#6 – Michael Jackson. drugs. Palin. What’s that? A 24-year-old Brooklyn musician named Michael Gregory has combined a number of evening news broadcast clips and turned them into a vaguely acceptable faux R&B series called Auto-Tune the News…. For those unaware, Auto-Tune is a software program that alters singers’ voices to achieve perfect pitch. Used too much — or when they’re not actually singing because, y’know, they’re on the news — it makes...

I don’t think it is news that the health care industry had a plan to discredit Michael Moore’s documentary film, Sicko. Or that they seek to demonize “government run” health care. That’s simply and self-evidently true. But it is news when an industry executive who was charged with that demonization as head of corporate communications for CIGNA goes On Bill Moyers Journal to discuss it. Wendell Potter had “the ultimate PR job.” He’s changed his tune:...

Among those things I miss most about my NYC home are the summer sunsets: Built into the streets of New York City is a solar calendar on a truly massive scale. Every year around July 12th, New Yorkers are treated to a spectacular phenomenon as the setting sun aligns directly with the east-west streets of Manhattan’s main grid, turning them into canyons filled with golden light. The effect is known as Manhattanhenge in reference to the much older stone monument near Salisbury. The term was coined...

The latest in Facebook fun: [T]he rules of this wonderfully batty pursuit are very simple. You have to find the weirdest place possible for anyone to lie down in. And that’s where you lie down, face down, and have someone take a picture of you.

I admit it. I’m a rubbernecker. I can’t look away from a car wreck… Peggy Noonan: In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn’t say what she read because she didn’t read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan...

Even I’m surprised that they actually did it: General Motors completed a major step in its turnaround on Friday and closed the sale of its good assets to a new, government-backed carmaker, at a speed unimagined by auto and bankruptcy experts even six months ago. The government and G.M. signed the documents at 6:30 a.m. at the offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the company’s chief bankruptcy counsel, according to a person briefed on the matter, after a bankruptcy court order staying the...

If you missed my post last night, today Pogue posted the video version of his NYTimes rave review of Microsoft’s Bing search engine. While not as complete as the print version, it has the advantage of show and tell…

Westboro’s latest hatefest. At first I didn’t believe it was real. Even as I recognized some of those singing. Here then, Westboro Baptist’s God Hates the World. It’s a surprisingly (disturbingly!) well-produced website. You can click on a country to see why God hates it. (Most of Africa, Eastern Europe and much of South America is “Coming Soon.”) And it’s Westboro’s take on the 1985 Michael Jackson song that raised over $63 million for famine relief....

In a post yesterday I asked, Should someone who teaches Human Rights support human rights for lgbt people? The question is raised by NYU’s invitation to Thio Li-ann to teach Human Rights in the fall. Thio is an outspoken opponent of gay rights who has argued repeatedly and graphically that her country should continue to criminalize gay sexual acts. While I quoted extensively from the Inside Higher Education piece, I did not quote any of Dr. Thio’s fiery response to the concern over her...

Layar: Layar is a mobile augmented reality browser, developed by the Amsterdam-based company SPRXmobile. It displays real time digital information on top of reality in the camera screen of your the mobile phone. Layar was first released on June 17th 2009 in the Netherlands for Android phones. A version for the iPhone 3GS will be released end of summer; any other mobile phone with a GPS and compass will be considered. Via The Future is Awesome.

I’m sick of all the attention the media is giving Michael Jackson, too, but I promise you this is absolutely brilliant: Studio Brussel, a publicly funded radio station in Belgium also known at StuBru, has created a very unique website as a tribute to Michael Jackson. The site is called Eternal Moonwalk and is a video slideshow of people, animals and inanimate objects doing Michael Jackson’s signature move. Each video clip is about 6 seconds long and a counter keeps track of the number of...

MGSeigler says that’s why Google’s announcement of the Chrome OS came randomly in July, well before they had anything ready to show off: On Monday, Microsoft is set to unveil its plans to counter the attack Google previously had launched on it with Google Docs. Yes, Microsoft Office is going to the cloud. This is something which we all knew was eventually coming, and there is already some limited functionality, but the full details will pour out Monday at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference...

So much is being written about Bing I can hardly keep up. Virtually all of it grudgingly good. Take, for example, David Pogue’s rave in the NYTimes today. He kicks it off with this: For the last 15 years, Microsoft’s master business plan seems to have been, “Wait until somebody else has a hit. Then copy it.” I know that sounds mean, but come on — the list of commercial hits/Microsoft knockoffs is as long as your arm. PalmPilot/PocketPC. Netscape Navigator/Internet Explorer. Mac OS...

