As All Fools' Day continues, more reports of tomfoolery are coming in, so here's a quick video update.

Scope Releases Bacon-Flavored Mouthwash

WestJet Loves The Pets

AerLingus: Flight Boarding By Clan

Sony Features Products For Non-Bipeds

Womp Rats Are Easy

If you find any more humorous attempts to tickle, post them below in the comments!

Lead image courtesy of ThinkGeek.

Find some buried treasure, fly in a glass-bottomed jet or mock the Caped Crusader… these are among the many ways you can be fooled thus far on this April Fools' Day, 2013.

The media and technology sectors have been busy already this morning, coming up with some new and clever ways to pull the wool over our eyes on the one day of the year when all the stops are pulled out to deliver the laughs. Of course, some gags are funnier than others, but we'll let you decide in this morning roundup of the funny and the lame.

Google: Class Clown Or Else

If you're judging on sheer number of pranks, then hands down the Mountain View search engine company takes the prize in 2013.

Apparently, when Marissa Mayer took her stop-screwing-around-and-get-some-work-done attitude with her when she went to Yahoo, her former co-workers took that as a sign to cut loose and let their funny flags fly, launching no less than nine goofs.

Gee, if only they could put this much effort into Google Reader.

• YouTube Closing. Millions of videos later, YouTube reveals that the whole thing was actually one big contest for finding the world's best video. Now that the contest is over, Best Video nominees will be previewed in a 12-hour cycle for the next two years.
• 'Dem Naughty Gmail Blues. In a feat of massive re-engineering, the team at Gmail has provided users with an all-blue interface. Watch the stirring marketing video and hey, just remember, Gmail itself was once thought to be an April Fool's joke. If it ever goes the way of Google Reader, it still could be.
• Avast Ye, Scurvy Dogs! The Google Maps team has discovered the lost treasure maps of Captain William Kidd, and is asking users to help decode the symbology from the find. No word if this will actually reward patient humorologists with booty.
• Make Your House Look Fabulous! If you're tired of the way your home looks on Google Street View, the Google Australia team is happy to help. Their new Simple Complete House Makeover Internet Conversion Kit (SCHMICK) will let you redecorate your home on Street View at no charge.
• Smelling Is Believing. Those Street View cars were apparently hoovering more than just stray wi-fi data… they were also recording the smells of the world for Google's new Google Nose service (in Beta, natch). The new service appears all day on the Google nav bars, in case you want to sniff it out. (Yeah, I went there.)
• Analyze This. Google Analytics, long the authoritative source for finding out who's coming to your site, has upped its game with accuracy, enabling real-time tracking from visitors from the International Space Station.
• Emotions Are Logical. Google + gets a real plus in the new +Emotion service that lets you tag photos with unambiguous emoticons. You know, in case the actual expressions on people's faces weren't clear enough.
• Google Fiber Everywhere. Yeah, I'll come clean: I want this one to be oh, so, true. Because moving to Kansas is not optimal.
• The Source Of The Funny. Ah, now we get to the source of Google's overabundance of the funny this year: the Google Levity Algorithm, a new feature for Google Apps that enhances documents and interactive communications based on 50 years of comedy material from Second City.

Badda-Bing, Badda-What?

Not to be outdone, Microsoft tried to bring the funny to its Bing search service. Instead of quantity, the jokemeisters at Microsoft (I mean, come on, Vista wasn't funny?) went for quality.

Reports of a Google-themed Bing search home page led me instead displayed a clever little Easter Island-themed page. Cute, but I was looking forward to the dig on Google. With a little work, you can get it: type "google" in the Bing search bar to hit the jackpot.

Sy Wht?

Twitter is finally figuring out new ways to generate revenue, it seems. Their new Twttr service will enable users to use Twttr consonant-free free of charge. If you want vowels, all you need to pay is an extra $5/month.

Here's the thing: I'm not sure, given the average depth of tweets, that anyone will ntce, er, notice.

What? Is Your Favourite Colour?

You can't have April Fool's Day without some wacky British humour. With their extra letters and aversion to the letter "z," British spelling alone makes anything funnier.

• All News All The Time. The Guardian has announced an innovative new tool to enhance the average person's day: Guardian Googles. These new tools will push through left-wing content to you every waking moment, and censor out any temptations to read that naughty Daily Telegraph.
• Whee! Liked the looks of that cool Shard building you saw on Doctor Who this weekend? Well, HuffPo UK has revealed plans to build a giant 244.3-meter (801 feet, 6 inches for us Americans) spiral slide around the London edifice (and yes, this would be my number-two on the wish-it-were-real list).
• Plane With A View. Richard Branson himself has announced the coming of glass-bottomed planes for Virgin airlines, launching to coincide with the airline's new service to Scotland.

