“This blog” == “the iPhone blog” (nee “Phone Different”). Thanks for the link!

The Internet is a veritable petri dish for zeitgeist. And, hey, if popular website is going to be “inspired”, better by me than someone else. You can copy a creation; you can’t copy creativity. Eventually you gotta come to the source. (Conciliatory traffic, however, is much appreciated.)

Blogs and the attribution dilemma » mathewingram.com/work |

In the interest of balance, I emailed Ars founder Ken Fisher to ask him for a comment on the allegations, and he said that in the case of IPDemocracy, it was a simple mistake in which “the link got removed accidentally in the editing phase,” that it was fixed as quickly as possible and that there was “no intent to deceive.” As for MG Siegler’s post, he said that Siegler wasn’t the only blog to make the comparison between the iPhone and the game of Risk (this blog also did) and that therefore he didn’t deserve a link. In any case, he said, Ars didn’t see Siegler’s post and wrote its own version at about the same time (the site said it was published later because editors were busy).

Ironically, I have never in my life played the game of Risk. However, I was familiar enough to notice when Apple started playing…

ParisLemon: Another Classic Rip-Off Job By Ars Technica

Um. Wow. Hi everybody. Yep, weve been doing the iPhone Risk thing since February. In case somebody gets REALLY investigative-like, Ill mention that it started at phonedifferent.com — we merged with the iPhone Blog last week so now its over there. We noticed the Ars thing as well but figured theyd either come up with it on their own or would not take too kindly to us accusing them of doing otherwise.

Credit to Rene for coming up with the Meme on his own. I cant say for sure we were the first, but we were the first that I saw.

Once again, bombing the internet back into the stone age…

Gone in 60 seconds: Spambot cracks Live Hotmail CAPTCHA

Internet users are quite familiar with the Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA), a quick method that verifies whether or not the user trying to sign up is a person or a bot. A picture with swirled, mangled, or otherwise distorted characters is displayed and the user then types in the correct letters or numbers. Thus far, the system has worked well to slow down malicious bots, but recently the groups behind such software have made significant strides. A security firm is now reporting that the CAPTCHA used for Windows Live Mail can now be cracked in as little as 60 seconds.

A true north strong and free (as in speech)?

Canadians debating net neutrality in wake of Bell throttling

The options appear to be two: 1 rousing the CRTC to action, just as the FCC has here gotten involved in the Comcast throttling case, or 2 raising a chorus of consumer voices so loud that Bell and Rogers will have to listen.

Otherwise, with filtering well-established as a Canadian precedent, ISPs will be able to continue picking the winners legal video over cable, good and the losers legal video over BitTorrent, bad on the Internet.

I’ve installed the 2.5 upgrade on 2 out of roughly 10 blogs that I maintain and thus far I’m really impressed with the new version. Safari 3.1 support is a welcome fix from both the Wordpress and WebKit teams (thanks!) and while the new admin layout takes some getting used to, the functionality is stellar.

Must get.

WordPress › Blog Tool and Weblog Platform

WordPress 2.5, the culmination of six months of work by the WordPress community, people just like you. The improvements in 2.5 are numerous, and almost entirely a result of your feedback: multi-file uploading, one-click plugin upgrades, built-in galleries, customizable dashboard, media library, and an all-new design thats easier to use than ever before.