Presidents want to be loved just like anyone else.

Actually, presidents want to be loved a lot more than anyone else, which is why they became politicians in the first place. Well, that and the money.

It was touching, therefore, to see President Bill Clinton appear with Stephen Colbert on "The Colbert Report" and admit he was afraid of not being loved. On Twitter, that is. How could the man who turned the last election with one speech fear that he would be left all alone, with just a little blue bird for company? The president admitted that … Read more

Do you believe in life after death?

I believe that several fans of singing icon Cher have had such beliefs bolstered by events that occurred today on Twitter.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away today.

She was admired and derided in almost equal measure. Some adored how she assaulted entrenched British institutions with her handbag. Others thought she was a petty and divisive shopkeeper's daughter.

One Web site that espoused the latter view is called Is Thatcher Dead Yet? It rather looked forward to her passing to the Safeway in the sky.

So when her death was announced, it immediately created the hashtag #nowthatchersdead.… Read more

Would you choose to save your fingers by wearing cat ears on your head?

I am not imbibing alcoholized catnip. I am merely marveling at the ideas that emerge from the minds of clever cats at Berkeley.

One of these ideas uses a technology called Neurosky. Those who find Google Glass to be highly inventive -- but maybe not so stylish -- will look at the Neurosky headsets and wonder just how soon after putting them on they will be intercepted by people in long, white coats.

There is a probe touching your forehead, resembling the same motion you sometimes … Read more

Perhaps your laptop, like mine, fights strange intrusions every day.

Some ads attempt to outwit pop-up blockers, as if it's a bizarre episode of "Survivor."

Yet it seems that some companies might be attempting even more irritating ways of not only attracting your attention, but detracting from the tone of Web site you're looking at.

Would you, for example, want to see a banner ad from H&R Block besmirching the pristine pages of Apple.com?

This is allegedly what happened to computer science Ph.D. student Zack Henkel. As Ars Technica reports, Zenkel was … Read more

It's that time of the year again.

The one where companies vie to be worse than Comcast.

That used to be the plot, at least, to the point at which Comcast tried to get its own staff to help prevent it winning the Consumerist's Worst Company in America award.

Last year, though, Electronic Arts walked off with the prize, and this year things aren't looking too good.

It's already in the Final Four, where it must face the might of Ticketmaster. So EA's COO, Peter Moore, thought it best not to attempt ballot stuffing.

Instead, … Read more

Former News Corp. President Peter Chernin wants to buy Hulu for about $500 million, Reuters reported today.

Unnamed sources told the news service of Chernin's interest in the video-streaming site. Chernin, a former Hulu board member, helped create Hulu in 2007. He left News Corp. in 2009 to start The Chernin Group, which owns other media companies, such as Pandora Radio.

News Corp. and Walt Disney, which currently own Hulu, were said to have reached out to potential buyers in March.

Providence Equity Partners, one of the Chernin Group's investors, sold its 10 percent stake in Hulu last … Read more

You may have been one of those who felt enthralled and delighted at Mark Zuckerberg's launch of Facebook Home yesterday.

You also may have felt appalled and slighted. Especially if you worked at Microsoft in 2011.

The morning after the morning before, Microsoft's forthright head of PR, Frank X. Shaw, offered words to suggest he'd have liked to X-out most of Zuckerberg's wide-eyed unveiling.

On the company's own blog, he wrote: "I tuned into the coverage of the Facebook Home event yesterday and actually had to check my calendar a few times. Not to … Read more

Earth -- unlike perhaps any other planet out there -- provides a mostly hospitable home for humankind. Yet we seem to have opted for unsustainable growth instead of preservation.

At least that's the message in photographer David Thomas Smith's "Anthropocene" exhibition, which Smith describes as a visual examination of global landscapes transformed by the actions and activities of humanity. Each of the 12 prints in the collection derives from thousands of screenshots, which Smith captured from Google Maps and metamorphosed in Photoshop.… Read more

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos led an investment group that pumped $5 million in news Web site Business Insider.

In a press release, the news site's co-founder, Henry Blodget, said that Bezos Expeditions, the executive's investment company, led the new round of financing that also included existing Business Insider investors Institutional Venture Partners and RRE Ventures.

"On a personal note, I will add that we are totally stoked about this," Blodget wrote.

In a note to staff, Blodget noted that the proceeds will be used to invest in editorial, technology, sales and marketing, subscriptions, and events. … Read more