From Around the Web

There's a lot of April Fools humor to be found across the Internets today, beyond just the usual suspects. Here's a quick list:

• Avast Ye! Part II. The Pirate Bay, recognizing that some were angered by a recent "decision" to locate its servers in North Korea, has announced that it will instead be moving "the greatest fuckin nation in the entire world," the United States of America. Sarcasm ahoy!
• Nokia Pushes The Popcorn Button. Undeterred by its recent struggles in the mobile phone sector, Nokia is launching a new product line: microwave ovens. Bright yellow and apparently Windows Phone-themed. Yeah, that'll work.
• Introducing Kindle Zero. Marketing guru Seth Godin scoops us all with his big reveal of the new free-of-charge Kindle Zero, Amazon's latest e-reader. Not only will the device be free, by Amazon will pay you to read challenging books, too.
• The Writing On The Wall. Wolfram|Alpha, makers of the world's most confusing search engine, is releasing its own new product, the Handwritten Knowledge Engine. I'll let you know if I think this is funny, once I figure out how to use the real W|A tools.
• North Korea, Land o' Laughs. Not sure of the source, but supposedly the Democratic People's Republic Of Korea "unveils for betterment of world new game Draw Kim Jong-Un." Check out the trailer on YouTube, because in the DPRK, fun is mandatory.
• Because Messing With Batman Is Always A Good Idea. As a comic geek, this is probably my personal favorite. ThinkGeek's annual prank product are these Batman-themed family window stickers. You know, the ones that advertise on the highway the procreation rate of the family in that minivan in front of you. Only in this case, the stickers are a little more sad.

Spotted another April Fool's gag? Post it in the comments below and share!

Image courtesy of Google.

Guest author Fake Grimlock claims to be a giant robot dinosaur on a one-dino mission to "destroy suck on the Internet," replacing it with awesome. In his own words, "This mostly involve punch startups in face with truth until fail beaten out of them." This post  is an excerpt from his upcoming The Book Of Awesome. 

LIFE FULL OF STUPID PEOPLE. STUPID PEOPLE THAT WIN WHEN YOU NOT.

WHY THIS HAPPEN? UNIVERSE HATE SMART PEOPLE LIKE YOU?

NO. IT HAPPEN BECAUSE STUPID WINS.

ME, FAKEGRIMLOCK, FAMOUS ROBOT STARTUP DINOSAUR, AM PRETTY STUPID.

ME SHOW YOU HOW TO BE TOO.

TOO STUPID FOR CAN’T

THERE LOTS OF DUMB IDEAS. SOME DUMB ENOUGH THEM CHANGE WORLD.

SMART PEOPLE HATE DUMB IDEAS. ONLY THINK OF WAYS IDEA CAN’T WIN.

STUPID PEOPLE NOT THINK ABOUT CAN’T WIN AT ALL. THEM JUST DO IDEAS UNTIL ONE CAN.

NO LET STUPID PEOPLE HOG ALL THE DUMB IDEAS! GET SMART BRAIN OUT OF WAY. ONE DAY EACH WEEK, TAKE DUMBEST IDEA YOU HAVE. MAKE IT AWESOME.

REPEAT UNTIL WIN.

TOO STUPID FOR FEAR

CHANCE OF ANYTHING FAIL 90%. UNLESS STARTUP. THEN IT 110%.

STUPID PEOPLE TOO DUMB FOR ODDS. THEM JUST ASSUME NEXT THING WILL WORK.

STOP BEING WHINY BABY, CRY ABOUT FAIL. BE STUPID! ASSUME NEXT TIME YOU WIN!

EVEN IF FAILED LAST TIME. AND TIME BEFORE. AND TIME BEFORE THAT.

EVEN IF CHANCE OF WIN ALMOST NOTHING.

CHANCE IF NOT TRY EXACTLY NOTHING.

TOO STUPID FOR BORED

SMART PERSON EVENTUALLY FIND SOMETHING THAT WORK. ONCE FIND, IT KIND OF BORING. LOTS OF SMART PEOPLE FIND WAY TO WIN, THROW IT AWAY FOR EXCITING NEW WAY TO LOSE.

STUPID PERSON NEVER GET BORED WITH WINNING. PULL LEVER MAKE MONEY? THEM PULL THAT LEVER FOREVER.

