Best in Blogs: Are the Dodgers Worth More than The Scream? Plus How Halo 4 Could Sway the Presidential Election

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AppId is over the quota

At GamePolitics.com, "Where Politics and Video Games Collide," they must be popping the champagne bottles after a blockbuster story landed in their narrow wheelhouse this week. "How Halo 4 Could Impact the Presidential Election," shouted a midweek headline: "When Microsoft decided to pick November 6, 2012 as the release date for Halo 4, did they take into account that the date is actually pretty damned important to the future direction of the country for the next four years? By choosing that date have they given gamers in the 18 - 34 age group an excuse to be more apathetic about voting than usual?" Wait, so Halo 4 is being released on election day to drive down the youth vote and hurt Obama's re-election bid? MovieBob at The Escapist has assembled a video exploring the origin of the theory and how much there is to it. "Since this is the Internet, the second biggest breeding ground for conspiracy theories outside of isolated well-armed cabins in the Montana wilderness, imaginings of a nefarious conspiracy being at work quickly took shape," the video says. Microsoft already dismissed the conflict as "purely coincidental." It's really possible to buy Halo 4 and vote on the same day. Though as David Their at Forbes blogged: "it doesn't do much to dispel the myth of gamers as clueless and detached when it comes to the real world."

The Blackberry 10 may not sway a national election, but the soon-to-be-released smartphone "comes during really interesting times," says Beta News. Its maker, Research in Motion, "gets one more shot, one last call to battle. It's do or die." The early verdict? "Overall, I am not seeing anything that will save this company, but there are a few nice features in the new OS," says 9 to 5 Mac. With a virtual keyboard, "RIM is putting the last nail in the physical keyboard coffin." There's also a kooky camera feature (video here) that allows you to step back in time when you miss a shot." Huh? "The camera is just taking shots from the time the camera app is open and caching them for later browsing." Mashable explains how that feature could be useful: "The hypothetical situation was when someone...closes their eyes during a shot." That could come I nhandy but also illustrates RIM's ongoing effort to woo consumers when it really should be focusing on corporate users. Mashable says "RIM is fighting the wrong war," by which it does not mean Halo 4. Early feedback from popular app makers is mixed. "Some were completely opposed to making apps for the BlackBerry because of RIM's uncertain future, while others kept an open mind," says Bits.

Two items sold this week at record-smashing prices, the Los Angeles Dodgers ($2.15 billion) and a version of Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" ($119.9 million). "The Scream is officially the world's most absurdly overpriced painting," says Gizmodo. "This version of The Scream is unique in a few ways," notes Geekosystem. "This one is said to be the most colorful and vibrant of the four versions of the painting, and is the only version where one of the two people in the background look out toward the cityscape." Baseball teams still cost more. By way of comparison, MTR Media notes that The Scream now "costs about the same as the remainder of Carl Crawford's Red Sox contract."

It's been said that there are two kinds of people: those who think that the different ways in which Rihanna and Beyonce use social media can tell us all about our future, and those who don't. At the Bits blog, Jenna Wortham appears to fall into the first category. Apparently the two divas "sit on opposite sides of the spectrum... I've noticted something intriguing about the way they each use the social Web and what it means about a future where everyone has some sort of presence online," she blogs. So "will you be a Beyonce, and present a carefully groomed version of yourself to the Web? Or will you take Rihanna's road and throw caution to the wind, baring your life, your friends and occasionally, your unmentionables?" Gosh, umm, is there another option? "Of course, there's also a third possibility," The Verge suggests, "that both methods are just as carefully or unconsciously deployed, the one no more "real" than the other."

Or you could have the social media style of "Sarah Phillips," who was hired as a columnist for ESPN.com based on some message board posts, tweets, and fake profile photos that look pretty but aren't really her. A new Deadspin investigation asks: "Is Sarah Phillips for real? Thirteen months ago, she was an unknown message-board participant at Covers.com, a gambling website. Then Covers plucked her from the boards and gave her a weekly column, sight unseen. Five months after that, she was tapped by Lynn Hoppes, an editor for ESPN.com, to write a weekly column for ESPN's Page 2--once the home of writers like David Halberstam, Ralph Wiley, and Hunter S. Thompson...The swiftness of her ascent gave her that weird sort of internet half-celebrity whereby she became moderately famous before anyone really knew who she was." It turns out that Phillips may be behind several Internet scams. Awful Announcing does its own lengthy investigation and determines that "the Sarah Phillips mystery goes way beyond ESPN and into the farthest reaches of the Twitterverse." It also reaches into the lunacy of what qualifies soemoen to become a columnist these days. Asks Buzzfeed: "Will there be legal fallout from all of this, and if so to what extent? Will Aaron Nilsen get his money or his Twitter account back? Was this all secretly a sequel to Catfish?"

