By Paul Thomson :: 12:59 AM
Parody Twitter accounts were all the rage just a few months ago. Remember all those Big Bird and Binders Full of Women accounts created after Mitt Romney’s gaffes in the Presidential Debate?
But, it seems that lately, Twitter users have soured on the idea of parody accounts for current or breaking news events. With the meteor crash and explosion in Russia yesterday, a quick-thinking comedian nabbed an easy-to-remember Twitter handle about the event to keep it from falling into the hands of someone using it for parody purposes.
Jake Fogelnest, a writer and comedian, registered the account @RussiaMeteor just to prevent it from turning into a parody of the event. On the account, he sent this Tweet: “Hello, this is @jakefogelnest. As a public service, I have registered this Twitter account to prevent another parody account.â€
In spite of Fogelnest’s efforts to prevent a useless parody account, numerous other similarly named accounts have popped up in the day since the event.
By Gilbert Falso :: 2:21 AM
Russian officials are investigating a meteor shower that rained down on the Ural region of the country early on Friday morning.
Several bright objects, thought to be meteorites, came falling from the sky.
A witness in Chelyabinsk told Reuters that they heard a loud blast early in the morning and felt a shockwave in a 19-story building in the center of the town. Government officials say that roughly 150 people suffered minor injuries following the impact, most injuries came from broken glass and other flying debris.
Several videos of the meteor shower were captured on the dashboard cameras of Russian vehicles. Due to rampant insurance fraud in the country, it is not uncommon for drivers to have a dashboard camera running while they are operating their vehicles. In this case, the cameras captured the meteorites from several different angles, at a couple of different times. See below for three videos.
By Paul Thomson :: 12:41 AM
Happy Valentine’s Day. Google has decided to celebrate with a dual-themed Google Doodle on the homepage of the search engine site today – honoring both Valentine’s day, and the 154th birthday of Ferris Wheel inventor George Ferris.
A cute interactive doodle, pressing the heart button will spin the dual Ferris Wheels and pair up an unsuspecting and unusual duo of adorable animal friends – a duck and an octopus, for example. After the match up, users are treated to a sweet comic depicting the two animals on a Valentine’s Day date – in the case of our eight-legged octopus friend, he’s trying to seduce the duck with multiple boom-boxes in his arms, just like John Cusack in the 80’s hit movie “Say Anything.”
If you don’t yet see the doodle on your Google front page, don’t despair – it’s being rolled out as it hits midnight on the 14th across the globe.
The doodle also honors engineer Ferris, who was born on February 14, 1859, and created the original Ferris Wheel for the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition.
Ferris’ original contraption was outfitted with 36 cars, each with 40 revolving chairs and able to hold up to 60 people, giving a total capacity of 2,160. When the exposition opened, it carried about 38,000 passengers each day, taking 20 minutes to complete two revolutions, the first involving a series of stops to allow passengers to enter and exit. The price of the ride was 50 cents, and the original wheel carried 2 and a half million passengers before it was demolished in 1906. Ferris died on November 22, 1896.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 11:21 PM
If you’re reading this, then you either forgot that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, or you’re a champion procrastinator. Either way, you are extremely lucky that we live in the digital and technological age that we do, because if you act fast, there’s still hope to get a gift to your loved one in time.
If you’re considering a bouquet of flowers for your Valentine, ProFlowers has got you covered. Orders that are placed on their website by 3:00 PM in the recipient’s time zone can generally be delivered that same day. They do assess a surcharge of $9.99 on top of their regular delivery fee for all Valentine’s Day orders delivered on the 14th, but their lenient arrangements of allowing you to order by 3:00 that afternoon more than makes up for the additional fee. They are currently running a special that will give you 15% off your purchase if you use the coupon code “WOW15”.
In a similar fashion, 1-800-Flowers will guarantee delivery of that bouquet to your sweetheart if you order by Noon in the recipient’s time zone. The key with 1-800-Flowers is to select only the floral arrangements that are indicated with “Same-Day Local Florist Delivery” – anything that has to be shipped won’t make it there on the 14th. Like ProFlowers, 1-800 Flowers also assesses an extra service charge of $5.00 for delivery on the 14th.
No time for flowers, or too expensive for your budget? Hallmark has electronic Valentine’s Day greeting cards that you can send, and even offers a couple of free heart-themed options. Hallmark’s e-cards work on a subscription-based service, and the fee is $12 per year, for all the e-cards you can send.
Looking for funny and free? Head over to Someecards for satirical, off-the-wall, and downright risque cards with clever sayings and messages like, “I adore you even more than the people of North Korea are forced to adore Kim Jong-un.” Disclaimer – avoid some of these if this is your first Valentine’s Day in a serious relationship. Go down to the florist, pick up some flowers, get a box of chocolates, and skip the e-cards in this case.
By Paul Thomson :: 7:16 PM
Professional social networking site LinkedIn announced today that it will be giving all of its employees an iPad Mini to reward them for reaching a milestone of membership recently.
LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner apparently sprung the surprise on the company’s 3,458 employees earlier today when he told them about their gifts during a company all-hands meeting.
“Weiner decided to give every employee an iPad mini today as a special reward for our recent results,” a marketing solutions product manager for the company posted on the LinkedIn blog today.
LinkedIn’s spokesperson, Krista Canfield confirmed that employees will be receiving a 32GB iPad Mini in their choice of white or black. She called the action a “small gesture of the company’s gratitude.”
Last week, LinkedIn reported fourth-quarter earnings per share of 35 cents, revenue of $303.6 million, and net income of $11.5 million – results that beat market expectations and left investors very happy.