THAT WHY YEARS LATER STUPID PERSON RICH, YOU JUST INTERESTING AND POOR.

STOP BEING BORED. BE STUPID! DO WHAT WORKS. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

SMART ENOUGH FOR STUPID

EVERY SMART PERSON TERRIFIED EVERYONE THINK THEM IDIOT.

STUPID PERSON ALREADY IS ONE, NOT MIND IF PEOPLE KNOW.

WORLD SMART. IT HARD TO OUTSMART WORLD. BE IDIOT. OUTSTUPID WORLD INSTEAD.

BE TOO STUPID FOR FEAR. TOO STUPID TO STOP. TOO STUPID TO FAIL.

BE SMART ENOUGH TO BE STUPID.

BE STUPID ENOUGH TO WIN.

(See also Here Fake Grimlock Interview and Here Secret Fake Grimlock Video About Minimum Viable Personality.)

When you are home to some of the brightest people in the world, a huge and growing tech community, some of the biggest companies in the country and a litany of top tier global universities, you should not have to defend yourself against hopeless hacks and biting satire. Yet Boston has to do just that on a near-daily basis.

Before Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley, before New York invented its erstwhile Silicon Alley, before Austin became the epicenter of the annual March madness homage to geeky sex, Boston was innovating and driving technological and economic advancement in the United States.

You know what has changed about that? Not a damn thing.

Playing The Role Of Big City

Yet Boston’s got a chip on its shoulder. To me and its other residents, it is the Rodney Dangerfield of American metropolises – it ain’t get no respect. In the last few days alone, the Hub of the Universe has been the target of several scurrilous - if somewhat amusing - attacks in the media. It started with The Onion and continued on Gawker and The Atlantic Wire. 

It seems the rest of the country looks upon Boston like it is some neurotic little hamlet of little consequence, full of its own importance and whining to be heard at the big boy table of, you know, actual cities. That is the gist of The Onion piece, titled Pretty Cute Watching Boston Residents Play Daily Game Of ‘Big City:'

Inhabitants of real cities across the nation smiled in affectionate amusement as Bostonians put on their big-city clothes, swiped their Charlie cards for a ride on one of the MBTA’s trolley-like subway cars—charmingly called the “T”—and rushed downtown for “important” business meetings at the John Hancock Building, the South Boston Innovation District, and other pretend centers of global industry and commerce.

They're getting it all wrong.

The Real Boston Story

You know where the technology was developed for that cool little lady, Siri, that you talk to on your iPhone every day? At Nuance, just outside of Boston. How about the pipes that keep the Internet going smooth and fast? At Akamai, in the heart of Cambridge. What is one of the first companies to create computer memory boards and later the cloud, that invention that has everybody all abuzz these days? EMC, headquartered right outside Boston. How about technology for content marketing, a space everybody is trying to figure out these days? Yeah, HubSpot was there first, years ahead of the curve.

If you totaled the revenue of all the companies that started at MIT or by graduates, it would be the 11th largest economy in the world. 

Boston has one of the highest concentration of startups and entrepreneurs anywhere outside of SoMa in San Francisco. It has startup accelerators like TechStars, an army of companies making robotics, one of the leading regions of mobile developers and thought leaders and some of the most progressive Big Data companies around. Oh, and bio-tech, the industry that dwarfs them all. If you ever get sick, be thankful that there is probably somebody in Boston creating technology to keep you alive. 

OK, Onion, I’ll Bite

So let's take a look at The Onion's charges, and see what really sticks - especially in comparison to the rest of the country:

• We are neurotic. But not as neurotic as D.C.
• We are full of our own righteous self-importance. But not as full of ourselves as San Francisco. 
• We scurry like rats to our so-called important meetings that are not that important. Just like our cousins, the Mice of Manhattan.  
• We are overtly proud of our funny accents. Just like those unintelligible hacks in Chicago. 

At least we have an Innovation District. Two really, when you count Kendall Square on the edge of MIT’s empire. How’s your innovation district doing, Columbus, Ohio? Chicago? Los Angeles, San Diego, D.C., Atlanta? Yeah, that list could go on for a while.

Quick tour of some notable Boston startups courtesy of Kinvey

What do people have against Boston? Part of the problem is that we insist on inserting ourselves into the national conversation. How dare we? How does a small city like Boston have any right to exert any influence at all?

What Boston Is Really About

Boston proper has about 625,000 people. The Greater Boston metro area actually has 4.5 million people, the 10th largest in the country. If we extend that to the commuting region around Boston, we've got 7.6 million people, the fifth largest of its distinction in the U.S.