Inside Higher Ed: [Some students at New York University’s law school] are upset that a visiting professor in the fall semester, slated to teach human rights law, is Thio Li-ann of the National University of Singapore, an outspoken opponent of gay rights. Thio has argued repeatedly and graphically that her country should continue to criminalize gay sexual acts. In a speech to lawmakers in Singapore, Thio said that gay sex is "contrary to biological design and immoral," argued that gay...

Daily Finance: Oscar G. Mayer, who transformed his family business into one of the the world’s largest meat processors, died Monday. He was 95. The fact that most of the public probably did not know that “Oscar Mayer” was a real person — actually he was the third member of his family to have that name — was fine with him, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. He liked his anonymity, even as his company was at one time the largest private employer in the Madison...

While Michael Arrington revels in I told you so, deservedly, his colleague, MG Siegler, rockets to the top of the techmeme heights with his post, Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome: Wow. So you know all those whispers about a Google desktop operating system that never seem to go away? You thought they might with the launch of Android, Google’s mobile OS. But they persisted. And for good reason, because it’s real. In the second half of 2010, Google plans to launch...

Just imagine. Even more omnipresent than the camera phone. Underexposed: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a fabric made of a mesh of light-sensitive fibers that collectively act like a rudimentary camera. The fibers, which each can detect two frequencies of light, produced signals that when amplified and processed by a computer reproduced an image of a smiley face near the mesh. “This is the first time that anybody has demonstrated that a single plane...

With time to prepare, video sites and social networks appear to have kept running smoothly during the Michael Jackson memorial service and tribute: “Overall, the Internet is holding up great,” said Jennifer Donovan, a spokeswoman for Akamai, a company that handles Internet traffic for a variety of large clients. “We have not heard of any sites being down during this event.” Traffic to news sites supported by Akamai peaked at 3.9 million visitors a minute at the start of the memorial service...

US News: 35: Percentage who consider buying and wearing fur wrong 30: Percentage who consider the death penalty wrong 30: Percentage who consider divorce wrong 36: Percentage who consider medical testing on animals wrong 36: Percentage who consider human embryonic stem cell research wrong 36: Percentage who consider gambling wrong Data drawn from Gallup: Extramarital Affairs, Like Sanford’s, Morally Taboo Via Jezebel, “Even worse: Having a baby outside of marriage (45% opposed), homosexual...

The big three lighting companies — General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — are all working on energy efficient incandescent bulbs, as is Auer Lighting of Germany and Toshiba of Japan. The NYTimes: Indeed, the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation. “There’s a massive misperception that incandescents are going away quickly,” said Chris Calwell, a researcher with Ecos Consulting who studies the bulb market. “There have been more...

From Studio360’s Gay Flag Design Challenge comes The Flag of Equal Marriage, an evolving protest flag for equal marriage rights in the United States: The stars on the Jan 1, 2010 flag represent the states that actively perform same-sex marriages. Stars are arranged on the blue field in order of each state’s admission into the union. The stars are: Massachusetts – #6 – May 17, 2004 Connecticut – #5 – Nov 12, 2008 Iowa – #29 – Apr 24, 2009 Vermont...

NPR: Rep. Peter King may be speaking for a lot of people with his tirade against the media for devoting so much time to Michael Jackson’s death. Even some of us media people are wearying of the some of the excessive cable TV coverage. King, a Republican congressman who represents a conservative Long Island, NY district, is especially ticked because all this attention is being bestowed on a man he calls a “pervert” and “low-life” who, he allows “had some talent”...

CNet on the Twitter-inspired rise of URL-shortening services: URL-shortening services are abundant and becoming more so. They’re usually designed with a priority on minimum character length, not easy reading: Is.gd, Bit.ly, Twurl.nl, Tr.im, Sn.im”, Cligs, and TinyURL. If you want to see dozens more, Mashable has a long list. And the traffic they handle is large. On a typical day right now, Bit.ly is used to create 5 million to 7 million shortened URLs each day, and it handles 25 million...

The Telegraph: While the Potter films were earning him millions of adoring fans around the world, Radcliffe’s role as the bespectacled boy wizard was causing resentment at school. However, with an estimated £30 million fortune in the bank and Hollywood at his feet – all before his 20th birthday – Radcliffe said his life is proof that that ‘uncool’ kids come out on top. Your typical celebrity fluff. Then this: Radcliffe has been reticent on the subject of religion in...

I suggest you watch full screen… Web Site Story is a beautifully shot & acted, wonderfully witty parody of West Side Story that’s burning up the internets. It was written and directed by Sam Reich for CollegeHumor. On his blog Sam says it’s a tribute to his three big loves — film, theater, and the internet: Jeff Rubin, king of puns, thought of the title. The opening Google Maps shots are analogous with the rooftop shots that open the “West Side Story” movie. ”The...