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Best in Blogs: Jeremy Lin Mania - and Do Nude Scenes Win Best Actress Awards?

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AppId is over the quota

The New York Knicks basketball phenom Jeremy Lin continues to stir debate, light up the mediasphere, and inspire awful puns. Best Week Ever has made a collage of every Lin headline from the New York tabloids, and they're Linsanely bad. David Letterman did a made-up Top 10 Worst Jeremy Lin Puns (like "Law and Order: Criminal Lin-tent"). "You have officially arrived when you are the subject of a Late Show Top Ten List," says All Ball. Lin also "can add 'subject of an SNL cold-open sketch' to his growing list of notable accomplishments," says Atlantic Wire, after Saturday Night Live did an over-the-top sports talk show mocking the use of Asian stereotypes that have appeared in some media.

After Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg watched Lin play at Madison Square Garden, the geniuses up in Cambridge began to debate which of the two Harvard grads is a better role model for students. "This titanic contrast is important because it's evident that undergraduates are confused as to whether the Jeremy or Mark model best fits the Harvard student," notes campus publication Harvard Political Review. "They are both precocious twenty-something year olds who are finding incredible success early in life, underdogs with unconventional playing styles, and people who stuck out in a crowd of wunderkinds during their undergraduate years. However, this is where the similarities end." Adds Bostinno: "Lin's the lovable one; the team player. He spent how long sleeping on his brother's couch? He's humble.. He'll give you the clothes off his back. And that's what makes him a rock star. Zuckerberg, on the other hand, well...we've all seen The Social Network. He's known for walking all over people." Maybe by coincidence, an online "meme" has recently emerged contrasting the Harvard Douchebag and the Harvard Good Guy. Who's the role model? How about neither? "Leave it to Harvard students to wring their hands over who is a better role model," gripes Boston Daily. "Surely Harvard students, who have excelled at so much in their lives, should be comfortable enough with the concept of defining their own success."

Fast Company reports that, "while big publishers court the New York Knicks' 23-year-old point guard to write his memoir, at least seven Lin Kindle books (Lindles?) have already been released." What? It says here that -- Alan Goldsher, author of "Linsanity: The Improbable Rise of Jeremy Lin," is one of the fastest (and slickest) Kindle authors, and FC interviews him here." GalleyCat has a list of all the Lin ebooks. Meanwhile, as the Observer points out, Lin is "officially hot enough" to qualify for a different moronic online meme. If you loved the Tumblr blog featuring photos of actor Ryan Gosling with "Hey Girl" messages superimposed on them, you might also like the new series of Jeremy Lin Hey Girl images at a different Tumblr blog. We truly live in an enlightened age.

Finally, in advance of the Oscars this weekend, the pop-culture chatterboxes are running at full speed. With The Artist nominated for best pic, the silent film theme is going to be big. There was a Charlie Chaplin tribute in West Hollywood, where designer dresses were on display but no one really dressing like the great silent mnovei actor. "The trouble with Charlie Chaplin fancy dress is that you end up looking like Hitler," says Holy Moly. Troublemaker Sacha Baron Cohen may actually want to look like The Dictator, the character he plays in his forthcoming movie, at the Oscars ceremony, and the Academy may or may not have banned him from attending, says The Marquee Blog. "Some [were] reporting that the actor's tickets had been rescinded, that doesn't appear to be the case." Awards Daily offers praise for this year's host, Billy Crystal: "I have always believed no one did it better than Billy in my lifetime anyway. Although Steve Martin, David Letterman and Jon Stewart were all great, only Billy Crystal has the ability to be funny, to keep the whole thing moving, and to make the medicine go down a lot more easily. " And Popwatch examines the myth that actresses who have nude scenes are the ones who win awards. They first debunk it ("From our sample, only 20 ceremonies had nude nominees - and of those, an unclothed actress only won 9 times. That's less than 50 percent.") But then the report notes that "if Viola David takes home the trophy on Sunday, she'll be the first Best Actress winner in 25 years to have won without baring any skin on screen [at any point in her career]." The last was Cher.

