punxsutawney phil

Every year the citizens of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania gather around a small hut in Gobbler's Knob (pause) to witness a 100-year old marmot predict the future, and this year it looks like Spring is on its way. Old Phil may be losing his eyesight, because we also happen to be in the middle of the largest storm in the last few decades, according to a less-credible operation called NASA.

Maybe we should shift our focus to a closer weather-predicting rodent at the Staten Island Zoo, Mr. Charles G. Hogg aka Staten Island Chuck, who has accurately predicted winter weather 23 out of the last 30 years.

Still don't trust him? What if we told you that Staten Island Chuck has a Facebook page AND lives in a wireless log cabin adorned with solar-powered weather station panels that allows him to make daily weather predictions using renewable energy from the sun? It's not a joke, this guy is legit.

We can make fun of Groundhog's Day for the next 364 days, but let's move onto our next story about an unfortunate photographer in Zurich who lost over 4,000 puppy photos thanks to a Flickr fumble that accidentally mixed up his account with another scheduled for deletion.

To make up for it, the Yahoo-owned photo uploading service generously offered four years of a Pro account for free, worth about a hundred bucks- sounds fair. Think about this story the next time you can't find the time to back up your data to a physical storage drive.

We also suggest backing up your back ups to a disaster-proof drive, but the truly paranoid should also load their precious data on hidden thumb drives around the office for extra security.

Finally, the big tech story of the day is News Corp. and Apple's latest publication generated specifically for the iPad called The Daily. It's a modern news brand that Apple and News Corp. call the first "all media product" and includes highly interactive and curated text articles, photos, and videos, not to mention text-to-speech audio clips of selected stories.

Unlike most of the news sites on the web , however, The Daily won't be available for free. The publication introduces a new pricing model that costs $0.99 a week or $39.99 for the year. The subscription also includes access to the Web version and users can share articles for free on Facebook and Twitter.

The 404 is truly the Paris Hilton of the Web, so we happen to know the Technology Editor at The Daily. We're hoping Peter Ha can join us on Friday's show to tell us more about the publication, so check our Twitter for the latest updates!

Roboticists in search of a challenge, take note. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants to replace the weather-forecasting Punxsutawney Phil of Groundhog Day fame with an animatronic version. Robot followers that we are here at Crave, we're all for an electronic rodent, but we're also pretty sure groundhog bots have a long way to go before they can charm crowds the way little Phil can.

PETA maintains that the animal whose annual February 2 antics portend the duration of winter is mistreated--put on display year-round at the local Pennsylvania library; denied the ability to … Read more

New Jersey passed a bill last week legalizing medicinal marijuana, so we begin today's episode of The 404 Podcast with a quick discussion about the taxation, decriminalization, and dispersion of medicinal marijuana.

Entrepreneur John Lee hopes all the legal attention will give way to e-commerce in the form of B2B exchanges for "licensed providers of medicinal marijuana and their patients." Lee hopes that the system and his Web site, PlainView.com, will encourage distributors to keep their systems organized with pertinent information on records, invoices, sales reports, and tax paperwork.

We also spend good chunk of time dissecting all the drama surrounding Conan O'Brien and "The Tonight Show" being bumped back to 12:05 a.m. to accommodate Jay Leno's earlier time slot. Conan released a statement last night setting the record straight with an outright refusal to switch times, arguing that a 12:05 a.m. start time is ridiculous for "The Tonight Show."

Among other things, Conan emphasizes that nothing is more important to him than putting on the best nightly show possible, and we're in full support--as soldiers in Conan's army, The 404 is ready to stand tall and follow O'Brien to the ends of the Earth, although we're secretly hoping for a network switch to CBS.

Many more stories from around the Internet, including one about snowed-in Brits boosting Web traffic to a social network built for infidelity and the latest development for Punxsutawney Phil.

Stick around for the full episode, and don't forget to send your self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to the N.Y. CNET office, addressed to The 404 - STICKERS), to get your hands on your free handful of 404 stickers and temporary tattoos!

LOL OMG 6 MORE WKS WINTER?

It doesn't quite have the gravitas of Barack Obama announcing his vice-presidential pick via text message, but this year Punxsutawney Phil, arguably the world's most famous groundhog, will be telling enthusiasts via text message whether they're going to get stuck with six more weeks of winter.

Before February 2, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club invites everyone to text "Groundhog" to the SMS short-code 247365. When Phil ventures out of his burrow on Gobbler's Knob that morning--well, let's be honest, usually they have to prompt him out--text messages will … Read more