Latest Posts
On Tumblr, Fashion Meets History Meets Celebrity
June 14th, 2013For the fashion-fascinated and movie-minded, there is and can be only one Tumblr to rule them all, and we think we’ve found it. RecycledMovieCostumes.Tumblr.com is just what it claims to be: photos of movie costumes, usually historical, used in film after film and when not in film usually on Dr. Who and sometimes even on Colin Firth (lucky [...]
Does Buzzfeed Rule the World?
June 13th, 2013The short answer: apparently. Well, at least the U.S. Senate.
During a hearing Wednesday on cybersecurity in the wake of the Edward Snowden surveillance leak, Barbara Mikulski, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, interrupted the proceedings. Her urgent mission? To read out and respond, in real time, to a tweet by Buzzfeed reporterRosie Gray.
We are not making this up.
MySpace Attempts Resurrection from the Digital Dead
June 13th, 2013Can circa 20th-century social platform of choice MySpace successfully return from “so ten years ago” limbo? We’ll find out, because the company is throwing $20 million at an ad campaign to make it happen. Fetch. The question is, will its return be welcomed like that of the legendarily beloved Persephone, or more like, say, equally legendary [...]
Facebook Loses Face, Adopts Hashtags From Twitter
June 13th, 2013It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for (well, the Twitter-obsessed among us at least): Facebook has finally introduced hashtags, and our friends will no longer rag on us for peppering our status updates with numeral-signed dead ends.
Hashtags will be clickable and behave much as they do on Twitter, pulling up all the most recent posts using the hashtag, subject of course to one’s privacy settings. If only your friends can see what you post, only your friends will see you include in hashtag pages. You can put hashtags in the search box and it will pull up the latest updates on that hashtag.
Just as interesting is that hashtags that originate on other services like Twitter and Instagram that are carried over to Facebook when you post the link, will link to the Facebook hashtag. Oh, that’s a clever way to keep people on your site!
The Toilet Paper Chase: There’s An App For That
June 12th, 2013It’s hard enough to be Venezuelan, what with brownouts, blackouts, American hostility to your late leader, and (worst of all) toilet paper shortages. But what are you supposed to do when you can’t even find flour to make bread? Marie Antoinette had an answer for that, and we all know how well it worked out for her.
Undergraduate Jose Augusto Montiel and his sister have come to the rescue of ordinary Venezuelans with the Android-based app Abasteceme, Spanish for “Supply Me,” not to be confused with the defunct e-purchasing portal. Montiel, a chemical engineering student by day, and his sister, who handles the visual design, have self-funded development, and just make enough to cover costs.
Naturally, in this left-leaning country it relies on the will of The People; in other words, it’s a crowd-sourced database, listing where you can currently find in-demand and shortage-affected staples such as toilet paper, flour, sugar, milk, and cooking oil.
