Show of hands: How many people actually turn off all their electronic devices on an airplane? Well, maybe you should next time, because experts say they might—just might—actually interfere with the flight. “It’s a good news-bad news thing,” one Boeing engineer tells the New York Times . Illicit device…
Continue reading …Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave of absence, and we should all just … let him be absent, writes the guy who’s spent the better part of the last few years tweaking the Apple guru. None other than Fake Steve Jobs, aka Dan Lyons, has put his blog on hiatus…
Continue reading …You can breathe easier: Facebook won’t be sharing your phone numbers and addresses with third-party applications—at least, not just yet. After the company’s announcement of the new feature generated yet another privacy uproar, a director wrote on Facebook’s developer blog that it will put the feature on hold. They…
Continue reading …As a 14-year-old girl, hiding a pregnancy from her father, Oprah Winfrey was so desperate she contemplated suicide. “When I lost that baby, whom I had no connection to whatsoever, I … felt nothing but just, OK, relief. Because I thought before the baby was born, I’m going to have…
Continue reading …A suicide bomber posing as a police recruit killed at least 50 people and injured more than 150 more in Iraq today. Many of the dead were police or their prospective recruits, who had gathered at a parade ground in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, the New York Times reports.
Continue reading …Tunisia’s day-old government was shaken by the resignation of four ministers today, undermining its hopes of quelling simmering unrest by sharing power with members of the opposition to the old regime. All four who resigned were opponents of deposed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s iron-fisted 23-year rule, and protesters…
Continue reading …Ah, “The Rachel:” That flippy hairstyle so popular in the mid-‘90s, thanks to Jennifer Aniston’s character on Friends . How did Aniston herself feel about it? “That damn Rachel … was not my best look. How do I say this? I think it was the ugliest haircut I’ve ever seen,” she…
Continue reading …Never underestimate the power of a funny cat: Cheezburger, the publisher of esteemed sites like LOLcats and FAIL Blog, has just raised $30 million in its first round of institutional funding. The money will allow Cheezburger to “hire, hire, hire,” says founder Ben Huh, who plans to bulk up the…
Continue reading …As the House prepares to consider a repeal of health care reform, the Obama administration has released a startling statistic: Up to 129 million non-elderly Americans have pre-existing health conditions. That means anywhere from one-fifth to one-half of people under age 65 in the US are at risk of being…
Continue reading …Hu Jintao arrives in Washington today, and President Obama will be rolling out the red carpet in public, even as the gloves come off in private. The Chinese president will have two dinners with Obama—one an intimate affair tonight, followed by a lavish state dinner tomorrow—and a State…
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