Internet
Ben Folds Is Back With A Final Tribute To Merton
Posted By Ben Goulding, 1 April, 2010 | permalink
(Youtube Link)
Ben Folds is back with a final tribute to Merton. This video was taken from 4 live shows incorporating Mertonian Chatroulette – approximately 12 minutes a night.
Comments Off | Posted in: Entertainment | Internet
ChatRoulette Piano Guy Merton Returns
Posted By Ben Goulding, 29 March, 2010 | permalink
(Youtube Link)
Merton returns for part two of his Chatroulette piano playing sensation.
Comments Off | Posted in: InternetFirst Ever Chain Letter (WFOTD)
Posted By Ben Goulding, 25 March, 2010 | permalink
The very first chain letter documented was by Daniel W. VanArsdale in 1888. It asked people to donate a dime to the education of poor children in the Cumberlands region of Tennessee, and then instructed the recipient to forward the letter to four friends.
Since then chain letters have evolved and moved from paper mail to e-mails and later to social media networks. However, chain mail nowadays usually contains some clause which pressurizes the recipient into forwarding it to other people.
Here’s an example of a typical chain mail we might receive today:
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Re: (don’t open in front of parents) (sorry guys)
Date: 98-04-25 00:29:48 EDT<< Five people actually got killed by not sending this piece of mail.
The creator of this mail has a program that will track down everyone who sent this mail and whoever that didn't send it will DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE because this program can actually track down your address.
Send this to 15 people within the next fifteen minutes or you will die die die die die, what do you have to lose? Your life? >>
Of course this is complete nonsense, but many people still believe such threats and send it on ‘just in case’. As a result, the number of recipients grow exponentially and a worthless and pointless piece of text is spread around the internet.
This YouTube video sums up chain mail very well.
(Youtube Link)
Top 10 Funny Yahoo Answers
Posted By Ben Goulding, 25 March, 2010 | permalink
#1 – CAPS LOCK IS STUCK FOR ME TOO
Top 15 Funny ChatRoulette Screenshots
Posted By Ben Goulding, 24 March, 2010 | permalink
Merton meets Ben Folds
Merton the Chatroulette Piano Guy Speaks
Posted By Ben Goulding, 24 March, 2010 | permalink
(Youtube Link)
In an exclusive interview, Mashable talks to Merton the Chatroulette piano player via Skype to find out more about the man behind the glasses and the hoodie.
Comments Off | Posted in: InternetBen Folds is Chatroulette Piano Player?
Posted By Ben Goulding, 22 March, 2010 | permalink
By now I’m sure you’ve seen “Merton”, the piano playing guy on Chatroulette who has become an internet sensation for his freestyling on the the webcam-chat site.
Well, there has been much speculation that the mystery man might be Ben Folds due to his uncanny facial and voice resemblance. To clear things up, during one of his concerts in Charlotte, North Carolina, the real Ben Folds flipped open a laptop on the piano and started playing on Chatroulette.
(Youtube Link)
So now we know who the hooded piano player is. Actually, we don’t. “Merton” has since said “Not Ben Folds. Seriously. Ben is a much better pianist, and listen to the voice on the “Man in the Dark” part – totally not his voice at all. Besides, wouldn’t Ben cover more of his face to disguise his identity?”.
My brain is frazzled.
Oh, and here’s the original just in case you haven’t seen it yet.
(Youtube Link)
If You Printed Twitter…
Posted By Ben Goulding, 19 March, 2010 | permalink
Link (Thanks Andrew!)
Comments Off | Posted in: InternetTop 12 Funny Facebook Fails
Posted By Ben Goulding, 18 March, 2010 | permalink
Should Have Used a Spell Check
Top 5 Internet Millionaire Kids
Posted By Ben Goulding, 16 March, 2010 | permalink
#1 – Catherine and David Cook
Age at startup: 15 & 17
Company: My Year Book
Net Worth: $10 million
Bio: Catherine Cook, 15, and her brother David, 17, were looking through their high school year book when they came up with the idea to create a free interactive version online.
Catherine persuaded their older brother, Geoff, who was a budding internet entrepreneur at the time, to invest $250,000 in their idea. The site was launched in April 2005 and 950,000 members joined in the first year.
Fast forward 5 years, and the site has a net worth of around $10 million.
13 Comments | Posted in: Business | InternetEduard Trololo Khil Wants You To Write The Lyrics
Posted By Ben Goulding, 16 March, 2010 | permalink
(Youtube Link)
Eduard Khil, who has become a worldwide superstar overnight for his ‘Trololo’ performance, wants to sing the song again, but this time with lyrics – and he want you to write them.
Comments Off | Posted in: Entertainment | InternetHappy 25th Birthday Dotcom
Posted By Ben Goulding, 15 March, 2010 | permalink
The internet celebrates a landmark event today – the 25th anniversary of the dotcom domain name.
It was in March 1985 that we first heard of the term “dotcom”, when a Massachusetts-based computer manufacturer called Symbolics added dotcom to it’s name. In the same year, another five companies did the same, but the trend wasn’t really catching on.
Now, 25 years later, there are tens of millions of dotcom domains, Google’s crawler indexed its trillionth page of registered names in 2008 and there are 100,000 new dotcom names registered every day. It makes you wonder what it would be like if internet or dotcom had never boomed.
Want to see 100 oldest still-existing registered dotcom domains? Wikipedia has them listed here.
