Idiocy defined (see Digg)

****del.icio.us this post to spread the word on digg’s idiocy.

One user who frequents both Digg and Reddit made a clever joke today. On the Reddit site, the user made a post with the title of, “Recursion defined (see Digg).”

Obviously, this post points to a Digg post that has a title of “Recursion defined (see Reddit).”

For those of you who don’t understand. This is essentially the geek version of:

A very intelligent and witty joke by the user jgrahamc. The only problem is the fact that Digg found this joke story to be worthy of a banning. Here is what jgrahamc had to say on Reddit:

And guess what, for submitting this joke story I’ve just been banned from Digg. My account has been disabled without warning! Jeez, Digg staff get a sense of humor. John.

Nice job Digg, you really came out on top on this one…

Gotuit Beta Is Good, Not Great

Gotuit BETA has recently launched and there is a lot to like. While the site has a lot of nice content, and the advertising isn’t too annoying, there is a major navigation flaw that we here at IBloggedThis.com can’t ignore. When looking through the categories there is a small grey arrow that implies that the category expands down. While that would be logical, it is not the case. Instead, clicking that grey arrow plays the first video in that category. Nonsense! Why would anyone want to play a video blindly? It wouldn’t be so bad if clicking that grey arrow played the first video, AND expanded down.

Honestly, we wanted to like Gotuit, and in general we do; its just the fact that the navigation is poor at best prevents the website from reaching it’s full potential. You should still want to check it out since there is a lot of content on Gotuit that you “can’t find” on YouTube. Along with that, the site design is very nice, and the videos load SUPER fast. It actually might be worth the time to adjust to the poor navigation, and if it is ever changed, Gotuit could become a power house in the online video industry.

Microsoft and Bill Gates spoof on Dave Letterman

Late Show with David Letterman did a Bill Gates and Microsoft spoof, after Bill Gates announced his transition away from Microsoft.

Here is the video:

Listen to Dave explain who Bill Gates is, as he says “he is a billionaire a billion times over” and “he invented the Microsoft thing”. Maybe next time you can have a little more information on those handy info cards Dave!

Nintendo Wii release date speculated to be October 2nd

Speculating and reading between the lines on Nintendo’s latest press release, Gaming Target has decoded the secret message and says that Nintendo Wii will launch on October 2nd.

Nintendo makes no reference to any Wii games or release information on this press release, but here is the reasoning behind the new speculated release date.

The fourth quarter begins on October 1. Now look at the list. At least one game is released every Monday in the fourth quarter except for the following dates: October 2, November 20 and November 27.

November 27 is after Black Friday, so it’s out. November 20 is after the launch of the PS3, so that’s out too. That leaves us with October 2.

The Wii will launch on October 2, you read it here first.

It seems unlikely that Nintendo will launch that early and still has not made any official announcements, but maybe they’ll surprise us. I’m still betting on a late October or early November release, but I couldn’t be happier if I were wrong.

Blogger Fired From Day Job For… Being A Blogger

She kept her popular blog anonymous, never revealing her full name or workplace. But despite her attempts at secrecy, her employer found out and fired her — unusual in labor-protected France, where workers have strong legal protections.

Strong legal protections yet this woman was fired for blogging? This is simply a case of the big wigs being paranoid and reacting irresponsibly to a non-issue.

The expat in Paris goes only by Catherine and declined to reveal her last name because of the personal tales she recounts on the site, www.petiteanglaise.com. She says she was careful never to reveal online the name of the British company she worked for as a bilingual secretary.

Just the idea that Catherine had to keep this entire gig such a secret is a shame. The world of blogging is defined by the ability of the author to express his or her opinion. Freedom is what allows the writing to be so engaging and articulate.

Her employers, the accounting firm Dixon Wilson, cited “loss of trust” and said they felt she had damaged their reputation, Catherine said. Though her name was never used online, her photo appear in a French newspaper article about her blog.

More nonsense from the higher ups who missed the boat on this one. There were claims that Catherine skipped out on work once or twice, but nothing that should have cost her a job. Blogging is “new” to the general public, and until everyone truly understands what the game is about, cases like this one will continue to riddle our society.

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Core Applications - Do You Use Them?

