Plane crash claims life of Micron CEO Steve Appleton
Micron CEO Steve Appleton, 51, was killed this morning when the "experimental" plane he was piloting crashed at the airport in Boise, Idaho.
In 2004, Appleton, a professional stunt pilot, had been seriously injured in a small-plane crash that raised questions about the propriety of a corporate CEO taking such risks, according to Associated Press. Read more
There's an app for cats
Shame on me for being surprised.
But until just now I was not aware that people are putting their beloved $500 iPads on the floor so that their cats can treat them like another ball of yarn. Here's a story from Australia about one such cat app offered by the SPCA there ... and, of course, there is the adorable video:
And before anyone goes, "Those Aussies," be aware that this is far from an isolated case.
Again with the financial-planning perk, this time Zuck
As the press continues digging through documents associated with Facebook's filing for an initial public stock offering, one number in particular caught my eye: Facebook the company doled out $90,850 last year to founder Mark Zuckerberg so that Zuckerberg could acquire professional financial and estate planning services. Read more
I am ...
Software developer Brian McNamara, whose claim to being my family's most creative writer has gone undisputed since we were in high school, today sent me this amusing observational item that he authored. It will be best appreciated and perhaps only understood by football fans. The indulgence of others is requested. Read more
After 6-year windup, Schilling's ready to pitch first game
Next Tuesday, former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video game company, 38 Studios, will release its first title, called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. It’s been six years in the making, or roughly the amount of time it takes these days to play a Major League Baseball game.
You can watch the launch trailer at the bottom of this post. Read more
'Drupal, Drupal, everybody Drupal'
Felt I had to post this, because Buzzblog, as with all Network World blogs, is brought to you via Drupal ... and because I don't want to be the only one with this earworm today. Read more
A message to those tourists the U.S. kicked out over tweets
So by now you may have heard about the British tourists who upon their arrival at Los Angeles International Airport on Jan. 23 were detained, interrogated for hours, denied admission to the country, beaten with rubber hoses, and then deported … all because of a grotesque overreaction to pair of smart-alecky though obviously innocuous tweets. (Sadly, the only part of that litany that isn’t true is the hoses.) Read more
Just one more: 'S**t programmers say'
Yes, this "S**t (fill in the blank) say" meme is getting tiresome, but I actually laughed at the end of this video, so I can't resist sharing. (Warning: NSFW language.) Read more
Tracking-notification bill unlikely to gain traction
U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts yesterday announced a bill to require that consumers be told when their phones carry tracking software, an idea that would appear so commonsensical and presumably non-controversial that it would sail through Congress like a resolution proclaiming this Super Bowl Appreciation Week. Read more
Court affirms felony conviction of Palin e-mail snoop
A federal court has rejected the appeal of a felony conviction filed by a Tennessee man who in 2008 guessed his way into a Yahoo email account owned by Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska who was then running for vice president. Read more
DMARC anti-phishing effort raises question about typo scammers
There's essentially nothing but goodness in this latest anti-phishing effort -- called DMARC -- by the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Paypal and Bank of America. The idea is to increase public confidence in email received from household-name domains and others by preventing spoofed email from reaching customers at all. Read more
Facebook IPO filing seen coming as early as next week
News reports are reverberating around the Internet at the moment indicating that Facebook's filing for a long-anticipated initial public stock offering could come as early as next week.
Dying Jobs kept letter from Gates at his bedside
Shortly before Steve Jobs died in October, he received a letter from longtime business adversary Bill Gates that moved him so much that he kept it by his bedside, according to the Apple founder's widow, as relayed by Gates to a British interviewer. Read more
Techmeme demonstrates proper use of the word 'indisputably'
The popular technology news aggregation site Techmeme has a new look today, and while it is a marked improvement, I probably wouldn't bother calling attention to it if not for the headline on the blog post announcing the change. Take a look:
Now "indisputably" is a word that I would use only with great caution, if at all, because we live in a time where someone will inevitably dispute that today is Thursday. Read more
Diving deeper into that 9-0 Supreme Court vote on GPS
Longtime Buzzblog reader George Grenley writes to call our attention to a pair of posts on the SCOTUSblog (Supreme Court of the United States Blog) that analyze this week's unanimous GPS-related ruling and find a lot less agreement - as well as more concern for the future of privacy rights - than the 9-0 vote would indicate. Read more
Website fixes 'missed connections,' engenders envy
How many times have you been seated in an airplane next to an attractive member of the opposite sex - or same, if you're so inclined -- and the two of you trip the flight fantastic to such an extent that romance seems inevitable ... if only before departing the arrival gate you had remembered to exchange contact information?
Dreams don't count. Read more
FBI seeking help to monitor social media
So the FBI is in the market for a technology partner that will allow it to monitor social networks?
You mean they're not doing this already?
Prying government eyes hurting U.S. cloud services: EFF
A blog post from the Electronic Frontier Foundation makes the case that the United States is jeopardizing its position in the worldwide cloud-computing market by failing to provide the kinds of privacy assurances demanded by international laws.
Moreover, the authors contend that U.S. officials are speaking out of both sides of their mouths on the issue.
Apple thinks inside the box more than you might imagine
Network World's iOnApple blogger Yoni Heisler has an interesting post today about a passage from an upcoming book by Adam Lashinsky, called Inside Apple, which depicts the company's legendary attention to detail as something more akin to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Read more
Banking under a bad sign
Birthplace, mother's maiden name, first dog: These are the staples of online identity authentication questions.
Not so much this next one, as encountered and tweeted by Boston Globe reporter Todd Wallack:
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