PreshBlog

Oh, do fuck off: Swine flu name branded offensive

The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, an Israeli health official has said.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.

Just fuck off, how pathetic can you get?

Marshall Fitzpatrick writes on ReadWriteWeb that "despite new openness, Facebook remains fundamentally closed".

What are people saying on Facebook about the swine flu? Facebook knows, but they won’t tell you. The company made a major move today to open up some of the data on the site in some interesting ways – but the conversation on Facebook remains fundamentally closed due to extensive privacy limitations and the company’s disinterest in overcoming those limitations in an appropriate way.

Ask Twitter what people are saying on that site about the swine flu and you can get the full story to parse until you’re blue in the face.

Um, I can’t help thinking he’s comparing apples with polar bears here.

Twitter and Facebook are two very different beasts. On Twitter, it’s expected that whatever you say is public, and can be seen both by your followers and the general public on the public timeline (unless of course you’ve protected your updates, but I don’t think many Twitter users do that (I’d be interested to know the percentage that do, actually)).

On the other hand, you have different fingers Facebook is built from the ground up to facilitate sharing information with your friends, and only your friends – there isn’t much public access to the data.

The fact that you can’t readily find out what people are talking about via Facebook APIs in the way that you can with Twitter is not a surprise to me.

Just been idly flicking through the best of craigslist postings, and thought I’d share a few amusing ones:

• Ferocious attack kitten
• The loudest vacuum cleaner on the face of the Earth
• Cat found
• RANT: Air fresheners
• The girl who took a dump in the Art Institute parking lot
• Free giant bug electrocution device of uncertain functionality
• Busted peeing in the sink
• Break In…Break Out…
• To the perv who groped me on my way home
• Video games and starbucks
• You bit my leg while I was passed out and I never got to ask your name
• Guitarist of megalomaniacal speed seeks audience who won’t combust
• I was the girl your wife was going down on when you came home
• Worst. Apartment. Ever.
• Your Pets Will Not Be Flagged For Removal By Jesus During the Rapture
• Dead moose
• Dear Conceited Penis..
• To: The Douchenugget who hacked my Myspace account (warning – potentially offensive / NSFW
• Thoughts from a homeless guy now that I’m back on my feet
• Crashed biker thanks all who helped

The US president receives an Essex-girl welcome:

Saw this video in this post on The Wings Stayed On, and just had to re-post it here:

Low Altitude Aerobatics… – video powered by Metacafe

Just a selection of April Fools gags seen around the web -

• Google’s CADIE artificial intelligence system, Gmail auto-pilot, 3D browsing,
• Firebox’s Powdered beer, SatNav shoes, Piss-up in a brewery experience, iREMember Dream Recorder
• Netcraft’s story on browser vulnerabilities driving a mass migration to Lynx
• The Guardian switching to publishing via Twitter
• BBC’s Top Gear to focus on cycling
• YouTube’s upside-down viewing experience
• Amazon’s cloud computing for the sky
• BugMeNot’s registration required

Good stuff :)

There’s probably plenty more to add, mind.