What goes into marketing a new teen queen/rock star/whatever

Why bother with American Idol, when the real thing is even funnier?

Celebrity journalist Lynn Hirschberg profiles former Backstreet girlfriend and would-be-edgy-rock-star Amanda Latona and portrays the breakthrough artist as a malleable, fame-chasing airhead and her handlers as just as cynical and corrupt as any caricature of record execs ever created. (I’m shocked, shocked to find egocentric morons in the music industry)

And if girl empowerment is what people are buying, Latona will gladly sing the part.

Of course, should her album tank, the music industry would never blame themselves or the focus groups that went into the production and marketing – it’s those damn net pirates.

[via MetaFilter]

Random word generator

By analyising the frequency of pairs of letters in 45,402 different words it is possible to generate new words which, although, don’t have any meaning are reasonably syntatically correct.

Instant Star Trek gadget names if you ask me. (“But captain, the Omnizer has only been used in simulations!”). I quite like the results from running “crypto-” through it.

And another ‘way cool’ headline: “Giant squid are taking over the world!”

Will Mr. Lovecraft please pick up the white courtesy phone…

Giant squid are taking over the world, well at least the oceans, and they are getting bigger. According to scientists, squid have overtaken humans in terms of total bio-mass.

[via MetaFilter]

Compendium of tech-interview riddles

I’ve never had the misfortune of getting these types of questions in a job interview. Resorting to riddles always struck me as a sign of an unprepared interviewer that wants to make the geek squirm and take them down a notch. Crikey, they’re nervous anyway so what’s the point them feel worse if the only thing standing between them and making the month’s rent is the “manhole problem.”

Anyway, there were some great links buried in the Slashdot comments. TechInterview.org also compiles tech interview questions, and the Sells Brothers compiles stories just about Microsoft interviews.

[via Slashdot]