And the target was a single user who vocally supports the Republic of Georgia. So says one researcher in a story getting lots of traction: According to Bill Woodcock, research director at the non-profit Packet Clearing House, the torrent of traffic that brought the site to its knees wasn’t the result of a traditional DDoS, or distributed denial of service attack, but rather people who clicked on a link...

In Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, Michael Pollan asks, What is wrong with this picture? Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef”...

NYTimes Bits Blog: Twitter, the popular microblogging service, was crippled Thursday morning by a denial-of-service attack. The extended silence in a normally noisy Twitterworld began around 9 a.m. Twitter later posted a note to its status update page saying the site had been slowed to a standstill by an attack. [...] Other sites reported that they were targets of denial-of-service attacks as well. The social-networking...

The arrival of the “People’s Car” (equivalent US$2,421) — Nano – on Indian roads “is a symbol of the coming-of-age of mass consumerism in the developing world,” says Andrew Buncombe of The Independent. “India’s roads are broken and inadequate, the country is overcrowded and there is a middle class of anywhere up to 300 million people who might be tempted...

Way back in January, 2009, I started posting on the F-22 Raptor program, on how, “One of the first weapon systems-related decisions the Obama administration will have to make is whether to purchase additional Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptors, after the last one of a 183 aircraft order has been delivered.” Already back then, the F-22 issue, and those of related weapon systems, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,...

Chris Albrecht, cross-posting on Business Week, wonders Will Viral Video Kill the Music Video? Historically, music videos were promotional vehicles that ran on outlets such as MTV. Big budgets were spent on lavish productions meant to captivate watchers, prodding them into buying the single or album the song was on. But while music videos have proven enormously popular on YouTube, earlier this year the video-sharing...

The U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks. Wired’s Danger Room: “These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries,” reads a Marine Corps order, issued Monday. “The very nature of SNS [social...

I have been a vocal critic of the previous administration—as I am beginning to be of this administration—for what I believe is a shameful lack of recognition for the valor and heroism of our brave troops who have been fighting and sacrificing, oftentimes with their lives, in the hells of Iraq and Afghanistan. In turn, I have been criticized for “meddling in the business of the President, Congress...

I would suggest must reading of Ian Shapira’s story in today’s Washington Post for those of us who use the Internet to write articles and opinion pieces plundered from reliable properties such as WaPo, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist and others of that ilk. Shapira said his ego was stoked when the snarky cultural website Gawker cherry picked the best lines from his 1,500-word...

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid: My, how the tables have turned. Earlier this week, we learned that Apple had suddenly begun to pull third party iPhone applications for Google Voice, citing the unconvincing rationale that they “duplicated” some of the iPhone’s functionality. We then broke the news that Apple had also rejected Google’s own official Google Voice application submitted...

In Chinese astrology 2009 is the “Year of the Ox”. Only that person or a nation, it is said, would remain unscathed if it works its backside off this year. US president Barack Obama was born in the “Year of the Ox”, and his nose is tied to the grindstone. But he might just work out some miracles…provided his countrymen share his burden instead of nitpicking. Among various alternatives...

The markets were well on their way to shatter all kinds of records today. Towards the end of the market day, however, they shed some of their gains. Nevertheless, we still had, once again, a good upward movement in the markets—one of those movements that some critics persistently call “meaningless day-to-day fluctuations.” Let’s see what today’s meaningless market fluctuations...

Let me share my random thoughts…When lust takes center stage, the thinking and rational behaviour flies out of the window. We live in a promiscuous age/world where America provides, apart from huge arms and war material, 80 per cent of pornography world-wide. Now a question: Why is the USA pumping so much money in Afghanistan? It looks more like a case where a love-lorn or lust-stricken person puts at...

Legal briefs… Overlawyered’s Walter Olson: Former tenant Amanda Bonnen had just 22 followers on Twitter when she commented in a strongly negative way about Horizon Realty of Chicago. And here’s what a spokesman for Horizon is quoted as saying about its lawsuit: We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization. ArsTechnica has more on that. And this: A high school cheerleader claims...

As expected, Microsoft and Yahoo! have announced an internet search deal: Microsoft and Yahoo, whose talks about a merger failed last year, on Wednesday announced a 10-year collaboration in Web search and advertising. Under the agreement, which both companies hope will allow them to compete better with Google, Microsoft will power Yahoo’s Web search while Yahoo will become the exclusive sales force for both...

We may have recently elected a President who is a young, mixed-race natural-born U.S. citizen, but the political and economic power of this country still rests with a few thousand rich old white guys (ROWGs) born well before 1960. If one looks at the U.S. Senate, less than a dozen of these guys are making most of the decisions on how to run the U.S. – all the while principally representing the wealthiest...

Ed Felton on the Associated Press announcement last week that it would be developing some kind of online news registry to control use of news content: It was hard to make sense of this, so I went looking for more information. AP posted a diagram of the system, which only adds to the confusion — your satisfaction with the diagram will be inversely proportional to your knowledge of the technology. As...

One might suspect bias. Michael Scalisi: Given the rumor mill chatter, it sounds like the mythical Apple tablet is all but a done deal. People seem to be talking with certainty about how, either later this year or early next year, Apple will unveil a multitouch tablet with a 10-inch screen, 3G wireless broadband, and iPhone OS possibly subsidized by a Verizon Wireless contract. It would basically be a big iPod...

Mike Keefe, The Denver Post This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.