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Much love to the thousands of Apple faithful who've flooded my inbox with messages about this "Pwn to Own" contest where the Mac was the first machine to fall, with the Vista box next and the Linux box apparently surviving unscathed. Okay. Fair enough. We got pwned. First of all the contest was totally rigged and unfair for all sorts of reasons which I won't even bother to go into here. The fact is that Macs are by far the safest, most bulletproof machines on the planet, and that's been proven over and over again.

Anyway I urge you to check out this story and see what kind of computers the winning hackers use, and where they're planning to spend their money. Money quote: "I like Macs. I use Macs for everything." And what will he do with his $10,000 prize money? He'll buy more Macs. "I think Apple will get a large chunk of that money."

Nuff said, right?

Got a trampy little kid that isn't quite ready to get inked? No problem. Toys "R" Us has lower-back tattoo stickers for little miss thing.

We like how they're right next to the Hannah Montana and Minnie Mouse stickers.

IN ODDER NEWS: Lower Back Tattoo Stickers FINALLY Available For Kids At Toys 'R Us [Best Week Ever]
Lower Back Tattoos Now Available at Toys R Us [Cockeyed.com]

The Most Insane, Child-Warping Moments of '80s Cartoons
(Honorable mention surely goes to feature films Watership Down and The Secret of NIMH)

Taking a page out of the Hulu playbook, but awesomer, the South Park guys are streaming every single South Park episode in full at their official site, South Park Studios. What they get right: Streams are fast and vid quality is solid; every episode, from first to most recent is available (with one exception); and newer ones are uncensored. Yep, you actually get to hear your favorite childrens scream "What the fuck is going on?" in the Britney ep. Major point of suck: ads.

They're mercifully short, but you get hit with about three per episode (marked by the little white lines in the timeline), though you have a limited ability to jump around the ep to sorta avoid them. Still, they're less intrusive than the pop-ups that assault you at AllSP.com or the like. Which is probably a big part of why they're doing this—the online audience for South Park is huge, with lots of sites streaming eps and major torrent traffic. So why not get a slice of that ad revenue?

Ads are going to be a part of any free TV online equation, unfortunately. So are rights issues—for some reason the Britney ep is already available, but the first episode of the current season won't be up until April. WTF? But all in all, they get it as right as an official channel can for the time being, which looks startlingly like a glimpse at the future of TV. Update: Another reason living in Canada sucks: No access for Canadians. [South Park Studios]

The Internet's got Jesse McPherson's back.

On March 12 McPherson returned from SXSW to discover that his home had been broken into and that the burglar had made off with his Xbox 360, an old Powerbook and a television.

Familiar with the competence of the Philadelphia police, McPherson decided to hunt for the items himself and soon found that the burglar had tried to sell his laptop at a local pawn shop, which has images of the guy from their camera. He tries to give the info to police, but never hears back.

Fast forward to Friday when McPherson's workmates present him with a replacement Xbox 360. He goes home, hooks it up and discovers a voice message on his 360 from some guy saying he has his 360 and wants cash to give it back. Better still the idiot uses his current account to leave the message.

McPherson calls police again and is hung up on... so he turns things over to the Internet and business is handled.

As everyone probably knows mob justice is a bitch and Digg Mob justice makes that look pretty. Since the story hit Digg the person who left the message asking for 360 ransom has been identified, his address and high school location posted, he's been harassed, seemingly endlessly, via AIM.

Eventually the kid caved and told his parents, McPherson was, apparently in touch with them and now seems to have all of his stuff back. According to his Twitter, the kid actually hand-delivered some of the stolen goods on Sunday.

Makes you feel good inside doesn't it?

Update: Wow, You're a Moron. When the Internet Attacks [McFearsome]

Last time I'm going to spell this out: Paul Robertson's the guy who did Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight. Know him now? Yeah. Good times. Anyways, as we noted a little while back (his schedule seemed to slip a little), his latest film, Kings of Power 4 Billion %, is now out. Do be sure to give it a watch (and help his poor little site out by downloading it from one of the bigger, provided mirrors, not directly).
[Kings of Power 4 Billion %]

There Will Be Vader, a mashup of There Will Be Blood and Star Wars, with Daniel Plainview playing the part of Vader.

(via house next door)

(link)

Star Wars according to a 3 year old.

