Social networking

There's something that looks like a wedding ring. A wedding ring, I tell you.

I don't for a moment believe it belongs to Gov. Arnold Schwarzernegger's fair wife. However, it's the governor who is inviting you to "bring the family" and take items such as this ring off his hands. Because California needs to find cash wherever it can.

Please, go to Craigslist or eBay and take the ThinkPad ($200) and the the Dell laptop ($200). Or even these 10 office chairs ($5 each). The LG Flip Phone ($9) and the Blackberrys ($25) have … Read more

All right, let's get the jokes out of the way first.

How many roads must a man walk down before he totally loses his way and has no direction home?

If you've been 10,000 miles in the mouth of a graveyard, shouldn't you retrace your steps or you'll end up on Desolation Row?

Or are you a firm believer in the direction principle called "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"?

Oh, what I am talking about?

Well, it seems that Bob Dylan, he who has more gravel in his voice than … Read more

It's ugly. It's not proactive. It turns a deaf ear, a blind eye, and a snubby nose to investors. And it looks upon advertising as if it were as appropriate as an anchor tattoo on the Pope's forehead.

In sum, suggests Gary Wolf in the latest issue of Wired, Craigslist is a mess. A horrible mess. An embarrassing mess. A willful mess in which its principals rake in money while its principles seem to revolve around some weirdly benign view of human goodness.

Of course, you can see what he means.

We live in the forging, gorging … Read more

Who do you share your iPod playlist with?

Your lover? Your lover's husband? Your colleagues at the office? The strangely smelling man who sits next to you on the bus?

Well, researchers at the University of Cambridge have a message for you. It reads: "Don't."

According to these flatland boffins, your values, your personality, even your ethnicity, and social class (well, it is England, after all) will be judged by what you slip onto your iPod.

Jason Rentfrow, the chap who dreamed up this vital and surprising study at the university's Department of Social and … Read more

I normally leave "Top Chef" recordings for a Friday night. Somehow it helps the soul and the indigestion.

This fine piece of television gives competent, but not yet infamous, chefs the chance to gain some fame by having the flames of their talent fanned by celebrated chefs and the power of television.

This season, which opened Thursday, features a contestant from Google. No, not a programmer or a digitally dextrous designer.

May I introduce you to Preeti Mistry, the 33-year-old executive chef with Google's Bon Appetit management company.

Mistry is Cordon Bleu trained. Unfortunately, her appearance on … Read more

In a week in which Google was ordered to reveal the identity of the "Skanks in NYC" blogger who may have defamed model Liskula Cohen, a landmark judgment was also reportedly reached in the United Kingdom.

In Worcester Magistrates Court of England, an 18-year-old woman was allegedly sent to three months in a young-offenders institute after being found guilty of posting death threats on Facebook, according to the Daily Mail. It's thought to be the country's first jail sentence for cyberbullying.

The young defendant allegedly wrote on her Facebook page that she would kill another young … Read more

At one point sources said he was a "dark horse" candidate to replace outgoing MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, but now MySpace ad sales and marketing head Jeff Berman is departing the News Corp. division entirely.

Following rumors and reports earlier Thursday, the announcement was made in a company blog post by Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook executive who ultimately did replace DeWolfe as CEO of MySpace earlier this year. Berman, who had previously been the head of MySpace's video division, had been at MySpace for about three and a half years.

MySpace has enlisted the services … Read more

When stars need to wean their bodies off an excess of alcohol or drugs, they waft off to the Betty Ford Center or the Priory in London.

Now those who have allowed gaming or the Web to take over their lives have their own place of salvation in the United States.

Heavensfield Retreat Center in the kindly named Fall City, near Seattle, claims to have the first Internet addiction detox program in the States. Called ReStart, it essentially offers a 45-day detox from the need to socially network and game until your mind and fingers are more numb than a … Read more

I confess I have not yet been warmed by the kindle of Kindle.

Somehow, the presence of yet another machine in my already messed-up world might make me entirely unserviceable.

However, an increasing number of literate beings are finding themselves rather aroused by their Kindle experience.

Tuesday, seated at a rather friendly bar sipping something Spanish, I was regaled with the story of a rather happily married couple who believe that Kindle has changed not only the convenience of reading but actually their choice of books.

The wife, a suave, cool lady of aristocratic bearing, decided to buy her more … Read more