Umm. (Photo: Flickr)

Looks like LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman is just using any excuse to get shitfaced. In honor of the company's tenth birthday, he created “Cinco de LinkedIn,” a real company event celebrated by its 3,700 employees.

Not only does it sound moderately offensive, like drunk-sorority-girl-loudly-practicing-her-Spanish-at-Blockheads obnoxious, but it is also numerically nonsensical. At last check, cinco is roughly translated to "five" and not "terrible fucking idea."

Mr. Hoffman, in his own words:

None of this would be possible without all of our LinkedIn employees, past and present, who’ve poured their passion and talents into building this company. In 2003, we were a handful of guys in a living room. Today, 3,700+ employees are celebrating “Cinco de LinkedIn” around the world.

And, perhaps worst of all, if the company's Flickr is to be believed, the party was held on a Sunday. Granted that is the actual day of Cinco de Mayo, but being forced to talk about endorsements and what Mashable stories are going be featured in the LinkedIn Today newsletter on a weekend sounds muy horribles.

We're scared to see how Mr. Hoffman forces his employees to celebrate Bastille Day.

Gotcha! (Photo: In the Capital)

The FTC is said to be wondering whether it can actually pull off an antitrust case against Google, as consumers don't seem too bothered by the company's putting its own services before those of competitors. [Bloomberg]

Facebook is testing adding upcoming events and recently released albums--not sponsored posts, but not shared by friends, either--to the News Feed. [The Next Web]

A government advisory committee has filed objections to many of ICANN's new top-level domains, from .islam to .wtf to .navy. [ZDNet]

HP says it's lost almost $9 billion on the purchase of Autonomy because of shady accounting. But there are doubts about whether that really adds up. [Bloomberg]

Now whirring away in the computing museum at England's Bletchley Park: the world's oldest working computer, dating from 1951. [Extreme Tech]

He joined it.

Kashmir Hill at Forbes reports that Mr. Flexman, who was an (HR!) manager at a gas company in England, joined LinkedIn, uploaded his resume, and clicked on an interest in "career opportunities." Like so many of the other people who joined LinkedIn.

This one was special though:

Flexman claims that the company objected to the implication that he was job-seeking and that he had listed as an accomplishment — reducing attrition at the company — information that the company claimed was confidential.

“We believed certain details in the CV were sensitive and we asked that they be removed,” says a BG spokesperson.

Mr. Flexman is now suing BG. If he wins, we should all take this as a cue to upload our resumes to LinkedIn and hope we get canned. If he loses, either he actually did upload sensitive information to LinkedIn, or BG's lawyers were able to convince someone that something frivolous—like most of the things that fill most peoples' resumes— was, in fact, sensitive. Truly, though:

Does indicating interest in other jobs merit termination?

Does an employer have the right to actively seek out this interest?

Does indicating you're interested in something online merit actual interest?

And is this the first time joining LinkedIn has gotten someone fired? Kind of has to be, right?

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Not a rhetorical question, to us. But to her, it is. Quoteth @MrsKutcher:

changing my twitter name isn't a top priority right now. sorry it bothers so many of u. should I not tweet until I do?does it really matter?

Funny she should ask (rhetorically). Because a lot of people have a lot of opinions on this. And what are they?

Funny you should ask. Because we've put some of the best ones in a slideshow for you. Rather than throw them in a This, folks, is Twitter wisdom at its finest.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Peter Kafka from All Things D Tweeted out tonight:

NDAs required at YouTube NYC Xmas party at the YouTube Next Lab on 21st and 5th. Srsly.

And then Instagrammed the picture! Like so:

Yeah, this will go so well. Between FourSquare, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, surely, nobody will disclose anything that happened at the Google/YouTube Christmas party for fear of litigation. Hey! DJ Steve Porter! Tell us all about it! One more time, for those who don't know what a company holiday party is like:

People + Alcohol * Otherwise Latent Sense of Mischief Waiting To Explode/Oppressive Nondisclosure Agreement + Reporters = What Will, God Willing, Be A Social Media Shitshow In Less Than A Few Hours.

Oh, our search terms are queued up. They most certainly, definitely are.

UPDATE: Kafka singed his NDA as Fred Flintsone. Journalists! We hate your NDAs. Here's to him getting everyone there drunk and saying very incriminating things about working for YouTube and/or Google.

It gets better. And it will.

On Tuesday, we noted that while iPhone voice-activated assistant Siri can't help you find an abortion clinic in New York City—once called The Abortion Capital of America by New York magazine—it can help you find a gun store downtown, in a city with some of the most restrictive gun controls in the country. Apple didn't respond to our query of why this was, but Apple CEO Tim Cook has finally spoken on the matter.

Mr. Cook responded to the president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (or: NARAL Pro-Choice America, for short), Nancy Keenan, who wrote into Apple regarding the coverage of Siri's latent pro-life activism. He wrote:

Nancy,

Thanks for your note.

Our customers use Siri to find out all types of information and while it can find a lot, it doesn't always find what you want. These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone, it simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks.

I appreciate you pointing this out.

Best Regards,
Tim

They also told the New York Times the same thing.

