Reddit users link for secret Santa exchange
It’s the season for heart-melting tales of spontaneous good will among strangers, which, like the rest of our relationships, has gotten a lot more convenient since the advent of the Internet.
A few weeks ago, a seasonal discussion began on Reddit, where people post links and vote to move stories higher or lower in the site’s rankings.
Anyone interested in a Secret Santa gift exchange? Ho Ho YES, came the answer.
More than 4,500 Reddit members in 54 countries signed up. They were given a Reddit user name and mailing address, and sometimes a note from the recipient-to-be about likes and dislikes.
As gifts arrived and recipients posted photos and thank-you notes online, it became clear that Reddit has become, to these folks at least, much more than just a news site.
Erik Martin, a community manager at Reddit, said many Secret Santas appeared to have pored over the history of links and comments their recipient had posted on the site for clues that would yield the perfect gift idea. Some took it a step further and did what Martin calls “a little friendly Internet stalking,” looking up addresses to get recipients’ real names and tracking down their friends on Facebook.
Judging by notes and photos posted by recipients, Secret Santas did good. Many gift packages included items reflecting popular Internet topics such as bacon, narwhals and zombies. Many, many others involved handmade replicas of Reddit’s mascot — a little alien guy — rendered in blown glass, clay, metal, beadwork, felt, paint on canvas, carved soap, yarn and more.
The suggested amount to spend was $15, but some Santas went far beyond that. One Santa kicked off a fund drive on Reddit so that the recipient’s girlfriend could set aside emergency veterinary care money for her new service dog.
Another sent a volume of the teen-vampire series “Twilight,” which disappointed the recipient until he opened it up and discovered two movies and an iPhone — yes, a working iPhone — tucked into cut-out sections of the book.
Are you shaking? Let Twitter know
OMG! Earthquake!
The U.S. Geological Survey is scouring the popular microblogging site Twitter soon after a temblor hits to pinpoint regions where shaking occurred.
“People like to tweet after earthquakes,” USGS seismologist Paul Earle said Monday during an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
There is usually a lag between when an earthquake strikes and when researchers can analyze the data that floods in from seismic stations. During that gap, scientists combing through hundreds of tweets can get an initial picture of where the shaking was felt and areas of potential damage.
A prototype system aggregates tweets based on key words such as “earthquake” or the equivalent in different languages. It can then send an e-mail listing the cities where the tweets came from and what the tweets said.
“It would give you a little information about what potentially happened in that earthquake,” Earle said.
There are still wrinkles to be worked out. Scientists are developing filters to distinguish tweets about a real temblor from say, an earthquake drill that can cause scores of people to pound out 140 characters.
National broadband plan pushed by FCC
Expanding the fund that subsidizes telephone service for poor and rural communities and finding more spectrum for wireless broadband services will be key pieces of a federal plan to bring high-speed Internet connections to all Americans.
Those were among the preliminary recommendations that the Federal Communications Commission outlined Wednesday in a report on its national broadband plan. The plan, which was mandated by the stimulus bill, is due in February.
One proposal would use money from the Universal Service Fund to build broadband networks in underserved communities and pay for high-speed Internet connections for those who cannot afford them. The Universal Service Fund, which is supported by a surcharge on phone bills, was established to subsidize phone service.
Another proposal would explore ways to make more wireless spectrum available for mobile broadband services, including the potential reallocation of some spectrum held by television broadcasters and federal agencies.
The FCC is also seeking ways to promote greater use of unlicensed frequencies, such as “white spaces” between TV stations, and development of new technologies that can make more efficient use of spectrum.
Still another proposal would seek ways to create a new market for television set-top boxes that would be able to work with any video TV service and would integrate online content.
The FCC wants to ensure that consumers would be able to buy these new boxes at electronics stores, rather than rent them from a cable operator or other video provider.
Blair Levin, the FCC official in charge of developing the broadband plan, said the plan would focus on encouraging competition and leveraging private-sector investments.
Associated Press
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