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Best in Blogs: Hologram Tupac, The $5 Million Wristwatch, and TIME's Most Influential

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AppId is over the quota

If you told a music fan 50 years ago that Tupac Shakur would be performing by hologram at Coachella, he would have said: "I don't know what any of those words mean." But it happened, sort of. The rapper, who was murdered in 1996, "rose from the dead and stole the show at Coachella, performing alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. 'What the f- is up, Coachella?' a hologram of the rapper asked the audience," The Daily Beast reports. The virtual Tupac "interacted with Snoop Dogg and the audience before performing two songs and disappearing in an explosion of light. Coachella marked the first time a hologram has given a performance that was not delivered during the singer's lifetime." Video of the performance is around the Web but being taken down faster that warring gangstas -- it seems to be still standing here at Break.com. What made the performance unbelievable was how believable it looked. "The life-size Tupac was amazingly realistic, down to the late rapper's signature tattoos, Timberland boots, jewelry and movements," said MTV News. Sadly, the scientists were unable to resurrect a holographic shirt for Tupac.

One guy who worked on the project said comparable projects "could cost anywhere from $100,000 to more than $400,000 to pull off." But, once built, the technology is easy to reuse, so there have been rumblings about full-blown holographic tours. Says Kimbee Jabber: "Blogs have been aflutter since Sunday with predictions of a Tupac hologram tour--and a BIG tour, and a Nate Dogg tour, and an MJ tour, and even an Elvis tour." Popdust cracks that it's irrelevant because "in 2013, the audience will all be holograms too." Tupac 2.0 looked realistic because it wasn't actually a hologram. It was prerecorded 2D video, projected and reflected onto a transparent screen on the stage. "It's called Pepper's Ghost and it works by partially reflecting light off a piece of glass from a hidden room," says TechLand. "You might have recognized it from the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland; at Coachella, they achieved the effect by rigging up a custom, 30-foot by 13-foot screen that could be lowered in seconds."

Despite it not being a legit holo, hologram gags are funny, so a Star Wars fan remade that famous scene where R2-D2 projects a holographic e-mail message from Princess Leia, subbing in a profane Tupac clip instead. "Combining the holographic return of Tupac with the classic atmosphere of this galaxy far, far away is like a delicious slice of chocolate cake at the end of long day of Portal," says Slashgear. (Even that seems like a hidden message -- wasn't the cake a lie?) College Humor pulls together bogus appearances of the ghostly Tupac in scenes from Harry Potter, the Power Rangers, and CNN. Best Roof Talk Ever contemplates the recent 3D re-release of Titanic and says: "let 2012 be remembered as the year we brought the mid-nineties back to life with overpriced tickets to 3D renderings of things I thought I forgot about. "

New technology is keeping other seemingly deceased things alive, like the wristwatch. At crowdfunding site Kickstarter, the latest project to break the all-time fundraising record is Pebble, a stylish smart-watch that talks via Bluetooth with a smart phone. It hit $5 million in money raised this week, with plenty time left on the clock to solicit more pre-orders. The Kickstarter blog notes that "12 projects have held the title of Kickstarter's all-time most-funded project" and two of them have been wristwatches. "It begs the question: Why?," says Treehugger. "Why do we want a watch that basically puts the same functions as our phones on our wrists? Weren't we working to move toward dematerialization and ending redundancy of electronics?" Yeah, right! This watch looks cool and runs apps! GigaOM says never mind the money, it's a viable new hardware platform that could create a software market. "While the artists and creators are usually the only direct beneficiaries of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Pebble project has the potential to be a money maker for many other developers." But, wait, you said never mind the money...? Razorianfly wonders if Pebble's plans to distribute tools via a "watch app store" will conflict with iTunes's desire for total app domination.

