If you’ve never gone to 4chan, and you’re over the age of 40, you probably should just blacklist the entire site now, especially /b/. That being said, when “the collective” puts their mind to something, shit usually hits the fan, and by that I mean peoples lives are ruined. If you haven’t heard, a few days ago a closed captioned surveillance camera caught a (now identified as Mary Bale, 50, of Coventry, England) woman casually petting a neighborhood cat, then throwing said cat into a garbage bin. The Internet, and even more importantly local residents, were outraged. They wanted blood, literally. Mary received countless death threats to both her and her place of work, and is now in police protective custody. That was probably a good move, honestly.

Let’s back up a step to what exactly happened between the time the cat was thrown into the bin (which Mary claims was a joke), and now. If you have been to 4chan and are aware that the anonymous vigilantes there are perfectly dubbed “the best and worst spot on the Internet”, then you know it’s the type of place hopes and dreams go to die. However when they decide to be angered, they are a force to be reckoned with, and not to be trifled with. It took only a few hours from when the video was posted for the hounds of 4chan to identify the person in the video. A few hours after that, they had plastered the boards with not only her name, but where she worked, her phone number, the name of her boss, her Facebook profile, her home address, and a google map locating it.

Mary Bale, you dun goofed.

Source: 4chan, Boing Boing

Confusing, isn’t it? So here’s the deal; The Associated Press (AP) notes that it’s content, including words and images from it’s site, is copyrighted material, and not (normally) distrubted under the widly used Creative Commons act. Thus, if you want to use a snippet, even a one line sentence, from the AP website on one of their articles, you’re suppose to pay AP for it’s use. Heck, they even have a chart showing how much you should send them a check for, depending on how much content you “borrow”. So on June 30th, when Woot’s CEO Matt Rudledge sent out a hilarious email to it’s staff about the acquisition by Amazon, AP decided to report on it. The only problem was that AP quoted Woot’s site in reference to the email, and didn’t pay Woot for using it’s content that the AP is so strict about. So what did Woot do? Sent them a bill, of course.

“The AP, we can’t thank you enough for looking our way. You see, when we showed off our good news on Wednesday afternoon, we expected we’d get a little bit of attention. But when we found your little newsy thing you do, we couldn’t help but notice something important. And that something is this: you printed our web content in your article! The web content that came from our blog! Why, isn’t that the very thing you’ve previously told nu-media bloggers they’re not supposed to do?

So, The AP, here we are. Just to be fair about this, we’ve used your very own pricing scheme to calculate how much you owe us. By looking through the link above, and comparing your post with our original letter, we’ve figured you owe us roughly $17.50 for the content you borrowed from our blog post, which, by the way, we worked very very hard to create. But, hey. We’re all friends here. And invoicing is such a hassle in today’s paperless society, are we right? How about this: instead of cutting us a check for the web content you liberated from our site, all you’ll need to do is show us your email receipt from today’s two pack of Sennheiser MX400 In-Ear Headphones, and we’ll call it even.”

Free speech is over-rated anyway. On that note, feel free to use our content however you want, we’re not greedy, but feel free to send us beer. We like beer.

Source: AP, Woot!

We’re all about giving our readers what they want. You see that little poll on the right? It’s not just there to look pretty, we really do want to know what you like. We know, we know, porn isn’t an option, you dirty dirty reader you. We’d also like you to know at least one of us actually does read every comment, and take suggestions seriously. In that respect, one of our visitors suggested that we format a mobile version of Geekogle. Well Scott, your wish is our command. As of today, if you visit our site from a supported mobile device, you’ll be directed to our “Geekogle Lite” version of the site. Less graphics and better content formatting for your mobile browsing needs. Of course, if you’d prefer to go use the main site on your phone, there is a little link on the bottom that will take you there.

Thanks for the suggestion Scott, we hope you like it. Suggestions? Leave them in the comments section below, or shoot us an email.

Did you catch the I Love Lucy reference up on that title? We’re classy like that. Classy like vague black and white TV show references, not classy like San Diego. Sprint, on the other hand, is not being very classy right now due to it’s instituted $10 monthly “premium data” charge for the HTC Evo 4G.

That’s where the good old folks over at Explain the Fee come in. They’ve developed a website to give their visitors an outlet for frustration and disapproval of the mandatory fee from Sprint. The website author explains that the fee, according to Sprint rep’s, is due to the rich features of the phone itself, and that due to these features, Sprint expects the phones users to incur larger amounts of data.

But here’s the catch. 3G/4G service is suppose to be free, and included in the Sprint “everything plan”. Even on Sprint’s HTC Evo promotion party last month, Sprint’s CEO told the public that 4G access would be free. So what is the $10 a month charge paying for? If it’s the “rich features” of the phone, isn’t that what the $199 (on contract) or $449 (off contract) price of the actual phone is for?

So far Sprint rep’s have not been able to give a clear answer (other than blaming the fee on the phone’s hardware) as to what the $10 a month fee is for. For that matter, the HTC Evo is the only phone on Sprint with this monthly charge. The website, as we’ve reviewed it, is really just asking for an honest answer from Sprint on what the charge is for, and not simply hide behind a ruse that it’s because of hardware that has nothing to do with the actual network.