We have the highest density of higher education in the known world. Within a mile or so of my apartment on the Somerville/Cambridge line I can get to Harvard, MIT and Tufts. Extend that to two to three miles and we can add Emerson, Northeastern, Boston University and Suffolk University. If you ever run into a lawyer trained at Suffolk, watch out. Those sharks are ruthless. A couple extra miles more and we find Boston College, which, as residents love to point out, is actually nowhere near Boston proper.

You know what all those people and all those universities get us?

You guessed it: money, power, influence. It also creates a certain smugness, a holier-than-though persona and that heavy chip on our shoulders. Why should New York and San Francisco get all the headlines when we have a city and region with a highly distinct culture, thousands of emerging companies, a high concentration of startups and venture capitalists and some of the best damn movie makers on the planet?

If anything, the Boston tech scene is guilty of letting the blowhards in New York and San Francisco run roughshod over us. 

Then There Is Gawker

But The Onion wasn't alone. In response, Gawker hack Hamilton Nolan (who has a penchant for beating on Boston) decided to write his own, definitely not satirical, takedown of the city:

"Boston," a cramped Hollywood crime movie set populated primarily by the lesser Wahlbergs, is engaged in a gleeful back-and-forth exchange of japes with a national media outlet, calling to mind the beaming smile of a developmentally disabled child who has just been allowed to win a game of tag with a grown man.

Nolan reaches for every stereotype he can find. We are apparently all drunks in Boston. We make a lot of Irish gangster movies. Our infrastructure is extremely old and the “T” (our subway system) is a joke. “Get it straight, Boston: we don't kid because we love. We kid because Boston sucks,” Nolan writes.

Sometimes, it is good to be hated. The Onion, Gawker and the rest actually did Boston a favor. All this attention just reinforces the fact that despite their snarky cynicism, Boston really does matter. 

As the annual Consumer Electronics Show grows away from its humble roots as, you know, a consumer electronics show, its focus increasingly turns to things altogether unrelated to technology - like celebrities!

Last year I recall spending three hours chasing down Justin Bieber with my telephoto lens - he made a brief, grumpy appearance promoting some entirely forgettable robotics company that I have since entirely forgotten. This year, the celeb safari is back on.  Here's who is showing up to CES this year and why you should - or shouldn't - care.

Get your bingo cards ready. No really... why not make a bingo card? Fill one up, find me and I'll buy you a shot. (Just don't blame me for knowing more about smartphones than pop culture - this is who I think these people are, anyway.)   

Felicia Day

This year's "CES Celebrity Ambassador," you might know Felicia day from the World of Warcraft spoof web series The Guild, or just from being generally cool and having preternaturally perfect skin. She tends to appear at every geek-adjacent event known to man, and we imagine that she'll spend most of the week in a cocktail lounge in an ivory tower somewhere in the South Hall. She's the CES celeb bingo equivalent of a doubleword score.

Maroon 5

Qualcomm Incoporated Preshow Keynote / 6:30-7:30pm, Monday, January 7, The Venetian, Palazzo Ballroom

This is a band, I think. I'm honesty not totally sure. It sounds like a racecar. Or a craft beer.

will.i.am

The Next Generation of Innovators Keynote / 11am-12pm, Tuesday, January 8, LVH Theater

This dude is from The Black Eyed Peas and has the cojones to downstyle his name like an Apple product. He's A+ in my book.

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson

SMS Audio (LVCC, South Hall 1, #20206) / 3pm, Wednesday, January 9

Isn't this guy blatantly sexist and homophobic? Surprise! He's at CES 2013 representing SMS Audio, a brand that I will now ardently choose to not give a shit about. 

Travis Barker

Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. (LVCC, North Hall Booth #1101) / 12-1pm and 1:30-2:30pm, Tuesday, January 8

The Blink 182 dude? Really? Don't make me make the "what's my age again" joke.

Dana Cohen

Haier America (LVCC, Central Hall, #10939)

I have zero idea who this woman is, but apparently she was dubbed the “Scallop Queen” on season 10 of Hell’s Kitchen, which is the best title I've ever heard of. All hail the bivalve queen!

I Fight Dragons

Bém Wireless / 7pm, Wednesday, January 9, Luxor, Flight Lounge

This is probably an indie band. Okay, yeah, I looked it up and it is definitely an indie band. I hated them at first based on their name alone, but apparently they are into the chiptune retro video game sound thing, so now I'm totally into it.

Lil Twist

Nikura (LVCC, South Hall 4, #37134) / 1pm, Thursday, January 10

A young rapper of sorts, I imagine. And apparently Justin Bieber's BFF.