Finally, speaking of Time pieces trying to remain relevant, Time Magazine has published its non-awaited "100 Most Influential People in the World" list, which "is kind of ridiculous. Or perhaps it's quaint and recalls a time when the publication was at the center of the culture," says MarketingLand. "The list should probably have been called, 'The 100 most interesting people according to our editorial staff and some other folks we consulted.'" In technology, no Google execs made the cut. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg but not founder Mark Zuckerberg made it. "And why is SNL comedienne Kristen Wiig on the list? Sure, she's funny and had a successful film (Bridesmaids) but is she truly "influential"? That goes for talk show host Chelsea Handler too." "It's unclear why Time chose Rihanna , whose occupation the magazine gives as 'superstar,'" says Gawker. "Is it because she challenges us to give second chances to those who don't deserve them? Because she entertains us by dancing topless in a field?... Last year's list of influencers included Gossip Girl actress Blake Lively. Sounds like they need a better vetting process, all-around." Who knows, maybe next year holograms will be eligible.

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Best in Blogs: Hunger Games Feeding Frenzy and Mad Men Mania

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AppId is over the quota

Let the games begin! "The Hunger Games" movie opens this week on the heels of its novelization in a bestselling Young Adult book trilogy. "March felt SO far away," says fan site The Hunger Games Blog. "But guess what?! It's here! The Hunger Games will premiere on silver screens nearly everywhere this weekend!!" THR reported that by this Wednesday the movie "already had whipped up north of $15 million in ticket sales and cracked Fandango's all-time top five presellers, overtaking The Twilight Saga: Eclipseand Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1." Says fansite Mockingjay.net: "I can't wait to see the numbers next week! I've done my part for sure, since I'm going to the midnight premiere with my brother tonight and to an IMAX showing on Saturday!" (Gee, hope you like it!). But will The Hunger Games be even better than Twilight? "Given that The Hunger Games does not feature a spineless doormat in love with a controlling, condescending stalker, yes, I can almost guarantee that," says E! Live from the Red Carpet.

Ok, now breathe. Gawker asks a key question: "Seriously, What Are The Hunger Games and Why Should I Care if I'm Not 14?" They proceed to explain what it's all about in a detailed summary of the book, plus a glossary. Business Insider (which is always our go-to source for insight into 14-year-old girls) spills "10 things you need to know" about The Hunger Games story.

Apparently the whole thing involves much killing of kids, and making them fight each other and grovel for food. Penn Badgley, a celebrity of some kind who attended the L.A. premiere this week, likened The Hunger Games to Occupy Wall Street: "It's the one percent [killing the kids]," he told Vulture at the premiere after-party. "I think you'd have to be blind to not see that. I was shocked to see all that in there." (Can't we just leave anti-Wall Street sentiments to The Muppets and The Lorax?). There also have been comparisons to that Kony 2012 video about abuses of children in Udanga that recently went viral. Says NPR's Monkey See blog: "It's a coincidence that highlights the single truth at the heart of both nightmares: Children who live in poverty are easy prey." A campaign called "Hunger is Not a Game" is piggybacking on the popularity of the book and movie to spread the world about global hunger. Says the Imagine Better site: "In the world of the Hunger Games series, everything is controlled by the Capitol, which uses power and money to punish the districts...Katniss, Gale and the citizens of District 12 are forced to break the law to keep from starving, to maintain an informal and illegal market so that they can eat. Sound familiar?"

In what is probably a bad juxtaposition here, the fitness website Daily Burn came up with a Hunger Games diet, "so you can simultaneously slim down and gain the strength to 'be an archer like Katniss or a powerhouse like Cato.'," explains The Hollywood Blog.  And just in time for Spring there is this too: "Whether you're a bride-to-be, a maid of honor, or just a party planner, we've come up with some creative and fun ways to incorporate The Hunger Games in your wedding celebrations," says Tres Sugar. "The book series may be dark, but it is filled with romance."

