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News of the Weird: Man sues Google for $5 billion

By Nick, September 21, 2007

I’ve done these “News of the Weird” segments before, but this one takes the cake.

Apparently a Pennsylvania man is suing Google for $5 billion. That’s right. Five. Billion. Dollars. With a B.

Why? It just so happens that if you take this man’s Social Security number, scramble the numbers and turn it upside down, it spells “Google” in code.

. Need I say more?

The plaintiff wrote his complaint by hand and submitted it to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Techdirt has some more information, plus a copy of the complaint, which they have edited to remove personal information.

Deep Thought’s take: There are two ways of taking this. You can either take it at face value as the most absurd frivolous lawsuit in history, or as a brilliant critique of the abuse of the lawsuit in the United States (in which case, hats off you you, good sir).

You can hear our thoughts on this on our next exciting episode of Cast of Geeks.

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Site News: Cast of Geeks returns September 24

By Nick, September 21, 2007

Deep Thought podcast Cast of Geeks will return for its second season starting Monday, September 24. Cast of Geeks is our biweekly roundtable podcast where we discuss various news events in the tech world, new products, and more.

We also want to hear from you. If you have any questions you would like to ask us, or anything you would like to submit to the show, drop us a line at .

Also, be certain to check out previous Cast of Geeks episodes.

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Laptop theft strikes UC Berkeley

By Nick, September 13, 2007

This morning The Oakland Tribune ran a story about a string of laptop and personal electronics robberies taking place on or around the UC Berkeley campus.

One such robber walked up to patrons of an outdoor cafe located across the street from campus, went from table to table and calmly showed a gun to customers, demanding their laptops. Scary.

In other incidents, two teenage boys shot a grad student with a BB gun and attempted to steal his bag. Also, students had their cell phones stolen outside the Unit 1 and Unit 2 dorm complexes at roughly the same time as the thefts at the cafe. The Oakland Tribue spoke to Berkeley Police Department Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, who notes that “People should just be mindful not to resist a robber. Just give your property up.”

Having been a student at UC Berkeley and also having worked for the on-campus computer store, I can tell you that laptop theft is not too uncommon on campus, however most are crimes of opportunity (e.g. an unsecured laptop left in an unlocked room). The Oakland Tribune notes, however, that “In the past month, UC and Berkeley police reported 17 strong-arm robberies in which a weapon or violence was used. And in August, there were 53 armed robberies in all of Berkeley compared with 26 in July, according to Berkeley police.”

I post this mainly as a reminder to be careful out there, and be alert, especially when hauling around thousands of dollars worth of gadgets!…
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Love tech? Join the Deep Thought team

By Nick, September 10, 2007

Do you eat, sleep, and dream technology? Do you scour the Internets day in and day out reading about new gadgets? Do you already blog but would like to gain more exposure? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, consider writing for Deep Thought.

Deep Thought is looking for writers of all tech backgrounds to act as Contributing Writers. You get to pick what you want to write when you want to write as often as you want to write. Articles can be news stories, reviews, tutorials, blogs, or something completely different. You can also contribute to our podcast (Season 2 starts next week)! This is not a paying gig, but if you’re like me and enjoy writing for the sake of writing, Deep Thought’s a great place. We have a lot of fun writing and interacting with each other. We’re a small group, but we would love to have you join us and help us grow.

The requirements are simple; you must be over 13 and you must be able to write in English well (English does not need to be your first language, however).

Interested? Send an email in the general direction of and include the following:

Your name and age.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us anything you want.
What is your tech background? Which OSes are you familiar with?
Do you have any blogging/writing experience?
How often will you be able to contribute (roughly)?
Is there anything else you want to say?
If you have any writing samples, go ahead and include them. If not, don’t worry about it.

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Swings and misses

By Nick, September 4, 2007

Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don’t. In the nearly three years I’ve been writing for Deep Thought, I’ve put on my pundit hat and made a number of predictions. So how’d I do? Let’s just say this: I won’t be starting a psychic hotline anytime soon--unless I want to be like Miss Cleo, that is. That’s one career path I’m not planning to follow, that’s for sure.

But I digress.

To start things off, let’s look at a classic prediction of mine from May 2005:

Also, there’s the issue of creating a user interface for these super phones that store contacts, send e-mail, take pictures, play movies, music, wash your car, make you breakfast, and do your taxes for you. It is very hard to make a decent single user interface that can handle all sorts of functions, especially considering the small size of cell phone screens. It has the potential to become an unusable mess, or, as Steve Jobs puts it, a “tortured user interface.” If anyone could pull it off though, it would be Apple. I don’t see Apple going in that direction anytime soon, however.

I got that first part right! Apple came out with a phone that went against the grain of today’s smart phones by designing a phone with a larger screen and no physical keyboard. The result has been a very nice user experience. On the other hand, I completely blew it when I said that I didn’t see Apple releasing a cell…
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