Media

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been having a lousy week, and it may have gotten much worse.

Gawker's "Crackstarter" campaign on Indiegogo has reached its goal of raising $200,000 to buy a drug dealer's video allegedly showing Ford smoking crack cocaine and post it online.

The gossip Web site's John Cook and journalists from The Toronto Star say they have seen footage in which Ford is smoking crack with drug dealers. … Read more

Love hurts. To which a logician might reply: "So shouldn't hate feel, really, really good?"

Logic and love have about as intimate a relationship as bread and a calorie-controlled diet.

This, however, didn't stop Peter Backus from attempting to quantify just how great (or small) his chances were of finding that one, true person who can bring meaning to life's absurdity.… Read more

When there's a long weekend, the police sometimes create longer lines of traffic by setting up random checkpoints to test whether you have enjoyed yourself to the point of irresponsibility.

It's a tradition not unlike grilling and insulting a relative.

Increasingly, however, social media has allowed real human beings to contact other real human beings in order to avoid being randomly stopped and having their breath searched.

Sennett Devermont has turned checkpoint alerts into what he believes is a public service.

Devermont, a co-founder of the dating site site DateUp (later sold to IAC) and various other ventures, … Read more

It must be peculiar for children of the Internet age.

They are the first to have a complete record of their whole lives. They are the first who'll be able to offer concrete proof of every one of their days, friends, and actions.

Eric Schmidt worries, however, that they'll be the first who'll never be allowed to forget their mistakes.

As the Telegraph reports, Schmidt spoke Saturday at the Hay Festival in the U.K. and offered some sobering thoughts for those addled by online life.

He said: "There are situations in life that it's … Read more

If you don't have (white) headphones in your ears, what kind of human being are you?

How can you possibly even classify yourself as human if you don't have a thousand playlists and ensure that every step you take, someone is playing to you?

The modern world is about creating your own soundtrack, in order to navigate its troubling paths and irritate fellow travelers.

Yes, you might be hugging your lover, but you have to be wearing your headphones and so does he. Otherwise, this isn't love. It's just a passing fling, free of melody.

This … Read more

In our philosophy class today, we will be discussing this existential question: What is the opposite of a Genius Bar?

In Jon Stewart's view, it's a group of senators attempting to fawn all over Apple CEO Tim Cook, instead of heating him up next to their goat steak and their veal sausages.

It was inevitable, perhaps, that Stewart might have an observation or two about Cook's odd appearance in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. (I say "odd appearance" because he was wearing a tie.)… Read more

Companies looking to get a piece of the Hulu pie had until this week to put in their first round of bids for the video streaming service. And, it appears that four companies have gone in for a slice.

Former News Corp president Peter Chernin, private equity fund Guggenheim Digital Media (which is headed the former interim Yahoo CEO by Ross Levinsohn), satellite operator DirecTV, and cable operator Time Warner Cable have all put in bids, according to Reuters.

Hulu has supposedly been looking for a buyer over the past couple of years, and recently several companies have allegedly expressed … Read more

UCLA Health isn't the first hospital to live-tweet a brain surgery, but it may be the first to employ 6-second video medium Vine as part of the proceedings. Surgeons on Thursday implanted a brain pacemaker to counteract the effects of Parkinson's disease in a patient and sent out Twitter updates using both Instagram and Vine.

The procedure has generated such memorable tweets as "Removing the skin and drilling through the skull for electrode placement." and "Electrode is prepared for implantation. Patient is being woken up at this time."

… Read more

The story so far: Microsoft has dispensed with defense and is throwing at least five (very) wide receivers at Apple -- and Google, Samsung, and whoever else stands in the way of it and nirvana.

Wednesday, Redmond released an ad in which it kidnapped Siri and persuaded her to denigrate the iPad, as if it was, oh, the rotund man in glasses who used to represent Microsoft.

Thursday, the company decided to release another ad offering that the iPad was nothing other than a slab of old bloat. At least when compared, for example, to the slightly lesser-known Asus VivoTab. … Read more