Meanwhile, in the real world, Mad Men is coming back to TV for its fifth season, and if you haven't been inoculated against the nostalgia virus, get ready to become infected. Banana Republic introduced a Mad Men-inspired clothing line -- in a fashion show on a jet airplane! Says PSFK: "The items included cigarette pants and floral fitted dresses for women, and colorful polos and classic navy blazers for men." Estee Lauder is offering a Mad Men cosmetics line, "inspired by the bold lips, the rouge cheeks, and the general 1950s feminine put-together-ness that the show's leading ladies pull off so swell," says Allure's Daily Beauty Reporter blog. Bourbon Blog serves up a recipe for a Mad Men inspired cocktail. Not surprisingly, it's named the Old Fashioned. Newsweek is getting in on the old-school vibe by continuing to publish itself just like in the olden days, when $1 would get you a nice sandwich, not the the entire Newsweek publishing operation. No, actually, Newsweek is getting its vintage duds on by publishing its latest issue with a retro style cover featuring the Mad Men cast and ads inside designed to look like 1960s-era classics. Says AdFreak: "Some are original from the period, while others reimagine modern-day campaigns as they might have looked in the '60s." FastCoCreate has the complete portfolio of ads here.

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Best in Blogs: Apple's Gizmo of the Future and the Rush from Rush

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AppId is over the quota

"Here she is - the iPad HD! Er, new iPad," says Engadget. Right! Wait - what? Yes, the new iPad is not being called the iPad 3 but just the new iPad. You know, like they did for the New Testament. "Breaking away from the numerical tracking system used before (and still used in the iPhone range), Apple has decided to highlight the most major change in its newest slate by simply dubbing it 'new.' " Everybody cheer on the count of three: One. Two. Yay. Three. Couldn't hold it in! The denumbering aside, "unsurprisingly, Apple has managed to produce something that's truly beautiful to look at," Engadget adds. Slate Moneybox says Apple is gunning for the PC market with the new iPad, introduced on Wednesday with most of the features experts predicted: a super high-res retina display, quad-core graphics, speedy 4G LTE networking. "The way they presented it, it's not that there's a 'tablet' market dominated by the iPad. Instead, there's a PC market in which...steady incremental improvements to the iPad's capabilities turn it into a potential PC replacement. The more powerful chips mean that more sophisticated apps can reside on the iPad. The rollout of iCloud is supposed to render the iPad's limited storage capacity less relevant..."

The Next Web runs down Apple's full presentation and the product highlights, including a new an iSight camera on the front and a rear camera that runs at 5MP. Plus "a host of Apple apps were updated to work with its Retina display, including iWork, iMove and Garage Band. The new iPad is priced at $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. And $629, $729, and $829 for 4G. It will be available on March 16th in the US." The Verge has a one of those fancy charts where they compare the new iPad against, like the entire National League Central. Well actually the iPad 2charts, Samsung Galaxy Note, the Asus Transformer something, and the Nook and the Kindle for good measure.

Gizmodo happened to notice another new feature: a new rainbow colored Apple logo at the end of the presentation. "Put your Apple Kremlinology hat on, folks...Is this Apple's new logo? I hope so! I hope so because: I love the rainbow. I LOVE DOUBLE RAINBOWS.... It gets me back to my old Mac years, when all of you didn't know what the hell Apple was." But not everybody is down with the rainbow connection. At VentureBeat Jolie O'Dell lists the new tie-dye logo as part of a new unraveling of the Apple brand, "a certain sloppiness that was absent from former, Steve Jobs-led launches. This wasn't anything major, just a few minor but glaring inconsistencies: Tim Cook going for the 'rumpled executive' look, the ambiguous naming of the 'new iPad,' the use of a truly horrible pun ["Resolutionary"] on a new product's landing page, and the tie-dyed Apple logo at the presentation's conclusion.... all of it pointed to a leadership that either didn't understand or didn't care about consistency in iconography...Today, we saw the first cracks in what will eventually become a wholesale break with the past." Huh?

At Buzzfeed an essayist says she can resist the hype and go without the new iPad: "I wondered whether people like me felt the same way, so I did an informal survey of some of my female friends who are all in their early 30s, have jobs in media, and could afford one if they wanted one. We all have iPhones; several of us have Kindles. We don't hate technology, or America, or Apple. But the general consensus was that we mostly don't need one." The Onion has jumped on the bandwagon, though, saying, with a report saying "This Article Generating Thousands Of Dollars In Ad Revenue Simply By Mentioning New iPad."

