Random

I am sure you'd watch. I am sure your kids would be fascinated.

And yet, it is not to be. The BBC will not be doing a live show in which scientists try to talk to aliens.

You might be wondering why this would be.

Thankfully, Professor Brian Cox, a celebrated particle physicist and TV presenter (and former member of the band D:Ream), revealed that Britain's most august news source was a little scared of the kind of news it would make.… Read more

"I didn't think it would be that big of a deal."

These are words so many of us have used, just before someone slapped us across the chops.

So it has proved for Denise Helms, a 22-year-old woman from Turlock, Calif., who used Facebook to express her own miffedness with the re-election of the president.

As Fox 40 in Sacramento records it, she wrote: "Another 4 years of this n*****. Maybe he will get assassinated this term."

Oddly, this post seems to have incurred something of a reaction itself. Not everyone was at one with … Read more

You never know who's serving your food in a restaurant and what they might have done to it, in it, or on it.

It's the same with electronics shopping. You can't be sure whether what's inside the box has been scratched, ill-made, or merely smashed by someone having fun in the stockroom.

What should one make, therefore, of the film posted to Reddit by SenorPierre?… Read more

In certain corners of America, there is a mood of relief and joy. In others, rampant despair.

This partly stems from the rather limited number of candidates at the voters' disposal.

Unless, that is, you choose your own. In that searing home of live-and-let-live that is Georgia, almost 4,000 people knew exactly who was the right man to lead its state into the future.… Read more

Google enjoys its ubiquity like Donald Trump enjoys hearing his name said over and over again.

Indeed, there are days when some people bathe in Chrome, Gmail, Google Search, and Blogspot and don't even stop to wonder that they belong to a company that views everything from atop its mountain.

That's because Google is nice and warm and efficient. Or something.

Amanda U. Ajuluchuku, however, doesn't believe Google is as nice or warm as it seems. Indeed, she took legal action in an attempt to prove her righteousness.

The substance of her case, filed in the United States District Court, Eastern California branch, … Read more

Sometimes our greed is merely a reflection of our true selves.

Sometimes we really do believe we will get something for nothing -- or at least very little.

Take Jalonta Freeman of Arlington, Texas. She was at a gas station. Suddenly a man drove up to her and offered her an $800 iPad for a mere $200.

Wouldn't you have been slightly suspicious? Wouldn't you have at least opened the box to check whether there was, well, an iPad inside?

Freeman took the deal.

"He was, like, OK, I gotta hurry up and go and stuff," … Read more

You know that Microsoft is all about the noise now, don't you? Oh, and the color.

So here is a delightful stunt the company pulled in Oslo, Norway, in order to, well, blow the side of a building off with the sheer excitement of the new operating system.

I am grateful to PSFK for alerting me to this very alive tile experience.

It consisted of hiring a famous Norwegian band, Datarock, building a fake wall, and then placing a live tile in the street.… Read more

It's well known that before any big game, the T-shirts and hats that laud a victory are prepared by both sides.

Yet a curious thing happened after Barack Obama was re-elected on Tuesday night: Mitt Romney's victory Web site went live.

Perhaps it was someone's idea of humor -- or even anger. Yet it was immediately spotted by Political Wire, which cheerily took screenshots for public edification.

Those who enjoy schadenfreude will offer their snorts and smirks. For them, this is a Rom-Com.

Yet we seek deeper significances here.

What was odd about this election was that … Read more

I'm not feeling lucky. I'm feeling scared.

For Google has chosen November 8 to celebrate Dracula's daddy, Bram Stoker.

Yes, the latest doodle is an especially creepy tribute to Stoker's legacy -- which, some might say, has brought us to the apogee represented by Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

Stoker was actually Irish and was a theater critic before he sank his teeth into novels.

He began to write while he was the director of the Lyceum Theatre in London. His conception of Dracula was written as a series of made-up diary entries, newspaper clippings, and … Read more