LL Cool J

CNET (LVCC, South Hall 3, CNET Booth) / 4:30pm, Tuesday, January 8

This guy is kind of actually famous! All these years and he never changed his name to something more pretentious or with fewer vowels - props to you, Mr. J.

Rohan Marley

House of Marley (LVCC, Central Hall, #10544) / 11am-3pm, Tuesday, January 8 - Thursday, January 9

Bob Marley's son is here every year with his crazy bamboo headphones and a big smile on his face. He's a super nice guy and he'll take a picture with you and you can almost pretend you met the "real" Marley instead of Lauryn Hill's ex boyfriend.

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi

Zeikos/iHip (LVCC, South Hall 1, #21142) / 1-3pm, Wednesday, January 9

Yep, Snooki.

Tim Tebow

SOUL Electronics (Venetian Tower, #31-234) / 9am, Thursday, January 10

Isn't this that sanctimonious football player guy who never actually gets to play? We geeks come to these events to get away from you people. Whatever.

Chris “Ludacris” Bridges

SOUL Electronics / 10pm, Thursday, January 10, TAO Nightclub

Rapper turned actor Ludacris seems like a nice dude. I count this as a real celeb.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Digital Health Summitt (LVCC, North Hall, Room N250) / 9-10:15am, Wednesday, January 9

CNN's overexposed rockstar doctor guy. If he had accepted the job as Surgeon General, that would be one thing.

Dr. Oz

Digital Health Summitt (LVCC, North Hall, Room N250) / 10-10:50am, Thursday, January 10

Maybe Dr. Oz can tell you what that weird growth is on your foot. If not, try Sanjay Gupta.

Carrot Top

Gibson Guitar Corp. (LVCC, CES Central Plaza, CP-30)

We all know that the obnoxious comedian Carrot Top is just hanging out here in Vegas anyway. I don't know what he brings to Gibson's brand, but now that CES celebs are like trading cards, you might as well collect 'em all.

Danny DeVito

Panasonic (LVCC, Central Hall, Booth #9406) / 2:30pm, Wednesday, January 9

Okay, Danny DeVito is actually kind of awesome. If he's anything like his character on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, I'd like to commit a misdemeanor or drink stale beer with him. 

Ryan Vogelsong

JVC Americas Corp. (LVCC, North Hall, Booth #1810) / 11am and 2pm, Wednesday, January 9

A pitcher for the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. Who let all these athletes in here?!

Brian Singer

Private Event, Parnassus Group / 5:30-7:30pm, Thursday, January 10, Cili's at Bali Hai

Singer directed the first two X-Men movies, which were awesome. But I'm still mad that he bailed on the trilogy to make a Superman movie. If you see him, ask him about that.

Want to track down even more weirdo celebs? Check out the full list.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) starts January 8, and as usual it, there will likely be all sorts of news about some truly unbelievable products: UltraHD televisions? Come on. 3D printers? Yeah, right. Like that will ever happen. 

But in 2013, you can forget all that. The most amazing news at this year's CES will come from a company called Extraterrestrial Technology (no, really, that's its name): Say hello to the QuantumVet TriCorder Plus, which promises to diagnose and heal your pet through the power of a “quantum computer” unlocked by your smartphone. Apparently, the device claims to downloads a cure to your pet's brain.

No, really, that's what it claims to do. 

The company has purchased booth space at CES to show off its wares. But ReadWrite has been unable to reach company executives for comment. According to Google, ET's address maps to a Post Office branch in Honolulu: Calls to the company were picked up and presumably relayed by an answering service. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard back.

How Extraterrestrial Technology's Tech "Works"

As described on its website, though, the company’s “technology" is a gold mine of pseudoscience. As best we can determine, Extraterrestrial Technology is a business that was formed by the Zurich Alpine Group (ZAG), a private humanitarian medical research group that has been working “cooperatively and quietly” around the world to develop a “radical new quantum information technology.” This technology, according to the company, has been developed to counteract the “toxicity” in which chemical-based medicines interact with the human body.

But here’s the real innovation:

“ZAG understands that quantum problems require a quantum solution and has found a way to transfer bioinformation from its quantum computer via quantum teleportation to the brain, also a quantum computer, to reprogram the brain to effect positive medical changes within the body and mind," the company says. "These technological advancements have thus given birth to the world's first downloadable medicines.”

So basically what happens is that the company’s technology connects your brain (or in this case, your pet’s brain) to a remote quantum computer owned by the company, which downloads the requisite medicine directly, reprogramming the target brain to heal itself - without any side effects.