While Apple is out on the front lines creating the media devices of the future, it's good to know some folks are still creating good old fashioned content. Take Rush Limbaugh - he just has to open his mouth and there's a week of reaction for us to read, watch and listen to. Says the L.A. Times' Company Town blog: "The flight of advertisers from The Rush Limbaugh Show continued Wednesday, with a total of 45 national and local companies pulling their spots, according to the liberal activist groups angered by the talk radio host for calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a 'slut' and a 'prostitute.' Yep. They're not calling him the new Rush. "The current tally is up to 46 - and 48 if you count the bands who don't want their music played on the show," updates Atlantic Wire. The lib-leaning Media Matters site is tracking who is still advertising on the Limbaugh program. Muses Boing Boing: "I wonder if many Republican politicians are secretly rooting for Limbaugh to receive a Joe McCarthy-style dethroning, because they are scared to death of him?" In a column for Bloomberg, Michael Kinsley starts a backlash-backlash against Limbaugh's opportunistic critics: "The self-righteous parade out the door by Limbaugh's advertisers is hard to stomach. Had they never listened to Rush before, in all the years they had been paying for commercials on his show? His sliming of a barely known law student may be a new low - even after what he's said about Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama - but it's not a huge gap." But at Esquire's The Politics Blog, Charlie Pierce backlashes it one step further: "This is Kinsley being deliberately stupid...We can't do the right thing now because we didn't do the right thing then?"

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Best in Blogs: Village People Music Victory, Classic PC Game Respawns, and Facebook IPO Hoodiegate

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AppId is over the quota

In a victory for the rights of Village People everywhere, Victor Willis, who was the "cop" character, lead singer and co-writer for the flashy 1970s disco group, has won an important copyright case, reclaiming ownership in the songs YMCA, In the Navy, and 31 other Village People classics. It's a court ruling "with significant implications for the music industry," explains ArtsBeat: "Early last year, Mr. Willis invoked a provision of copyright law called 'termination rights,' which gives recording artists and songwriters the ability to reacquire and administer their work themselves after 35 years have elapsed. " This first such case is good news for all kinds of artists. "Over time it's expected to affect the rights to songs by Dylan, Springsteen, Tom Petty, Billy Joel and others," HuffPo notes. "Good for him and probably good for all of us," says Threedonia. "This move by large entities to corral and monopolize artistic content is troublesome." "This is precisely the result that many record labels have feared: that a musician could recover the copyright interest in his songs," adds Jonathan Pink. "Yikes. Not because of what this means to the labels, but what it means to me! Now these songs will be in my head all day! Ugggg. I blame U.S. District Judge Barry T. Moskowitz."

Some old-school entertainment is just 2 good 2 B 4-Gotten. Bethesda Softworks is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the pioneering PC game Wolfenstein 3D by making it playable for free on the Web. Says Mashable: "Wolfenstein 3D, which can be played here, is considered one of the earliest first-person shooters, and the game that made the genre popular on PC...Expect work productivity to drop today." "This is the game that started it all," says AppNewser, "and it is widely credited as being the ancestor or godfather to RPG games as diverse as HalfLife, Portal, and World of Warcraft." Geek.com calls it "one of the most important and memorable PC games of all time ...  it changed the way many of us thought about video games, video game violence, and totally insane boss fights ... It's bloody, not at all safe for work, and quite difficult, but it's a foundational video game experience. Pro tip: Z is strafe."

Back in the modern world, the Hoodie as a statement beyond fashion has again reared its hooded head. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wore a hoodie instead of a suit while pitching his company's zillion-dollar IPO to investment bankers. Analyst Michael Pachter told Bloomberg: "He's actually showing investors he doesn't care that much ... I think that's a mark of immaturity. I think that he has to realize he's bringing investors in as a new constituency right now, and I think he's got to show them the respect that they deserve because he's asking them for their money." Backlash, anyone? Business Insider says the tech world immediately began "turning Pachter into a punching bag ... It was the tech world versus the banking world." Kara Swisher of All Things D tweeted that the analyst is a "doofus." "This is what happens when you take people from outside of tech and collide them with topics that they don't understand, in this case, Mark Zuckerberg's wardrobe," says The Next Web. Pachter defended his fashion advice for Zuck and said he's not anti-hoodie, noting that there's a photo of himself wearing a hoodie at the gaming blog Kotaku. Om Malik blogs that the real problem isn't that the hoodie makes a statement, it's simply "a fashion abomination...The hoodie madness has spread so wide and so far that even respectable designers such as Ted Baker are selling their own spin on the hoodie. Question: Will a Yahoo patent on Hoodies mysteriously emerge and stop Zuck from being a hoodie-maven?"

