Idolator

Broadband provider Comcast is pushing back against New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo's demands to support his anti-child-porn campaign. Comcast and 16 other ISPs signed an agreement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which maintains a blacklist of suspected illegal porn sites — but for Cuomo's office, that isn't good enough. They insist that in addition to blocking websites, Comcast must fall in line with Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Sprint, AOL and AT&T in shutting customers out of all or part of Usenet, the network of Internet-based discussion groups, and contributing funds to root out more child porn providers. It's not the most practical or even Constitutional approach, but a good move for headlines. Comcast has until Friday to respond to Cuomo's request to sign his code and kick in the cash. (Photo via Bloomberg)

Crackhead-turned Times reporter success story David Carr is loved by media types for being a cool guy, and is basking in the generally positive public attitude towards his upcoming memoir. But everything is not well in Carr's world. Oh no. Just as Carr has found the strength to open up to the world about his past drug use, an even bigger scandal threatens to overwhelm him: his incurable fondness for potatoes.

White man Michael Tunison (the same white man fired by the Washington Post for having an outside blog—racism in action?) has written a column for TheRoot.com. Who cares? White people like us who control the media, that's who! That's because Tunison's point is that most young whites today have friends of different races and would hate to be called racist, which is true but not that revelatory. The real reason we're interested is that they've illustrated the piece with a photo of Stephen Colbert and his "black friend Alan," played by our close personal friend Jordan Carlos! We emailed with him a couple times, we feel like we know him! I guess having a multicultural cast of friends comes naturally to young whites like us. Actually, we just felt the need to point this out: Tunison's piece is called "Racist: The N-Word for White People." That should be "Nilla." We've been over this. [The Root]

As THR reported recently, MGM is planning a musical remake of the cult classic Valley Girl, which became the epitome of everything the magical land of acrylic nails and gum chewing addictions stood for in the early `80s. However, the remake is ruffling the feathers of many an industry insider, mainly because the brains behind this project are less interested in revisiting the infamous twang and mall headquarters associated with girls from the Valley, a group the film arguably captured better than any successor. Instead, the epic soundtrack will serve as the reincarnation's primary subject. But whether or not the idea tanks, we're just happy to have the chance to round up our five favorite on-screen Valley Girls to ever gag us with a spoon:

So then this happened. Vanity Fair, a late yet uninvited guest to the New Yorker cover fiasco, went and drew up this parody of a misunderstood parody. As you can see, it's like taking the square root of comic failure. Not only is McCain not depicted as a caricature of feverish political imagination (he doesn't look half bad here, really), but there's hardly an exaggerated element in the pic, save perhaps the burning Constitution in the fireplace. (It's under secure glass at the National Archives, silly!) Cindy enjoys her pills, the Macs at least like the incumbent well enough to hang a portrait of him, and the walker is only a matter of time. Plus, it sounds as if VF got Wolcott to write this tepid nyuck-nyuck introduction:

Not laser beams, but close. The Telegraph is reporting that German Shepherds are being trained by the elite British SAS to perform high-altitude high-opening (HAHO) parachute jumps over Iraq and Afghanistan harnessed to soldiers. Once on the ground, the dogs will charge ahead, rooting out dug-in enemies and sending back a live video feed from a tiny head-mounted camera. That is if their little doggie minds haven't been blown by the 25,000-foot jump they just performed.

The best way to put your newly jailbroken iPhone 2.0 to good use is to turn it into a cellphone modem for your laptop. When tapping out an email or pinching and swiping on the iPhone's web browser just doesn't get the job done—and you want to use the full keyboard and screen on your laptop in a Wi-Fi-less place—you can get your computer online using the iPhone's data connection. We've covered how to "tether" your iPhone before, but now that the iPhone 3G connection is speedier and the jailbreak process updated, here's a refresher course.

There's no time like a recession to reassert the conventional economic wisdom that making money is harder than those guys on cable pretend. Viral marketing was huge in the mid-90's before the dotcom bubble burst and everyone realized that eyeballs didn't necessarily translate into dollars. It was only a matter of time before the next crop of counterintuitive pop business theorists — from Malcolm Gladwell to James Surowiecki to Chris Anderson — were doused with the cold waters of cash flow. What's so interesting about this latest cycle of backlash and disillusionment, though, is that the assailants are almost all former apostles turned heretics. After the jump, the spats and surprisingly friendly debates about whether the new memes of trendsetting will remain trendy for very long.