Comments Off | Posted in: InternetTrololo Guy Comes To Terms With His Newly Found Fame
Posted By Ben Goulding, 12 March, 2010 | permalink
(Youtube Link)
Eduard Khil, the man who has recently gained worldwide fame from his performance, which quickly became known as “Trololololololololololo”, reacts to parodies on YouTube with the media.
This is what he said to “Life News“:
I haven’t heard anything about it. It’s nice, of course!
Thereby hangs a tale about this song. Lyrics were written for it, but they were poor. I mean, they were good, but one couldn’t publish them at that time. They contained words like these: “I’m riding my stallion, so-and-so mustang, and my beloved Mary is thousand miles away knitting a stocking for me”. Of course, we failed to publish it at that time, and we, Arkady Ostrovsky and I, decided to make it a vocalise. But the essence remained in the title. Yes, it’s a little prankish – it has no lyrics, so we had to make up something for people would listen to it, and so there was an interesting arrangement.
Haven’t seen “Trololololololololololo” yet? Watch it here.
2 Comments | Posted in: Entertainment | InternetTop 20 Passwords To Use Online (Updated)
Posted By Ben Goulding, 12 March, 2010 | permalink
Online fraud is a growing problem around the world, with criminals stealing the personal data of innocent individuals and then using it to exploit those individuals so that they will gain something, be it money, ID etc.
One of the biggest problems though, is a flaw in the most basic of security checks that we all do – password strength.
Security expert, Imperva found that a third of people choose passwords made up of six or fewer characters, while 60% opt for passwords from a limited set of alpha-numeric characters.
Nearly 50% of users used names, slang words, dictionary words or trivial passwords such as consecutive digits, or adjacent keyboard keys.
With around 50% of people also using the same (or very similar) password for all the websites they use, there are concerns that they are unwittingly leaving themselves at risk of online fraud.
Here are the top 10 most common online passwords:
- 123456
- 12345
- 123456789
- Password
- iloveyou
- princess
- rockyou
- 1234567
- 12345678
- abc123
Update – Here are the most popular passwords ranked 11th – 20th.
- Nicole
- Daniel
- babygirl
- monkey
- Jessica
- Lovely
- michael
- Ashley
- 654321
- Qwerty
As well as ensuring that you don’t use any of these passwords, Imperva has a lot more detail on how to keep your passwords secure, so you are safe online. Click the link for more info.
Comments Off | Posted in: InternetYouTube Closes Down
Posted By Ben Goulding, 9 March, 2010 | permalink
(Youtube Link)
This will probably make more sense to those of you who are familiar with British television, when the BBC hands over to Ceefax during the night (when nobody’s watching). For those of you who don’t know much about Ceefax, it’s the BBC’s teletext information service transmitted via the analogue signal, which began in 1974 and is set to run until 2012.
Created by Eddie Robson, from a genius original idea by Mal Franks, this is ‘YouTube closes down for the night’. (View in full screen mode).
1 Comment | Posted in: Internet | TelevisionTop 10 Strangest Things Sold On eBay
Posted By Ben Goulding, 9 March, 2010 | permalink
#10 Ad Space on Forehead – A man auctioned off 30 days of ad space on his forehead to be used as a billboard.
Andrew Fischer, from Omaha, Nebraska said: “The winner will be able to send me a tattoo or have me go to a tattoo parlour and get a temporary ink tattoo on my forehead and this will be something they choose, a company name or domain name, perhaps their logo”.
The auction reached $322.
17 Comments | Posted in: InternetWhat was the First Image on the Internet? (WFOTD)
Posted By Ben Goulding, 8 March, 2010 | permalink
It is said that the first image ever published on the internet was a promotional photograph of Les Horribles Cernettes – a parody pop group, self-labelled “the one and only High Energy Rock Band”, which was founded by a secretary of the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) when they attracted his attention by stepping on stage during the “CERN Hardronic Festival”, singing “Collider”.
Comments Off | Posted in: InternetTop 10 Funniest Google Search Suggestions
Posted By Ben Goulding, 8 March, 2010 | permalink
The Google Suggest tool is a great tool that shows you suggestions that Google thinks you are searching for, as you type. However, Google’s somewhat unusual sense of humor often comes out with the suggestions it comes up with. Here are the top 10 funniest Google search suggestions.
1. I like…
Yeh, me too. Personally, I think it’s the best way to impersonate a dinosaur.
Incredible Stuntman Has An Unlikely “Real” Job
Posted By Ben Goulding, 8 March, 2010 | permalink
Aung Zaw Oo has become a big hit on YouTube after uploading videos of his incredibly physical stunts, accumulating over 3 million views. Aung was asked by many people what his job was. The vast majority assumed that he was a stuntman or performer of some kind, however his video response to this question was a big surprise – he’s a video game developer.
Not only does this show that we should never judge a book by it’s cover, it also shows that the coolest guy in the world is a video game developer! Who would have guessed?
(Youtube Link)
Spam Email (WFOTD)
Posted By Ben Goulding, 5 March, 2010 | permalink
Gary Thuerk was the world’s first e-mail spammer. He wrote the first ever spam email which was sent out on May 3, 1978 to a network of government and university computers.
In total, 600 unwilling people received his email, which was publicizing open houses in Los Angeles and San Mateo. The reaction from the net community to the email was fiercely negative, but Thuerk’s spam did generate some sales. In fact, Thuerk estimates it led to $12 million in sales.
Since then, spam emails have grown in numbers, with 90% of all e-mails sent today considered as spam. Estimates suggest that as many as 200 billion spam messages are sent daily, and it’s all thanks to Gary Thuerk.
1 Comment | Posted in: Internet