Mind = Blown

One possible concern that leaps to mind is how patients can be assured that the information being downloaded is legitimate, and not the product of a malicious hacker armed with his own quantum computer. You can’t be too careful. ET itself warns that users should “beware of impostors.” (Good advice, we think.)

Fortunately, there is a solution. Extraterrestrial Technologies has developed a Portal Access Key, or PAK, that securely facilitates the transaction. This PAK is essentially a “dose” of the downloadable "drug."

Normally, ET would download this information directly to your brain, allegedly curing all sorts of diseases. After all, the site mentions there are about 170 different possible cures in all, including a common cold vaccine, quantum weight-management control, as well as the unfortunately named “Heaven’s Gate” aphrodisiac. 

For your pet, however, you’ll need a special solution: your smartphone, tablet or PC. With the QuantumVet TriCorder Plus, ET promises that you can download PAKs to your portable device (prices start at $30 for six PAK doses).

ET even offers step-by-step instructions: 

1. Open a portal with the purchase of one or more QuantumVET Portal Access Keys (PAK) via your cell phone (also PC, laptop or tablet) from the company’s QuantumMANsite.com.
2. Data then teleports from a remote quantum computer to your pet’s brain, also a quantum computer.
3. QuantumVET then accesses your pet’s neural network to run a diagnostic of what is causing your pet’s symptoms.
4. QuantumVET then accesses the necessary master programs to restore your pet’s health.
5. QuantumVET repeatedly uploads these master programs to your pet over a 5 day period.

The best part is that you can’t overdose, meaning that you can download as many PAKs as you want!

Cats require 12 doses every 30 days of treatment (or every five days); dogs require 18 doses.

And here's an important warning: "When dosing you must be directly touching the animal prior to, and during, clicking the 'unlock and launch portal' button and remain in contact with the animal until you are informed the upload dosing is 'completed.' " God only knows what happens if the download is interrupted mid-stream.

We’re reasonably sure that no government or other medical agency has given the thumbs-up to the claims of this new-age technology. In fact, we're pretty confident  that ET's claims have not been verified by any reputable third party.  

But one thing is definitely true: If you’re looking for the weirdest product to be displayed at CES next week, the QuantumVET Tricorder has got to be at the top of your list. 

If you live and breathe technology startup culture, you know that there are definitely some distinctive personality types that permeate the industry.

You have the heady and sometimes arrogant but passionate founder. The uber-connected and overly caffeinated social media manger. The hipster designer who may or may not have tried to become a stand-up comedian. The dorky and almost-but-not-quite socially awkward but brilliant developer. 

You know these people. In fact, there is a fairly good chance you are one of these people. 

The Community Manager The Bold Italic, a San Francisco-based online magazine and events guide, picks out the most common techie stereotypes you will find in any city's startup ecosystem. Author Nicole Grant Kriege breaks down the typical people working in that open-floor-plan semi-industrial loft, while artist Juan Leguizamon brings the characters to life in delightful cartoon irony. 

(See The Bold Italic's Techie Stereotypes)

Like all stereotypes, these characters are not set in stone. The Founder, for instance, does not always have to be the one giving PowerPoint presentations and reading The 4-Hour Workweek. For instance, Ben Carcio, the CEO and co-founder of a startup called Promoboxx in Boston, fits more into The Sales Manager group than the Founder group (per Kriege’s loose definitions). Yet, Sravish Sridhar, CEO of Kinvey, fits The Founder model perfectly. Ryan Light, in marketing at Zagster, is the epitome of a hipster Designer. 

These are fun caricatures and are meant to be treated that way. Real startup employees tend to wear many hats. The founder is often the primary sales person, the developer and the community manager all at once. Or, the designer is also the marketer. The community manager is also the sales rep. Personalities are usually not so black and white in real life. 

Check out the common stereotypes from The Bold Italic below. Then look around the startups in your city. Do you know somebody who exemplifies The Marketing Guy or The Customer Service Rep? Let us know in the comments. And don't forget to vote in the poll to tell us what kind of techie stereotype you think you are. 

The Founder The Founder

• Reading Material: The 4-Hour Workweek
• Specialties: Wooing venture capitalists, apparently wearing black turtlenecks in some type of Steve Jobs imitation. 

The Sales Manager

• Also Known As: The Coach
• Weaknesses: Tired baseball metaphors, “win one for the Gipper” speeches, Red Bull. 

The Newb

• Would Rather Be: Nowhere else in the world.
• Specialties: An overabundance of enthusiasm.