In a debate over fashion between tech guys, there really are no winners. But the Facebook IPO is sure to make it all good for those lucky investors who can see beyond the hoodie. One stock analyst has predicted via CNET that that "although Facebook is expected to go public in the next few weeks between $28 and $35 a share, the stock could hit $46 within the next 12 months....Arvind Bhatia bases his bullish opinion of Facebook's shares on a host of factors, including his contention that the company's monthly active users will grow from about 900 million right now to more than 1.5 billion in 2016." Adweek delivers the top 10 things to know about the Facebook IPO, including "Facebook and Google will end up in some kind of death match" (#9) and "Zuckerberg will continue to wear hoodies to all major press events and executive board meetings" (#5). VentureBeat says the company still faces the challenge of "turning hype into trust." At Deal Journal, MarketWatch's Dave Callaway suggests "global economic instability could pose a substantive challenge to Facebook's IPO." Want way more info about the Facebook IPO than you are prepared to care about? Former disgraced tech stock analyst Henry Blodget has a long story at his Business Insider about "How Goldman Sachs blew the Facebook IPO." It ends with a detailed disclaimer citing an immense list of his conflicts of interest in covering Facebook (and likely many other tech topics) and ends with the line "So, basically, I'm conflicted out the wazoo." Now you tell us, Henry! The Ape Con Myth seems to have obtained the Facebook IPO roadshow presentation, and like Wolfenstein 3D, you can play it on the Web for free. Ape Con says: "If you can watch all 30 minutes and 59 seconds and still want a share of Facebook ... go for it."

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Best of Design Blogs: Groundbreaking New Designers and More

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AppId is over the quota

Whether it is a unique architectural tool, an individual's street style, or a memorable moment in a child's life, a lifestyle blogger likes to share what excites and moves them. Similar to how reporters and editors of online news sources use the web to deliver immediate and current information, those who blog in fashion, art and design use it to showcase a certain aesthetic, thus breeding inspiration in various forms. Driven by the annual Milan Furniture Fair, the desire to share design was certainly abundant on the web in April.VosgesParis described the luxury designs and vibrant life on the Italian streets. Justin McGuirk told a different story about this year's fair. In The Guardian, he wrote about the new iconoclastic designers who stole the show with their alternative means of production and design: "These were the geeks and hackers challenging the very notions of luxury craftsmanship and mass-produced furniture."

While McGuirk glimpsed into design's future, others noted what's hot in the present--and past. Emmas Design Blogg, known for consistently posting fresh interiors from a "Scandinavian prospective," paid homage to Est and Llamas Valley, two digital design magazines that are now a year old. Actor, director and tastemaker Diane Keaton devoted words to the rooms that contain them, as she blogged on Remodelista about the life found in a home library: "Sometimes it's startling; sometimes it seems to be subdued by shadow and light; sometimes it's filled with a sublime beauty." Keaton's words can almost be used to describe the unexpected and unique journey that Spitalfields Life has taken its readers over the years. Now a popular book launched this spring, the British blog began with a promise made by its anonymous "Gentle Author" in 2009: "Over the coming days, weeks, months and years, I am going to write every single day and tell you about life here in Spitalfields at the heart of London." The author kept his word and has continued to share stories that move him.

Guest post from the editors at Remodelista, the sourcebook for the considered home.

