US shutdown, dark web exposed, Bill Gates’ resignation: #StuffToKnow this week

So the government of the US decided to take a time out because it was throwing fits (it still is). Twitter is going to be listed now and we hope the little birds wings can handle it. The “mastermind” of the dodgy parts of the web got busted. Oh, and they are trying to fire Bill Gates from Microsoft… good luck with that.

INTERNET

US Government shutdown? At least social media still works

So due to some republicans being upset about not getting their way they have decided to shutdown the government of America. Yes it’s the same country boasting to others that their way of running a country is the best way. As you can imagine, social media users had a field day with the congress’s behaviour. Here is the late night comics take on it.

The FBI busted Silk Road, but not the ‘dark web’ behind it

There are dark alleys of the web where the nefarious and the obscure dwell and their gates are named TOR. Now before those whose lives/behaviour depend on their anonymity in such places, don’t stress, Dread Pirate Roberts was busted due to being sloppy in his online behaviour, not due to TOR being compromised… or at least that’s what they want you to believe…

Bitcoin falls 15% following FBI’s Silk Road seizure

By the way the virtual currency is used in these dark corners of the net is born of the digital realm itself. The new currency working its way into mainstream vernacular got quite a strong hit due to TOR being under question and continues to decline.

Twitter officially files for $1bn IPO, no profit in site though

Well it arrived. There were fears the public posting of the IPO filing would be delayed due the the US government shutdown (which includes the Securities and Exchange Commission) but here it is. Now we wait and see how the market will react to the highly influential social media site that has no actual money coming in. This could be a very expensive fail whale in waiting.

Epic job resignation goes viral on YouTube

A young lady by the name of Marina Shifrin uploaded her resignation to YouTube… and she does it while showing off her moves to Kanye West’s “Gone” from her office at 4:30 a.m in the morning. Subtitles tell her story. It’s quite cool, check it out.

Google launches public beta of Web Designer, a free design tool for creating HTML5 ads and campaigns

Since html5 is the new Flash, (and the god of the internet known to us mere mortals as) Google can read and thus index it, helping us make animations in code as easy as flash animations were to create. It’s still a very young application but it’s a great one. A good sign of things to come as Google builds powerful desktop applications as well as online apps.

TECH

Microsoft investors push for chairman Gates to step down

This story of a founding CEO of a computer company being asked to resign (read: kicked out) seems awfully familiar… cough… Steve Jobs… cough. In this case though, in all seriousness, it can be understood. Bill Gates spends all his time and energy focusing on his philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which is great for humanity at large but not so much so for the Redmond-based company. Their flagship product Windows 8 is struggling to find anyone who will say they are a fan without being paid, and their other golden egg, Office Suite, is under threat from Google Docs which is being given away for free. How do you compete with that? Oh yeah and let’s not forget they still are attaching their name to the joke of the internet known in polite conversation as ‘Bing’.

BlackBerry sold less than 2 million BB10 smartphones last quarter

This… This is just… well, plain sad. Seriously. We now see why this once big player in the tech landscape is due to sell for less than US$5-billion. That number might sound big, but when you compare it to the one billion that Instagram was sold for to Facebook, you can understand that it’s a slap in the face for a company who once had the distinction of having their customers addicted to their products even so much that it was given a name. Remember “Crackberry”? If you don’t, it’s understandable… it was a long long time ago.

ENTERTAINMENT

‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ trailer released hints of a hidden dragon

The trailer of the second part of the ‘Hobbit’ trilogy has been released. This is really a book meant for one movie not three but anyway, that’s a debate for another day. It looks good though: it shows Bilbo and his crew moving towards the Lonely Mountain and hints towards the malicious voice of Smaug (the main antagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien’s prequel to the Lord of the Rings), referred to as “a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm.”

NICE FIND

Human mammal, human hunter

Man hunts an antelope by chasing it until it is exhausted. It’s strangely beautiful.