Windows/Mac only: Share any song in your iTunes library and download any song from your friends' iTunes libraries over the internet with freeware application Mojo. Essentially, Mojo makes sharing music with your friends through iTunes wildly simple, from its simple interface to its brilliant implementation. If you've ever used apps like previously mentioned ourTunes to download music from shared libraries, you have an idea of what Mojo does, bu you should still prepare to be amazed. I'm head over heels for Mojo, so hit the jump for a full-on screenshot tour and detailed walk-through and overview of everything Mojo has to offer.

Getting Started

To get started, you need to download and install Mojo on your computer (it's fully ready to go on Macs, and currently in beta for Windows). The first time you run Mojo, you'll be asked to create an account. Do that, then you'll see the Mojo friends window, which is much like a buddy window on an instant messenger client. Granted, you won't have any buddies in this window to begin with (unless it's also been installed by another computer on your local network), but don't worry, you will.

Next, let's say your friend downloads and installs Mojo as well. They give you their user name, you hit the little plus (+) sign to add them as a buddy, and they're sent an approval request. They approve you, and voilà—you now have access to every song in their iTunes library. So what now?

Browsing and Downloading Music

To browse your friend's library, just double-click their entry in the buddy window. Mojo will open a new window which shows every song in their library and their playlists, along with their Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and Audiobooks. Double-click any song to play it back, and to download a song (or even video), just click the download arrow next to the song or the big download button at the bottom of the screen.

Mojo will download the song and automatically add it to your iTunes library. Additionally, it will even create a playlist in a folder called Mojo containing all the songs you downloaded from that friend.

You may be thinking: Sure, this is impressive, but what else can it do? Well, for one, Mojo automatically detects whether or not you already have a song in your iTunes library. Any song that you've already got displays in Mojo in a light gray color. And if your friend has purchased a song from the iTunes Music store, and it's dripping with nasty DRM—Mojo highlights those tracks in red.

So What's the Catch?

If you've already checked out the Mojo homepage, you may notice that there is a premium version of the application. Luckily for all of the cheapskates out there like me, you really don't need to buy the premium version to enjoy most of the best features of Mojo. But let's say you do want to go Pro. Here's what you get:

• Unlimited friends
• Playlist subscriptions

As far as I can tell, that's it. Playlist subscriptions, which allow you to subscribe to a playlist in your friend's library, automatically downloads music in the playlist as your friend adds to it. Crazy cool, yes, but if you don't want to shell out for it, it's really not that must-have.

Right now, as I said, Mojo is available and ready for primetime on the Mac, and is currently in beta for Windows users. The app takes practically zero know-how to set up and get started with, and everything it does is near perfect. I've only tested it on my Mac so far, so if you give the beta a try on Windows, let's hear how it's working in the comments. For another detailed usage overview, check out the introduction screencast from Mojo.

From ThinkGeek, this $25 tormentor:

The Phantom Keystroker may look like a harmless circuit board, but it's actually a devious contraption of unlimited office-based torture. Simply discreetly attach the Phantom Keystroker to any extra USB port on your victim's computer, no drivers needed. The Keystroker emulates a keyboard and mouse and periodically makes random mouse movements and types out odd garbage text and phrases.

Link

In the middle of this interview with rapper DMX, it becomes clear that he's never heard of Barack Obama before.

Q: Barack Obama, yeah.
A: Barack?!

Q: Barack.
A: What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Q: Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
A: Barack Obama?

Q: Yeah.
A: What the fuck?! That ain't no fuckin' name, yo. That ain't that nigga's name. You can't be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

Q: You're telling me you haven't heard about him before.
A: I ain't really paying much attention.

Q: I mean, it's pretty big if a Black...
A: Wow, Barack! The nigga's name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain't his fuckin' name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, "Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit" [laughs] "That ain't your fuckin' name." Your momma ain't name you no damn Barack.

(via ah)

(link)

Here’s a thought-provoking story to wrap up the day… a Craigslist rant about a bit of reverse discrimination in The Castro:

You, the waiter in the castro……

So there we were, coming in to eat at your establishment. You, my oh-so perfect little queen waitron were almost but not quite able to hide your dismay at this odd group of people. I mean, really, at least three of us were clearly from somewhere in the midwest.

Given that three of us were also obviously dykes, or at least local weirdoes, you might have caught on that we were entertaining visitors.

But no, you struggled masterfully, albeit unsuccessfully, to hide your disdain for our friends from Ohio. Your undertone snide comments were not unnoticed, my friend. Next time, make those comments while you’re in the kitchen. Saying things like “you people are horrible” in a perky bright voice is bad form, to say the least. Fucking unforgivably rude is more like it.