Recently the creators of I Use This asked their users if the website should continue to list the core applications of the OSX operating system. So far there has been a mixed response from the community, and the decision could go either way. In reality what harm is done by keeping the core applications in the service? Damage can only be done by removing the core applications away from users who may want to list them within their profile. As long as I Use This continues to develop their “recommendations” feature, it would be best to keep things the way they are.

Myspace Power Outage

Myspace experienced some downtime on Sunday and the effects are still hurting the Myspace experience.

“According to Netcraft Ltd., a British company that monitors Web site performance, MySpace was completely offline for about 90 minutes Sunday. The rest of the time, profiles were inaccessible as MySpace had a temporary page with the Pac-Man game and an outage announcement, which Netcraft said came from another data center in Tempe, Ariz.

One would think that the biggest social network in the world would be a little more stable. Rich Miller agrees:

“It’s unusual to see an outage like this where the systems that were in place clearly didn’t work as intended,” Netcraft analyst Rich Miller said. “I’m sure they will be looking very closely at what happened to try to prevent it from happening again.”

Either way Myspace will not suffer from the outages. The users on Myspace have become so used to slow performance, random downtime, and ugly design that no error on Myspace’s part could hurt their user base. The only way Myspace loses it’s grip on the social networking of kids if a FAR superior product comes out in the near future. So far, nothing of the sort has been released.

MySpace said it was exploring ways to prevent a recurrence.”

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Facebook Revamps It’s Photo Section

Social networks such as Flickr have enjoyed major success in the world of social networking via photos. Facebook has always paid serious attention to this aspect of social networks, and this trend has continued with their re-worked photos section. Last week Facebook started the transformation of their “My Photos” page, and now the transformation seems to be complete. Speaking of Flickr, the new design is “Flickrey.” Anyway, the most useful feature is the “recently tagged friends.” Instead of going to your friends’ page and searching endlessly for new pictures, Facebook tells you when a new photo of your friend has been added.

We’ll see if Facebook continues to focus on the photos section. The company has shown that a functional and useful photo aspect to a social network will help keep users coming back daily. Not that college kids need more reason to be addicted!

Entourage mini-series coming to Cingular

HBO and Cingular Wireless have teamed up to bring an “Entourage” mini-series to Cingular wireless customers. The mini-series which will be available in 4-minute episodes will follow a single story line based on “Entourage” character Johnny Drama.

Cingular said that it would also show full-length episodes of the the first season of “Entourage”, as well as other older HBO shows such as “Sex and The City” and “Curb your Enthusiasm.”

Unfortunately, to watch the “Entourage” mini-series or any other HBO content will be a little pricey. Cingular customers must sign up for Cingular’s monthly media plan, as well as HBO’s premium service to be able to enjoy this content. The media plan runs at $14.99 per month, and add on another $4.99 per month to get HBO’s content.

Cingular Wireless, venture of AT&T and BellSouth Corp, is currently the #1 cell phone service provider in the United States.

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Codine(x) : Uniting all forms of communication

Codine(x) issued a press release today announcing the company’s service, now in its pre-registration phase, which will allow users to unite all forms of communication including voice communications, fax, text messaging, email, instant message and voicemail by means of a unique Codine(x) ID.

“We saw a need in the marketplace that suggested busy professionals and end users demanded a technology that allows them to be reachable instantly by means of a single unique code that connects all of their communications devices,” said Pablo Kleinman, president and CEO of Codine(x). “By linking all forms of communication, Codine(x) makes messaging easy and efficient. Our service will be particularly useful for professionals and people that require accessibility at any given time.”

Each user will have a unique Codine(x) ID, which can be compared to an email address or a phone number. The user will be able to control via a private control panel which method of communication he or she would like to be contacted by. For instance, if you are in a meeting and you cannot accept calls, you can choose to have all incoming Codine(x) communications converted to a printed fax or translated to a text message.

“We are confident that Codine(x) will revolutionize the communications industry by allowing users to constantly stay connected to the device of their choice,” explained Kleinman. “We expect our service to be particularly useful for medical professionals, emergency personnel, as well as for large corporations with international executives who need to remain in touch at all times.”

An added benefit to using a service like Codine(x) is privacy. The user will never have to give out their email address, phone number or any contact information other than their Codine(x) ID, since all communication will be handled through this service.

Codine(x) service is currently accepting ID reservations online at www.codinex.com for $9.95 per year. The billing year will not commence until the service is launched in fall 2006.