Everyone saw Wall-E, right? And how the luxury cruisers of the future glide around in floating touch-screen-equipped easy chairs? Then the Zero-Gee gaming/blogging "workstation" should look mighty familiar. Its ergonomic, reclining frame is designed to ensure your ass is free from the forces of gravity as you type, type, type yourself into oblivion. There's even a caddy for your liquified cupcakes-in-a-cup, and you're also positioned nicely for a root canal or any other minor surgeries here as well, which you'll need soon enough. [Product Page via Born Rich]

My very last E3 appointment was at Namco Bandai on Thursday afternoon, and while the majority of my time was spent getting my ass kicked at Soul Calibur IV, which I will handle in a separate post, they did have several interesting offerings on hand, from the girl-friendly We Cheer to the anime-friendly Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm to the most authentic Digimon experience for the Nintendo DS. Here's some of the titles that Namco Bandai has coming your way.

Last week we asked you to imagine the worst car color combination. You came up with so many amazing responses of production cars with catastrophic color choices, we've used them to compile a top ten list of the best of the worst. Hit the jump to for the ten worst production car color combinations and see how far we've come since Henry Ford famously told customers they could have the Model A in any color so long as it was black. Also vote for your worst choice in the poll at the end.

When you don't want to depend solely on the official App Store to get your iPhone 2.0 applications, you want to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch—and less than two weeks after the iPhone 2.0 launch, it's easier than ever to do with your new device. The hard-working iPhone Dev Team released the jailbreak utility PwnageTool version 2.0.1 this weekend, and while it's not as one-step as ZiPhone, it still offers an easy GUI interface for the job. Let's take a look at the step by step for jailbreaking your iPhone 2.0 device with PwnageTool.

Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe is the musical equivalent of the MK team's Kid A, says associate producer Hector Sanchez. For those unfamiliar with that Radiohead reference, maybe MK vs. DCU being the video game equivalent of a post-make up KISS will make more sense. Regardless of the rock allusion, Sanchez essentially told me at E3 that after seven slogs through the MK universe, expanding and retreading, rinsing and repeating, it was time for a change — a big change.

The singles charts have settled into what we hope will be a momentary midsummer slumber. And that starts with the song in its fourth week at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100.

Idolator's distaste for Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" is well-documented, but I nonetheless have to acknowledge that this blandly titillating dance-pop smash is emerging as the nation's song of this summer, its chart run perfectly timed for the season of moist, exposed flesh.

Perry seems likely to hold the keys to the penthouse for a few more weeks, unless Rihanna's "Take a Bow" regains its bullet at No. 2, or Chris Brown's gradually rising, more enjoyably summery "Forever" (up two slots to No. 4 this week) experiences a left-field surge. Otherwise, it's a wasteland out there.

For those of us seeking good news, however, the simultaneous Top 10 entry of three cool songs on three different flagship Billboard charts—Hot 100, R&B/Hip-Hop, and Country—provide a small dose of encouragement.

I was drawn to take a quick peek at Eidos' Monster Lab because of the clever character design art mural all around the play area. The game has you enlisting the aid of three mad scientists, each with a different specialty, to try and take down one ultimate scientist who's mastered all three abilities — alchemy, biology, and one that seems more mechanically-oriented. It's on Wii and DS, but I saw the Wii version.

Editor: Being digital vagabonds without an Exchange server, we Lifehacker writers use online apps like Gmail and Google Calendar to get things done. But can an Outlook user make the switch without losing out? Guest contributor Jared Goralnick's here today to take a look.
Gmail launched in 2004 and has matured each year, but Microsoft Outlook (with Exchange) is still the most popular tool for accessing email. Comparing the two side by side, is it time to jump ship from either platform? Let's find out.

Julia Allison posted an email conversation with the editor of Wired, the magazine that, in case you missed it, put her on the cover this month and thus made her famous for being famous for nothing. Ever the crafty self-promoter, Allison asked if her cover was as good for Wired as it was for her: "I hope - that as time goes on, you’ll be proud you took the leap," the Time Out New York dating columnist wrote. Remember aspiring fameballs: follow up is key. Wired editor Chris Anderson replied, "I feel great about this one." So sweet. In another moment protocelebrities should study, Allison makes a thinly-veiled pitch for some kind of Wired writing gig by pretending she's tired of all the self-promotion (for real this time!) and wants to get back to her "roots" (what??) as a writer:

Recently, we explained how to make fun of Barack Obama. We thought that would be the end of it! But no, you people—you animals—have more questions, so many more questions. Questions we're obligated to answer. Don't thank us, we're just doing our job. Below: snappy answers to stupid questions about Barack Obama.