For your information, miss i’m-too-young-to-remember-the-plague-years, that ancient (over 50) woman from Ohio who ordered too much food and was loud and annoying to you comes out here to meet up with us because we took care of her son while he was dying a dozen years ago. The same son she drove to New York so he could attend the first year of Harvey Milk High. The same son she came out to once he was 16.

The son who died a month before his 22nd birthday.

She’s been at the forefront of what passes for a gay rights movement in Ohio, and has stood up so that pathetic little twinks like you can walk down the street in your aberzombie and felch uniforms and hold hands.

And even with what you acted like, she still tipped you 20%, because she remembers her son working in a similar restaurant, and his struggles with money.

Next time someone who doesn’t fit your personal tastes comes into your restaurant, perhaps you might try some compassion, or even just some human respect. Remember the word diversity? It applies to you and your tiny narrow mind as well.

We like to think that we live in one of the most diverse and open-minded cities in the world, but things like this still do happen, unfortunately.

merlinmann posted a photo:

merlinmann posted a photo:

Slide 5.

SxSW: Worst Website Ever today at 5pm. Be ready to get monetized.


Who else is ready to get rich on the internet? Ask Sched…

More »

Josh Fink brings news of an Atlanta resident who has created a remote control robot to scare off criminals during the night. Rufus Terrill, an engineer, uses it to patrol the streets and encourage drug dealers and other shady characters to move on. Local residents call it his "Robocop." From CNN: "It's a barbecue smoker mounted on a three-wheeled scooter, and armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker and aluminum water cannon that shoots a stream of icy water about 20 feet. Operated by remote control, the robot spotlights trespassers on property down the street from his bar, O'Terrill's. Using a walkie-talkie, Terrill belts out through the robot's loudspeaker, 'That's private property. You guys need to get out of here.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

evenstephen posted a photo:

found on the internet somewhere...

Gary Gygax was the salvation and curse of nerds worldwide. The co-founder of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, who passed away on Tuesday at 69, created a form of fantasy escapism that you could share with others. D&D unified geeks, giving them accoutrements (multisided dice, colored figurines) and a language that bound them together. It was a secret club of sorts, a playground where social outcasts could be themselves and vent over life's frustrations. That wasn't always a good thing—playing Dungeons & Dragons didn't generally lead to activities like going outside or talking to girls. Still, a caffeine-fueled marathon D&D session was a place where your geeky tendencies were something to be celebrated rather than an affliction to be overcome.

[more ...]

David Pogue of the NY Times visited a tech suppport center, and they gave him a CD with recordings of their favorite funny phone calls.

Caller: Hey, can you help me? My computer has locked up, and no matter how many times I type eleven, it won’t unfreeze.

Agent: What do you mean, “type eleven?”

Caller: The message on my screen says, “Error Type 11!”

—

On one call, the caller seemed to be taking an inordinately long time to complete each instruction she was given.

Agent: Ma’am, I can’t help noticing that every time I give you an instruction, it takes a really long time before you get back to me. Is your computer that slow?

Caller: Oh, no, it’s just the stupid, stupid design of this computer. Every time I want to click something, I have to unplug the keyboard to plug in the mouse. And then every time I want to use the keyboard again, I have to unplug the mouse. Because there’s only one jack.

Agent: Ma’am, you do realize that there’s a jack on the keyboard itself? You’re supposed to plug the mouse into the keyboard, and the keyboard into the computer.

Caller: Are YOU KIDDING ME!? Oh, wait a minute—yes, I see it now! Oh, holy cow. That’s going to be so much easier!

Agent: Just out of curiosity, how long have you been using your computer that way?

Caller: Six weeks!

Link (Thanks, Ian!)

The good folks at Consumerist pranked the "ComplaintRemover" service, a company that promises to game search-engines and use legal harassment to make negative remarks disappear from the net. They got a CSR on a chat line and posed as a cat-breeding site and asked for help eliminating the scourge of LOLCats -- ComplaintRemover blithely promised to get the job done.

CLIENT: How does that work? How are you able to get another company to get rid of something that's part of their business?
Kelly: we push the negative links back in serch engines
Kelly: so nobody will see that ones
CLIENT: So you like make new internets and push the bad internets down
Kelly: yes
CLIENT: My keywords are lolcats
CLIENT: I have a cat breeding business and people keep making pictures of cats with derogatory phrases on them
CLIENT: It's hampering my ability to attract new clients

Link