ears.

Some people, though, can help themselves no more than when they are confronted with a chocolate … Read more

Woman breaks into house to browse Facebook, police say

It's possibly one of the less pleasant experiences in life to come home after a night with your boyfriend to discover someone is using your laptop.

Yes, sitting right there in your living room, browsing her Facebook page as if this was, in fact, her house.

This, sadly, is what apparently happened to a 33-year-old resident of Athens, Ga.

As the Athens Banner-Herald has it, the homeowner got back to her house Sunday lunchtime to find an unknown (and currently unnamed) blond woman allegedly browsing Facebook.… Read more

Propose and cons: 'Will you marry me' meets social media

It used to be a new business pitch. Now, it's a Hollywood movie.

It used to be an intimate affair. Now, you're having to keep an eye and an ear on the fact that it'll be a visual and aural feeding of 5,000 supposed friends.

Now, it seems, if you're committed to going down on one knee, you have to be down with who is going to script the event and who is going to direct it. You might even need a few co-stars to make the production big enough.

Indeed, as the San Francisco Chronicle proposes it, … Read more