Digital Brainwaves

If you’re not familiar with it, Ask Yahoo! is a component of the Yahoo! web site that takes user-submitted questions, researches the answers, and posts one answer a day.

Today’s article seemed pretty straightforward: what’s the best-selling album ever?

Before we began our research, we thought Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” held the title. But, as we quickly learned, that’s not the case.

The high-flying Eagles are the real champs of the charts. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975″ by the Eagles is the best-selling album ever with 29 million copies sold. Jacko’s “Thriller” is second, followed by “Led Zeppelin IV,” Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” and AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”

I might not have even read the article, though if it weren’t for the text in the article’s RSS feed. As I’m looking through Google Reader, I come across this little gem:

Before we began researching, we thought Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” held the title. But, as we quickly learned, that’s not the case. Believe it or not, the best-selling album of all-time actually belongs to rap star and Mensa member Kevin Federline…

Waitwaitwait– WHAT???

Mensa… K-Fed… *brain explodes*

I have no idea how long this was live on the site; Google’s RSS reads are cached for a while, and the live feed has already removed the third sentence from the site:

Before we began researching, we thought Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” held the title. But, as we quickly learned, that’s not the case…

I wonder if anyone’s getting reprimanded, if not fired, for this one.

I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7—building 7, which collapsed in on itself—it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade [Center] 1 and 2 got hit by planes—7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.

– World-renowned physics expert Rosie O’Donnell

Popular Science, whose editors wrote the book Debunking 9/11 Myths, do just that, shooting down Rosie’s televised conspiracy theories about WTC 7. Specifically, in this case, the structural steel didn’t have to melt, just weaken enough to no longer support the weight of the building.

Bob Lonsberry’s columns are usually worth the read anyway, but his latest two are both spot-on. First, yesterday’s column featured a suggestion that the rest of the country follow San Francisco and phase out plastic grocery bags:

A long time ago, when people lived in caves and obesity was rare, if you bought something at a store they put it in a paper bag. The leader in this field was the grocery bag. It was brown paper, neatly rectangular, sturdy and strong.

When you bought groceries, some 15-year-old making $2 an hour loaded them neatly into one of these paper grocery bags. Back in those days, they actually loaded the groceries in a way that made sense. They put the bread on top, for example, and the cans on the bottom.

Those were the days.

Groceries were easy to carry. Unloading your car was a lot easier, and with a little smoothing and folding, the bags were reusable at home.

Then somebody realized paper was made out of trees.

So they complained and demonstrated and wrote letters to the editor. Paper bags were bad, they claimed, because they contributed to deforestation. Apparently unaware that trees grow back, the environmentalist people came up with a better idea.

That’s right, bags made out of crude oil.

Then, today’s column slammed Circuit City and suggested a boycott for laying off the better, higher-paid workers and offering to rehire them cheaper.

On Wednesday, the bosses at Circuit City stores all across the country called workers in and read to them from a script provided by corporate. In this script, the employees were told that they were being fired.

For being good.

Not because they goofed up. Not because they weren’t capable. Not because they had done anything wrong.

But because they were paid too much. Circuit City said: You’re not worth what we pay you.

So you’re fired.

And we’re hiring immediately to fill your position, but at a lower wage. You are welcome to reapply for your old job at a lower hourly wage — in 10 weeks.

Now give us your nametag, punch out and f-you very much.

Go read them both.

First — classical horns.

Squeaker bike horns, that is.

(Hat tip: Dvorak Uncensored)

Then, a 1984 mashup — the original Apple Macintosh 1984 ad, assembled by someone who’s quite the Barack Obama fan. Obama doesn’t impress me all that much, but whomever assembled this clip certainly does.

In early 2003, Meryl Yourish spotted a PETA campaign calling the slaughter of animals for food a “holocaust on your plate.” He thought that it was rather disgusting to invoke the Holocaust in such a way, and he’s right. But he also recognzed PETA’s actions for what they are: an “outrageous publicity stunt.” Knowing he couldn’t make them cease their campaign, he decided to hold an outrageous publicity stunt of his own, that’s been growing every year since.

The Fifth Annual International Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA (IEATAPETA) Day takes place this Thursday, March 15. I’m having a garbage plate for lunch.

O&A’s Anthony Cumia has figured out the best way to install Windows Vista on your machine.

Two of my favorite interests — Macintosh and politics — converge in yesterday’s Day by Day, spoofing the Get a Mac ads.

Check out “Michael Moore” exposing the lies behind the push to war in Mordor following the attack in Hells Deep in Fellowship 9/11. While you’re watching, I’ll prepare my asbestos pajamas.
(Hat tip: Right Wing News)

One of the neat things about Google Maps is the way that people can adapt it to make new services. Two that have come across my plate recently are a map of the Toronto transit system and a pedometer that lets you track where you walked and see how far it was after the fact.

(Hat tip for Toronto map: Transit Toronto)

One of my first memories of seeing things on TV is seeing the constant coverage of the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. While some part of me must have realized that the rocket taking off into the sky and suddenly becoming engulfed in a fireball wasn’t what was supposed to happen, it nonetheless fascinated me. I drew pictures of what I’d seen for quite some time after that.

Over time, I eventually became a fan of The Way It Usually Worked­™. Combined with an introduction to the world of Star Trek a few years later, I became intensely interested in human spaceflight.

Later on, my family purchased a C-band satellite dish (the old ones, the big ones — this one was 8 feet in diameter) because we were too far out of town to get cable. With the dish, we were able to pick up NASA TV — live video from Florida for launches, from Mission Control in Houston, and often from the shuttles themselves in orbit. One of the coolest parts of having NASA TV was being able to watch video and photos sent back by Voyager 2 when it passed Neptune in 1989.

To that end, continuing developments in online media and interaction have made it possible to view NASA TV online. Click through to the NASA TV page to watch live video of tonight’s launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-116 at 9:35PM ET, and on through the next two weeks for ongoing mission coverage. For additional news and updates (often updated faster than NASA’s own site), check out Spaceflight Now, and their STS-116 Mission Status Center.