Militant Geek Custom Shirts

Kevin Rose has had a rough week. First users of his social news site, Digg, flung the company in front of a legal steam roller. Then, that same mob spread news of what they’d done with nearly the same fervor. So what does a young, single, serial entrepreneur do? Why start a new site:

And to think, BusinessWeek once said this man was worth $60 million.

BeersForDiggnation.com
As the home page for this community funded extended frat party states:

For just pennies a day, you too can help feed the hosts of Diggnation. If you happen to notice any of the following signs, it could be due to lack of beer on Diggnation:

- Alex not speaking about his windows *job girls
- Kevin not saying “drink biotch!”
- Alex becoming “pro mac” (don’t you let this happen)
- Kevin not requesting “dancing squirrels”
- The podcast starts to sound like TWiT

While the swipe at cranky old men is a nice touch we have to wonder - is Kevin stocking up for the upcoming Digg trial?

Early last week on our sister site mutednoise I bantered about how Digg’s user base rising up in revolt represented the hereto unmentioned side of social networks; that is, the crowd will bite the hand that feeds it if they think the hand is red. In the comments I mentioned that playing hardball with the entire Internet was absolutely the worst possible strategy. That action took a so-so bit of geek errata and firmly planted it in popular culture. Case in point is this most recent episode of Galacticast (it does get a bit slow in the middle and if you’re not familiar with the television program Lost some jokes might not make sense - but the end gag is killer):

Pick your metaphor: the cat is out of the bag, geni out of the bottle, the milk has been spilled and no amount of crying is going to put it back. Digg has since stopped censoring its users and has made the statement that it will ‘go down fighting’. The outcome of which, according to certain legal circles, doesn’t look good.

But, while your waiting for Diggnation to die a slow death, how about claiming your own sequence of digits as your god-given intellectual property? Ed Felten tells us how:

First, we generate a fresh pseudorandom integer, just for you. Then we use your integer to encrypt a copyrighted haiku, thereby transforming your integer into a circumvention device capable of decrypting the haiku without your permission. We then give you all of our rights to decrypt the haiku using your integer. The DMCA does the rest.

Then, when you need a quick bit of cash to help Paris out of a jam anonymously post your secret number to your social network of choice. Make sure to act shocked and outraged as you sue them for every venture capital dollar they have.

Remember kids: knowing is half the battle.

Poor Digg. One minute the social news website that sprung forth in a beer tinged moment of indiscretion from Kevin Rose is being gamed. The comes word from Muhammad Saleem on the Pronet Advertising blog that the site is completely haxxored:

As a result of a mistake made by developers at Digg, not only did the site inadvertently create a flaw in their newly added friend referral feature, but they made its user-base vulnerable to a potential privacy disaster.

The referral feature works through a URL-based friend adding mechanism, which means that if you’re logged into your Digg profile and you visit a link of the form http://digg.com/invitefrom/username, ‘username’ is automatically added as a friend of yours.

Oh my! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together… mass hysteria! Now even the most unpopular Diggers can be buried under all the friends of their choosing. Now if they just had something other than juvenile barbs to share with each other.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes sage advice from the inebriated face plates of Diggnation. In their most recent installment, approximately 18:58 in, Alex Albrecht and Keven Rose reveal the secret on the minds of many-a-man this month: what a woman wants:

AA: Women want to know that you can protect them in a zombie attack. I just found that out.
KR: Who told you this sh*t?
AA: My GIRLFRIEND… Her roomate. (*addresses camera) Guys, if you’re out there, which I’m sure you are since this is like, a 90% guy watching show, if you want to get onto a date, if you wanna get on a date, and then you want to get onto her, what you do (*cracks up laughing)… well I said get onto a date and then realized that was weird. All you have to do is tell them that you know how to shoot shotguns-
KR: No
AA: No, no, no
KR (resigned): Keep going
AA: You are fluent in zombies. Right?
KR: (*giggles)
AA: Maybe you know some voodoo?
KR: Dude, who the f*ck are you dating?
AA: Ah… Normal women, hello? But I’m telling you, if you can help a woman survive a zombie attack they will totally date you.

It should be pointed out that both men are single. Alex *is* in a steady relationship, albeit with a woman who must believe George A. Romero makes documentaries. Kevin Rose, later in the same episode, offers to have sexual relations with a Nokia phone mockup.

Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht are geek stars. Whether it was their first work on the ill fated TechTV, Kevin’s founding of the social news site Digg, or their weekly technology netcast, Diggnation they continue to cement their place in Geeks celebrity pantheon with their frequent and lucid rants discussions. If you replace the sometimes obscenity laden podcast with a family friendly alternative its almost as if they were reciting Shakespeare. For example, take this passage from Diggnation Episode 82, approximately 12:40 in:

KR: Netflix has never faulted me.
AA: (snickers)
KR: They always been good to me. They’ve always been sweet.
AA: Ya, but where is your Netflix Internet Download?
KR: (pauses) It’s not there for the Mac yet.
AA: (shocked) It’s not even there for the Mac?!
KR: No
AA: OH MY GOD!
KR: Ya, so now Netflix is starting to fault me too.
AA: Netflix just FAULTED you.
KR: I know.
AA: You’re getting it from all ends Kevin!
KR: I know.
AA: You’re getting faulted in every orifice you got!
KR: All right, lets stop using the f word - there’s little kids.
AA: Oh.
KR: So if you’re a little kid and you just heard us do all that then -
AA: Fault means Teddy Bear.
(both break into incomprehensible giggles)
AA: That’s awesome.

Tech discourse at its finest. If only Brian Williams and Tim Russert had this kind of witty banter network evening news wouldn’t be in the danger that its in.