The Community Manager

• Also Known As: The Cheerleader
• Hobbies: Staying up with trends (Bold Italics says “bacon” trends but bacon is such a narrow niche these days). 

The Developer

• Would Rather Be: Live action roleplaying. 
• Specialties: Aloof but alert. Turning the art of meeting women into a numbers game. 

The Developer The Marketing Guy

• Also Known As: The Megaphone
• Reading Material: Bold Italics says anything by Malcolm Gladwell. We would like to add Google Employee No. 59 by Douglas Edwards. 

The Designer

• Weaknesses: Font types. Why do designers always obsess over font types?
• Would Rather Be: Watching random YouTube videos about shrimp. 

The Customer Service Rep

• Also Known As: The Email Slogger
• Specialties: Email. Yeah, you know who you are. 

Human Resources

• Specialties: Why do I always associate the human resources person with cupcakes?
• Reading Material: Twilight series. Probably O, The Oprah Magazine. 

The Tech Blogger

• Also Known As: The Self-Important Hack
• Specialties: Complaining about PR people and embargoes. Putting the word [Exclusive] around stories that are not really exclusive.

Special thanks to The Bold Italic for letting ReadWrite use its stereotypes, art and (some of) its descriptions.

I bet, if Steve Jobs were still in charge, they would have actually done this. No, really, though, this is an amusing poke at Apple’s megalomania. I think Cook did an okay job defusing this criticism by highlighting competitors’ map apps in the App Store, but those of us who have gotten lost thanks to Apple Maps could use a couple more chuckles at its expense. The Onion happily obliges.

Apple Promises To Fix Glitches In Map Software By Rearranging Earth’s Geography

Halloween is the spookiest time of the year. Here at ReadWrite, we couldn't help but think of tech-based nightmares. And we couldn't help but share them...

1. Google combines everything it knows about you from all its various services - and then uses it to blackmail you over your insipid kitten photos and lame taste in music.
2. Gray Goo - nanobots running out of control and destroying everything. Or on a larger scale, your 3D printer starts making copies of itself. Which start making copies of themselves…
3. You buy a brand new tablet, and the next day a new model comes out and makes yours obsolete. And makes you feel like a sucker.
4. Now that Disney is buying LucasFilm, Jar Jar Binks shows up in every new Disney movie.
5. Being the first person to die in an accident caused by a self-driving car.
6. Stuxnet decides to invade your smartphone.
7. Not being able to catch your brand new fancy Nikon SLR when experimenting with Camera Toss Photography.
8. You wake up from a dream, and you really are CEO of RIM.
9. You get arrested for jailbreaking your iPad.
10. Your startup gets bought for millions in stock - but it turns out to be Zynga stock.

Thanks to Jon Mitchell, Jim Nash, and Christina Ortiz for their terrifying contributions. And we all want to know, what are YOU afraid of today?

Besides this, of course:

Saturday Night Live might not be as funny as it once was, but last weekend the show recaptured some of the old magic on a very modern subject. A brilliant sketch hilariously pointed out the hypocrisy and navel gazing of the entitled first-world pundits who write about mobile technology. If you haven't seen it, you definitely want to watch it now...

This sketch cut pretty close to home, even naming names of some of ReadWriteWeb's competitors - though frankly it could have been any of us. 

My two favorite jokes in the piece?

1. The classic Chinese satrical dance.

2. "Diabetes."

Do you think the sketch was fair, or did it go too far? Or maybe it didn't go far enough?

British digital satirists fed up with Groupon’s daily email deluge tried to physically deliver spam to the company's London office on British television last night. A video clip of the event on YouTube shows how questionable business practices can come home to roost at the worst moment for a struggling company.

The segment, filmed by Don’t Panic for Channel 4, included Israeli performance artist Nimrod Kamer dressed in a SPAM costume trying to gain entrance to the offices.

“I’m spamming you guys for all the spam I got,” Kamer yells at a security guard who won’t let him in the office building in the 1:18 segment.

The motive for the segment, Kamer explained in a brief interview, was “to celebrate the demise of Groupon. The appropriate thing to do was to go to their offices and shove them some homemade spam one last time before they go bankrupt."

Groupon has been on a downward financial swing lately, prompting ReadWriteWeb to put the Chicago-based company on our DeathWatch list in July. The company has been accused of proliferating spam by its American customers since 2011, prompting British entrepreneur David Maher Roberts to pose the question, “Is Groupon a great way to save or simply spam?”  

