Foursquare

THING 1: Help me help my friend in DC from MetaFilter. An internet forum takes on the Russian mob… no, that’s literally what happened. The dad in Taken could’ve saved a whole lot of trouble if he’d simply paid the $5 MeFi registration fee.
THING 2: New Social Networking Site Changing The Way Oh, Forget It by the Onion. This is exactly what you think it is, and you will not regret reading it.
THING 3: I knew it was coming, and it still got me. That means it’s like a dry heave, but in a good way:

Bonus Thing

The perfect soundtrack for old footage of NASA missions? Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” chopped & screwed. This video simultaneously makes no sense and is the most fitting depiction I’ve ever seen of everything about outer space. The glory and horror and striving and solitude — who would’ve ever guessed we’d need an American Idol to soundtrack space travel?

I’ve watched this thing every day this week. I could hammer out 10 pages on it by tomorrow night, but I’ll spare you that if you at least watch it through the 1:53 mark.

• Thing: Social, Super-Sized by social-creature. “The same technology that allows us to be more connected than ever before imaginable, on its flip side, perhaps even simply through contrast, has increased our capacity for loneliness. We have built up a new tolerance level, and all we do is want more more more. Hence, the compulsion to feel a part of something, something massive, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other people, all experiencing the same trending topic stream together as it scrolls by.” We should feel both comfort and horror when we think of the ways technology is enhancing (taking advantage of?) our prehistoric/biological need for social connection. In other words, how would Genghis Khan have used Foursquare?
• Thing: 10 Ways to Access Blocked Stuff on the Web by Lifehacker. Now, if a site wants you to pay money for content, and you choose to access that content without paying, you’re stealing — whether you like Rupert Murdoch or not doesn’t change that fact. However, there are plenty of times when we’re unable to get to something, and there’s a perfectly good reason to bypass whatever’s in the way. Whether that means getting around Gmail downage, avoiding an overeager office or university page-blocker so you can get work-related research done, dodging an oppressive government, or watching legally streamed TV from another country, the internet always wins.
• Thing: Why Teenagers Are Growing Up Slowly Today from Newsweek and Kids Learn Math Easily When They Control Their Own Learning from Psychology Today. The construct that comes to mind when we use the word school has little in common with the ideal learning environment. And it’s not about tweakable elements like student-to-teacher ratio — it’s about the whole concept of school and what we’re really trying to accomplish. You know this. But it’s worth repeating from top to bottom until everyone knows this.

Double Bonus

I swear I’ll do three sets each of Radioheads and Ghostfaces at max weight, max reps for saying this out loud, but CONFESSION TIME: I like two Creed songs. So it’s with only 99% ironic passion that I’m able to join in the LOLETARIAT on mocking this song Scott Stapp recorded for the Florida Marlins.

But you’re telling me you’re serving up “One-strike-two-strikes, swing aweey-ahhh/ A Diving Catch-hh! A stohe-len beeaase-ahh/ A perrfec game-uh! A trih-pul play-ahh!/ Anoe-tha playhoff ra-ace, YES?/ WORL SEE RIES CHEIMPS WE’LL [CRACK!] BEE!”, all over Friday Night Lights guitars run through the NASCAR-mosh filter? Oh, it’s summertime, friends:

Ambitious dunk contest participant somehow, someway winds up with half his leg submerged in the basket. You want to talk about mainlining social media — note the immediate cameraphones-to-ladders ratio once everyone realizes what’s happened.

The citizen journalism impulses of today’s youth? Flourishing.

In our weekly link rundowns, I usually try to present three great links you may have missed.

But this week was strong internet.

Five.

• For your next love letter or grocery list or PUT DOWN MY SANDWICH note, wouldn’t you like to use the actual letterhead of Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Johnny Cash, or whatever Robot Salesmen Ltd is? Thing: Letterheads of famous people
• Most articles about How Google Works are actually about How Much The Author Likes Google. Leave it to Wired to dig into how Google’s system of algorithms, basically a machine made of robots made of math, learned that when a human types hot dog, the goal is almost certainly to see something like this, not something like this. Thing: Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web
• You’ve already made your mind up on how you feel about this link from Reason. Thing: Everyone Who Knows What They’re Talking About Agrees with Me
• The way people freaked out about Napster, claiming it would end the music industry, is similar to the way people freaked out about VCRs killing the movie industry. Similarly, the way people freak out about sharing personal location information on Foursquare/Twitter is similar to the way people used to freak out about answering machines and listing wedding notices in the local newspaper. Thing: Regarding Foursquare and PleaseRobMe (SIDE NOTE that proves how NEVER SCARED we are: In all the PleaseRobMe hysteria, I up and joined Foursquare myself, and so did Ben. You ain’t a crook, son.)
• Recently the Guardian ran a series of writing advice lists by successful writers. NY Mag distills them all into a single top ten. Thing: The Best Writing Advice of the Best Writing Advice

Also, regarding this post’s stupid, stupid title: here’s proof Johnny Cash would’ve loved Foursquare…