I'm not sure if it is a good thing that the best MMO at E3 2008 could be a game aimed at 9-14 year-olds, but I am sure that Sony Online Entertainment's Free Realms is a very good thing indeed. There are plenty of free MMOs aimed at the kid market out there, but they all tend to share certain bad traits. Shoddy graphics, poor-quality interfaces, and an overall lack of polish. SOE is taking the social children's game concept, applying a World of Warcraft level of polish, packing it with personality and mini-games, and unleashing it upon the computing family for free. They are going to tear the kid's MMO sector apart.

"When a phenomenon is occurring, it's impossible to pinpoint the arrival of a new era," said ESA president Mike Gallagher, delivering a keynote address at the 2008 E3 Media and business summit.

Texas Governor Rick Perry believes in the game industry. It's in our nature, he said, to be driven and competitive, and that's why he wants more companies within the industry to put down roots in Texas.

After swing coach Butch Harmon said Daly was more interested in drinking and having a good time than he was in being a good golfer. Daly, who is more interested in drinking and having a good time than being a good golfer, took offense. Now he's finally firing back from England. Sort of.

Reader Joanne is wondering if the tiny handwritten mouseprint on the Haagen-Dazs drink special sign is purposefully misleading. She saw the special and ordered the drink, but when she asked for "no ice" she was told that it would cost twice as much, and that this information was on the sign. Her boyfriend examined the sign (after she got her ice-packed drink) and sure enough, in tiny handwriting at the bottom of the sign was a note that said the drink cost twice as much with "no ice."

Windows only: FileCheckMD5, a free stand-alone utility, is designed as a simple means of generating and comparing two MD5 files against each other for verifying burned CDs/DVDs. Because it's a stand-alone program that can run from any directory, however, it makes for a nice addition to the root of any disc you're burning and passing along. Throw the app and your original MD5 (from the files you burned for them) onto the disc, and they can check if any problems they're having are due to a bad burn. It's a simple, fast, and free tool for anyone who does a good deal of burning. FileCheckMD5 is a free download for Windows systems only.

In case you haven't noticed, our country is, for lack of a better expression, in the shitter. The economy blows, gas prices are off the chains, people can't afford to pay their mortgages and the most exciting news we've heard in the last few months is that Mini-Me has a sex tape. You'd think that, in a time of crisis like this, the government would step in and take action. But no! Instead, they added insult to injury when they denied Boy George a work visa so he could rock all of your red, gold and green asses on a 30-day tour of our country's purple mountained majesty. Not surprisingly, this news affected our youngest staffer, the eternally rosy cheeked Molly McAleer, in a profound way. Won't you mourn with us as you watch this evening's To Do's? That is all.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." I can think of a better way to summarize the Yankees' strategy for trading deadline maneuvers. Ben Sheets and Cliff Lee will go about two innings, whereas Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are scheduled to go the distance. Follow all the commissioner-mandated fierce competition after the jumpski, because this time the live blog counts.

Wired posted its profile of Julia Allison, the Time Out New York dating columnist and onetime protocelebrity (now in the process of crossing over into the real thing). Yes, the cover story (preceded by the cover itself) retreads much that Gawker readers already know about Allison, and many of you will, no doubt, find the piece altogether too friendly, a celebratory, rather than judgmental, distillation of her techniques for self-promotion and attention whoring. But there is news. Confirmation, for one, of Allison's long-rumored reality TV show for Bravo, IT Girls. Wired said the deal was signed in June, though it's clearly been in the works for much longer. Then there's a terrifying new wrinkle to Allison's new "lifecasting" Web venture, Non Society:

Eight guys with bats. One Berman. And Three Doors Down, for some reason. It's a Home Run Derby live blog, Charlie Brown. Please adorn your Chan Ho Park faces (for safety reasons) before entering the dinger zone after the Gordon Jump.

School Reunion: We're learning more today about the tearduct-tweaking, franchise-ready School of Rock "reboot" that Mike White teased us with at the LA Film Festival; Variety has word about School of Rock 2: America Rocks, which Scott Rudin will produce and to which Paramount has attached Jack Black and director Richard Linklater. And as opposed to White's cruel stonewalling last month, the plot is apparently now safe for public dissemination: Black returns as teacher Dewey Finn, who leads "a group of summer school students on a cross-country field trip that delves into the history of rock 'n' roll and explores the roots of blues, rap, country and other genres." No word yet as to whether or not Black will exercise his newfound clout to add in an autobiographical narcotics-dabbling interlude, or if he and White will save that for the inevitable School of Rock 3: Rehab High. [Variety]