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Best in Blogs: Mega Millions Inspires American Dreams, Obama Campaign is Pinterest-ing

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AppId is over the quota

The Mega Millions lottery drawing this Friday night will reach an all-time record jackpot of $500 million, give or take a few megabucks, giving millions of Americans reason to stop resenting the wealthy one percent and instead believe that they may join the much more elite .00000000569 percent (the odds of winning the jackpot are 175,711,536 to one). With so much at stake, mathematicians and economists have relished the opportunity to have people actually read their blogs. After a gigantic load of calculations on his blog, David Torbert concludes that "for your 'investment' of a $1 lottery ticket, your expected return is 88.2 cents for this Friday's drawing." Which on its face doesn't sound so bad, though it essentially means the more you buy, the more you lose. But opinions are mixed. "At some point it becomes what a friend calls a 'utility bet,'" says The Spectacle Blog. "In other words, the possibility, almost no matter how small, of winning such an enormous prize makes it worth taking a flier with some modest amount of money." Cunctabundus has noted that the .00000000569 percent chance of winning with one ticket "rounds to zero" - and so do the odds of winning if you buy two tickets. "And 20 tickets? Your chance of hitting the jackpot is a just over a hundred-thousandth of a percent. Say it with me, round to zero."

Stephen Bronars at Bronars Economics seems to be worried that after you win you may have to split the jackpot with others - logic that seems to be leaping ahead a little - but he concludes that "even after taking the likelihood of multiple winners into account, the expected value of a one dollar Mega Millions ticket is more than a dollar." So get in line! Everyone's an expert now, apparently. Says the Pinch That Penny blog: "As math is a fuzzy subject for me, I deferred to my buddy the math whiz (he wrote a post for me on the NBA lockout a few months ago)." Well, maybe not everyone.

It does as if like an undue amount energy is being expended wondering what everyone will do after they all win. Business Insider is on top of the topic with strategies for taking your winnings ("make sure to decide between lump sum and annuity.") and seven things you could do with the winnings ("Buy 952,000 new iPads. Donate $475,999,999 to Planned Parenthood and $1 to Susan G. Komen.")The consumer finance blog Life Inc. warns unemployed job seekers not to admit in job interviews that they'd quit after winning the jackpot: "When you answer the lottery question - or any interview question - you want to leave out any inkling you're not excited about working hard, no matter what the circumstances." The Economix blog has noted the correlation between high unemployment rates and high lottery sales: "Can't Find a Job? Play the Lottery."

Anyway - the sound you are hearing now is the alarm clock going off on Saturday morning. You didn't win Mega Millions. The next bandwagon leaving the stations appears to be...Pinterest. Yes. Says Naked D.C.: "Pinterest is the new social media revolution - an electronic scrapbook that allows you to 'pin' pictures, ideas, quotes and the like from various websites around the Internets. In short, it is the greatest invention to ever befall young, unmarried women who are looking to creep the sh*t out of their imaginary boyfriends by completely planning their wedding before they ever meet anyone." Ok, there's that, maybe. The newest Pinterest adopter appears to be Mr. President, Barack Obama, who has the worst Pinterest page ever, Naked D.C. says. Jezebel, in a comprehensive analysis of the PObama Pinterest presence, adds: "while I bet Barack Obama's got some totally cute DIY wedding flower ideas, this move makes sense in light of what appears to be the President's reelection strategy: personally befriend every woman in America."

"President Obama Joins Pinterest, Wants All Your Themed Cake Recipes," laffs WebProNews. "Obama has always had a huge presence on both Twitter and Facebook, but in the last six months, Obama has checked-in to Foursquare, started blogging away on Tumblr, went a little hipster by joining Instagram, joined Google+ and almost immediately hosted a Hangout, made his campaign playlist available on Spotify, and switched his Facebook profile over to the new Timeline." The Dallas News Trailblazers blog notes that Obama "isn't the first to use Pinterest for political purposes. Groups like liberal-leaning Think Progress have employed it to poke at GOP candidates. Ann Romney, wife of GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, has a page of her own to collect recipes and post campaign photos." VentureBeat gets to the real point, figuring Obama's pinning will "likely be a bigger boon for the social networking site than for the campaign. Consider this yet another defining moment for the still-small, 30-person, Palo Alto-based company." Pinterest certainly is attracting a crowd. The Daily Dot broke news that a Pinterest spammer may be making $1,000 a day: "Spammers are turning innocent users' clicks into cash by running thousands of automated Pinterest profiles, and they're getting away with it for longer than any of them expected." That's $30,000 a month for doing hardly anything, says Mashable. Hey, who needs the lottery?

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