For the record, the last Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, didn't donate to charity, wanted to give the world "freedom from porn," and denied paternity of a daughter he claimed he couldn't have for almost a decade. Tim Cook is openly gay and recently instituted a policy of matching Apple employees' donations to charity.

Also, for the record, a sampling of comments from our original post on the matter:

• "I love Siri!! And Siri loves babies!!!"
• "Good. Apple actually did something right for a change."
• "This, more than anything else, makes me want to buy an iphone."

 
Damn. Looks like Apple just lost a few fans.

Something tells us they'll be okay.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Meet Siri, Apple's Pro-Life data assistant.

Megan Carpentier of Raw Story recently noted that Siri is having trouble telling users where to find abortion clinics, and not about abortion clinics in the middle of the Bible Belt, or in the frozen tundra of Alaska. We're talking about places like New York City and Washington D.C. which, as you can imagine, might have a few of these places. We wanted to test this theory out. Maybe Siri just isn't a fan of Megan's? Or maybe Siri is being moody.

Know what we found?

What you're looking at is a totally real, not-at-all-doctored screengrab we just took moments ago off of Ben's* iPhone.

This is despite the simple facts that:

(A) New York City is "The Abortion Capital of America"

and

(B) There are no shortages of abortion clinics in New York City.

You know what Siri could tell us?

This is despite the simple facts that:

(A) New York City has some of the most strict gun laws and gun control policy in America

and

(B) Back to back, these two queries are—when not being exploited for editorial purposes—likely those of a psychopath possibly hellbent on inflicting violence, which—you may have heard—is a problem in America with a deep history. Not that Siri can pair queries...just like Siri can't find an abortion clinic in a city full of them.

But maybe this is just a tech flub, one could reasonably suggest. Or maybe it has less to do with Apple and more with the original creators of Siri's technology—named, of course, Siri—whom Apple acquired in April, 2010.

Why would anyone be conspiratorial of Apple?

(A) "Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom." - Steve Jobs

(B) "It's not about freedom, it's about Apple trying to do the right thing for their users." - Steve Jobs.

(C) "He even swore in court documents that he could not be Lisa's father because he was 'sterile and infertile, and as a result thereof, did not have the physical capacity to procreate a child.'" - Steve Jobs, father of Lisa Brennan-Jobs, a title he denied as they lived on welfare payments for part of the eight years the Apple chairman denied paternity until finally giving in.

It's not that Steve Jobs—who Siri was acquired under while he was still CEO, not on medical leave, and very much in charge of Apple—had any kind of hellbent anti-abortion agenda. But it's clear—by his own words, and actions, without much interpretation—that the man was never comfortable with frank discussions about things like, say, sex and paternity.

So, yeah: We'd say it's okay to have a slightly conspiratorial bent, here. And we're not the only ones concerned, here, either. From the personal Tumblr of Jenna Wortham, New York Times technology reporter:

If true, this is extremely important. Not just because of the subject matter but because its important to understand that our access to news and INFORMATION may increasingly be funneled through large companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon, who may have hidden agendas, policies or biases we don’t know about.

Betabeat wrote in to Apple's media contacts:

Hey There –

We’re doing a story regarding Megan Carpentier’s recent Raw Story posting on the fact that Siri won’t locate abortion clinics in New York City, once referred to as “The Abortion Capital of America.” We tested it out, and it’s true: Siri won’t find any. But she will help you find a gun store in New York City—in Little Italy, no less!— a municipality with some of the strictest gun control laws in America.

Why is this?

Thanks!

- Foster.

Apple has yet to respond to the aforementioned request for comment.

[*....Which he can now write off.]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Well, here you go. And yes, this is real:

Via Gilt Groupe, when you buy this badboy, you get a 24-karat gold-plated Atari 2600 console. Want to know more?

• One console, two joysticks and one game cartridge.
• Limited edition piece, signed and numbered to order.
• Second piece in the personal art series, Gold Mine Project, aimed to capture and immortalize the peak of the artist's favorite childhood memories.

And for only $6,650 (plus $865 in shipping costs), this thing could be yours. And when the apocalypse comes—because if people are actually spending money on this, it inevitably will—you can melt down the gold and sell it because, don't you know, gold's pretty hot these days.

Also, did we mention it doesn't work? It doesn't work. You can't play it. But don't tell Jean-Ralphio—or whoever actually buys this—that. Just tell us if you know anyone who actually purchases this, especially if they work in tech. Please, more than anything else we want this Christmas, we want you to tell us who buys this.

You haven't heard? Okay:

Type the words "do a barrel roll" into Google. Your screen turns around. Whee.

Have you played Star Fox 64? It's a reference to Star Fox 64. It was a good game.

Now do it again.
Re-load the page, and do it again.
Have you done it again yet? Great. Do it again.
Do it again right now, hurry.
Do it a few more times.

Have you puked yet? No? That's too bad, we were hoping you might've puked. That's the only thing that might happen if you keep doing it.

Meanwhile:

"Google 'Do A Barrel Roll' Is One Of The Coolest Thing Google Has Ever Done" - The Huffington Post.

Yes, the court of public opinion has weighed this very important issue, and we are in fact amused by incredibly stupid things.

You get the internet you deserve, people. And seriously: we hope you puked.