Julien Barreaux, an avid Counter-Strike player and obvious loony, spent six months tracking down another player who killed his character in a knife fight. So, what’s a man to do besides find the other player, grab a kitchen knife, and try and stab him to death? Yeah, that seems logical. Barreaux spent the six months tracking the user based on his Counter-Strike user name, finding him on a Counter-Strike forum, and eventually finding the players home address. News outlets report that Barreaux broke into the man’s house and stabbed him in the chest, missing his heart by less than an inch. Barreaux was later arrested, where he told the police that he “wanted to see his rival wiped out for killing off his character”. At the trial, Judge Alexiane Porel noted this after sentencing Barreaux to two years in jail and anger management classes.

“You are a menace to society. I am frankly terrified of the disproportionate reaction you could have if someone looked at you the wrong way in the street.”

I guess it’s all fun and games until someone dies in a game and stabs someone. I’m pretty sure that’s how that adage goes.

Source: NY Daily Times

Limewire, which used to be popular for peer-to-peer illegal downloading, is quickly on the way out according to a New York judge who found the company and owner, Mark Gorton, guilty of copyright infringement and inducing copyright infringment. Here is the excerpt from source:

“…U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood of the Southern District of New York found its operators liable for copyright infringement. The ruling came after the RIAA filed a claim that Lime Group and its founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, and engaged in unfair competition based on the copyrighted content found on the peer-to-peer network.

“The evidence demonstrates that [LimeWire] optimized LimeWire’s features to ensure that users can download digital recordings, the majority of which are protected by copyright,” Wood said in her 59-page decision. “And that [LimeWire] assisted users in committing infringement.”

The obvious next step in the RIAA’s plan is to request (and receive) a preliminary injunction to shut down LimeWire’s file-sharing aspect. As it stands, that may very well happen within the next few days.”

So, I guess to those who download illegally, tisk tisk (nudge nudge, hint hint, wink wink). I suppose you’ll have to find some other way to download the overrun of viri, malware, trojans, and other hijacking crap that’s on that god forsaken program. Maybe try something like, I don’t know, to rents? Get it? I’m talking about torrents people. My god, it’s like I have to spell everything out for you.

Source: Tom’s Guide, and to CN for the news tip, who likes limes, but not with wires.

Just kidding about the fat jokes, you know I love you just the way you are. Lose It or Lose It is a website developed by two suave programer dudes who had more junk in their trunk than my grandmother who seriously puts everything in her trunk. It’s a Cadillac, so you know it’s big, too. See what I did there? No? Well you obviously don’t know my grandma then. The premise of the site is to set a weight goal of 10, 20, or 30 pounds over a 10 week period. You submit a dollar amount ($100 minimum) and for each week you make your weight goals (1, 2, or 3 pounds a week), you get to keep your money. If you don’t make your weight goals, or if you skip the weekly weigh-in, the site owners get to spend your money (as a percentage of that week’s deposited amount). The thought is that losing something like money will keep you motivated over the long haul, and not just have it fizzle out after a good week at the gym. I’d sign up myself, but I’m a lean mean green machine. I’m the Hulk baby! Rawr!

Source: Lose It or Lose It

Today at 7 PM MST (Mountain Standard Time), a funeral will be held in Colorado for Internet Explorer 6. Here is an excerpt from the site and gives details how this moment came to be:

You see, unknown to many people, like the elderly, and.. nuns, IE6 is a horrible piece of software. Anti-aliasing bugs, severe CSS and div issues, along with the fact it was utter hell to try and supplement code when using standardized W3C compliant tags made this a blunder for Microsoft (as if they don’t do this daily anyway). I shall not miss you, IE6. May you burn in hell for eternity.

Source: www.ie6funeral.com

To my adored readers who frequent this site, ever clicking the refresh button hoping for an updated article, I apologize. My last post was almost a month ago, but I wanted to post this quick update to let you know to not shed any tears, for Geekogle will return, hopefully sooner and better than ever. The truth of the matter is, this site is not ran by a big corporate organization who has a team of writers, analysts, and researchers. It’s just one guy (for now). With that in mind, life outside the toy box is crazy busy. Besides this site, I work full time and go to school part time. This term especially, has kept me more busy than I could have ever imagined. Since my dear Geekogle site certainly sits in the lower 5 of my priorities, it has suffered in the form of neglect.

However, Geekogle is not dead, nor do I plan on closing shop like so many other blogs and sites these days. Geekogle will live on, it will survive, if only in a state of hide and seek for awhile. Thanks for visiting, come back often. Who knows when something new will pop up.

This was done by a bunch of comedic geniuses named Dayjob Orchestra. Following this link will get you to their Youtube page, which has more videos than you could probably ever watch (okay, so it’s like 75, but still). In a nutshell, they take clips from Star Trek, celebrities, or political figures, and re-dub them to make very odd conversations, all while keeping the lip syncing (mostly) accurate. You just need to stop reading and watch the thing.

Source: www.youtube.com