MADEOFWINANDAWESOME

Do iPhone owners have more sex? No.

Image via Wikipedia

Dating site OK Cupid did a study where they took a look at the camera that took profile pictures on their website and related that to the dating history on the website for those users.  Not exactly good science, or even sound statistical analysis (Correlation != Causality) but nevertheless their extrapolation from that dataset was that iPhone users have more sex than other phone users!!!

Bullshit.  This only means that hipster loser douche-bags that are clueless enough to buy iPhones also can’t keep a steady girlfriend.  Perhaps iPhone users are narcissistic assholes who will do anything to look cooler than they actually are.  You could just as easily determine from the data that iPhone users are having sex and they are terrible at it and their partner dumps them.

Or, maybe their antennas are dropping the call the next day.

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Popularity: 13% [?]

FBI spending more money and time on copyright violations than missing persons

Image via Wikipedia

You know that show ‘Without a Trace’?  The one about the FBI Missing Person’s task force?  I didn’t know that the FBI actually did that kind of work, but they do.  I also didn’t know that Big Media have pushed the feds with all their lobbying dollars to create a copyright enforcement task force and to devote more time, money and resources tracking down who is uploading a shitty camera copy of Dinner With Shmucks to Justin.tv.

Copyright Infringement should be a civil issue between the 2 parties, but currently these cases at the FBI are seemingly more important than fraud and missing persons – you know, where people’s actual lives are forever affected.  Wired’s Threat Level blog breaks down the current backlog of processing  DNA from missing persons crime scenes where homicide may have taken place.  Couldn’t the FBI be spending their time a little better?

Also, putting FBI seal on the top of this article for the lulz.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

29yr old heralded as Tetris World Champion

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All these years that the game Tetris has been around they have never held an event to crown a world champion – until now.  Jonas Neubauer, 29, from California won a recent tournament in Los Angeles, California held by http://tetrischampionship.com/.  Even Alexey Pajitnov, the Tetris creator was there to watch over 200 players compete for the title.

I’m awesome at Tetris, too bad I never heard of this beforehand…

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Pop display Mario

Found this here today:

Win!!11

Popularity: unranked [?]

Torchlight 2 coming out next spring!

The followup to the Diablo look-alike from Runic Games is headed to PCs springtime next year.  Torchlight 2 will contain the biggest feature asked for since Torchlight: Online Co-Op.

I loved Torchlight and can’t wait to play the next version of the game with friends.  If it hits the street at anywhere near their current price point I will pick it up for sure.

As for the MMO the team is working on?  It’s still in the works, according to their press release.

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Popularity: 21% [?]

From the ‘Not News’ dept: iPad Owners are ‘Selfish Elites’

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Consumer research firm MyType conducted a study, in which opinions of 20,000 people on Facebook were analyzed between March and May. The firm’s conclusion was that iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, ‘selfish elites.’  This surprises no-one.  Well… except that the iPad owners are highly educated – I would expect educated people to be better with their money and not fall into Apple’s hype trap.

More »

Popularity: 31% [?]

Kingdoms of Amalur trailer

wowzers!!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Can playing video games boost your career?

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This Yahoo! HotJobs posting indicates that some of the leadership and strategy skills learned through gaming could cross over into your career and make you more successful in business.  I can see how particularly leadership and co-operation heavy games like MMOs could allow players to practice valuable skills online, but can playing WoW boost your career?

“We’re finding that the younger people coming into the teams who have had experience playing online games are the highest-level performers because they are constantly motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to performance metrics,” says John Hagel III, co-chairman of a tech-oriented strategy center for Deloitte.

Elliot Noss, chief executive of domain name provider Tucows, spends six to seven hours a week playing online games and believes World of Warcraft trains him to become a better leader.

Personally, having been an officer in a guild and trying to run a guild a couple of times in my stint playing WoW I can say that running a guild in WoW makes running even complex projects at work almost child’s play.  Politics, prima donnas, harassment and trolling, achieving short and long-term goals, delegating duties, mentoring, etc.

Running (or in my case trying to run) a significant guild in WoW can teach you more about human group dynamics and people management than you could ever want to know

In fact, I have now that I do more people management at the office I have no desire to do it online to any great extent and won’t be running raid groups in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion of WoW.

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Popularity: 71% [?]

MS killed cross-platform gaming because console gamers suck

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According to Rahul Sood (founder of Vodoo PC), insiders at Microsoft say that a project to allow cross-platform gaming between PC gamers and players using the Xbox 360 console was scrapped at least in part because the console gamers were not up to the challenge.

Rumor has it that there was a project many many months ago at Microsoft that was under wraps. The goal was to bridge XBOX gamers with PC Gamers so they could play against one another in games like Unreal, or Gears of War. This was all part of their Live strategy, and had Microsoft just stuck to their guns and made it work PC Gaming might be in a much better position than it is today.

Apparently the console gamers got their assess handed to them so badly over and over and over again that going ahead with the project that “it would be embarrasing to the XBOX team in general”.

This isn’t news to PC gamers.  First, the keyboard and mouse pwns any gamepad – even with the help and assists afforded to gamepad players on console games.  Second, console gamers – for the most part – suck.  Anyone playing a game with a gamepad that is possible to play on PC with a keyboard and mouse is a total noob.

I agree with Rahul, its too bad this initiative didn’t go through.  This project could have shed more light on PC as being the true gaming platform.

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Popularity: 29% [?]

Apple leads with most security vulnerabilities in its software

Image via CrunchBase

Secunia research has released that in the first half of 2010 Apple had the most security vulnerabilities in its software, displacing Oracle.  Microsoft has the #3 spot.  Since 2007 the balance has shifted from Microsoft to other 3rd Party vendors.

Now, this doesnt take into account the severity of the flaws in question – but it is important to note that Apple software IS NOT better secured than the software from other major vendors.  At best, its on par.

Fanboys and skeptics will tell you that Apple’s software is the most secure on the block – but Apple is slow to patch, often leaving vulnerabilites out there far longer than Microsoft does.  As Apple gains more marketshare you will see how bug ridden their software is as hackers turn their attention to it more and more.

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Popularity: unranked [?]