The Don’t Panic segment has turned up the criticism. The description of the segment uploaded to YouTube says:

Half-price fish pedicures. Car cleaning deals. Bargain boob jobs. If you've had emails about any of these 'amazing' offers lately, chances are you've been spammed by coupon giant Groupon. Don't Panic decided to take matters into our own hands, and headed down to London Groupon HQ to spam the spammers.

Sooner or later, the Julian Assange/WikiLeaks story will be a major motion picture. It has all of the elements of an edge-of-your-seat thriller: a charismatic leader (with great hair) going up against government corruption, a precipitous fall from grace, a seedy sex angle, and a dramatic last stand. We've assembled a rough cut out of scenes from cinematic classics. To all you aspiring filmmakers who dream of pitching a treatment, take a look at what The Julian Assange Story could be. And thanks in advance for remembering us in your Oscar acceptance speech!

Scene 1: The Birth of a Legend. The story starts with a glimpse of our hero in his heyday, cutting a dodgy, back-alley deal for illicit information onto which he can shine the light of day. Maybe start with Project B, the classified 2007 video showing an Apache gunship crew killing innocent civilians and two journalists in Iraq. Assange releases teh clip, igniting an international debate about the role of the media and the autonomy of military operations. Plenty of people think Assange has gone too far, but just as many believe he has shed light on a subject that needed to be discussed. Need a place to start? Try Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men. 

Scene 2: Introducing the Antagonist. You'll need a villain, of course, someone who represents offical opposition to Assange's efforts. A U.S. military officer would be perfect. The Army doesn't exactly support the killing of civilians, but Wikileaks' release of the Apache video looks like the top of a slippery slope, and the government doesn't want that kind of scrutiny. Clearly, this man must be stopped. So they send someone to take him down. Someone who's dangerous, tenacious, and resilient - a good soldier who has the guts to terminate Assange "with extreme prejudice."

Scene 3: The Doomed Romance. Assange and his wife separated in 1999, which leave plenty of room for a love interest. It's a tragic affair, of course, since our hero is a man of mystery. He's a loner. A . . . rebel? Yeah. A rebel. With awesome hair. The scene would go something like this:

Scene 4: The Set-Up. Assange hits the big time in February 2010, when Wikileaks begins releasing classified communications among the worldwide offices of the U.S. State Dept. You'll need a steely performer to play Hillary Clinton - say, John Travolta in a reprise of his role in Hairspray - who asserts that the leak "puts people's lives in danger, threatens national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems." Meanwhile, sexual assault allegations in Sweden further complicate matters. Stand and fight or turn and run? Assange is wanted for a crime he didn't commit, so he evades his would-be captors, hounds at his heels. That scene might go something like this:

Scene 5: Backed Into a Corner. Forced to seek refuge in Ecuador's British embassy, Assange is out of options. The Americans and British, thinking Assange is out of control, are closing their nets and locking him down. The fun times are over. For inspiration, filmmakers might want to look to the the time Riff Raff and Magenta busted up Fran N Furter's pool party: "Frank-N-Furter, it's all over. Your mission is a failure. Your lifestyle's too extreme."

Scene 6: The Nightmare. OK, so Sweden isn't exactly Transylvania. But extradition is extradition. Assange steps to the embassy window to taunt the British, where he spies troops mobilizing to storm the embassy. Bloodshed ensues as the British troops take on Ecuador and, ultimately, Assange and his army of information-wants-to-be-free warriors. It's a good thing, then, that we've already lined up a film about an anti-hero who mocks law enforcement from the safety of a secure tower that has never been breached. It's got a killer soundtrack and some amazing martial arts sequences. (Try to sign up some of these guys - they really know how to do a roundhouse kick.)

Scene 7: The Escape. Is this it for Assange? Of course not. At the last minute, with the troops closing in, he wakes to the sound of rescuers attempting to smuggle him out – perhaps in a shipping container or the trunk of a car. If you think that sounds too crazy to work, check out the trailer for Argo, in which an angry mob chases innocent workers into a friendly diplomatic safe zone and the U.S. government hatches a wacky scheme to being them home.

So there's your movie. You're welcome. Let us know which scenes we've missed!

Bill Gates is wiping out deadly diseases and Nicholas Negroponte is bringing technology to remote corners of the globe. That’s great, but when was the last time either of those guys wound up on TMZ?

No, the uber nerds we really want to emulate are the guys with awesome technical chops and even more awesome lifestyles. The goal is to work hard and play even harder - to create great stuff and make big bucks while driving a Ferrari to work and dating supermodels in the evening.

Think it can’t be done? These 10 super geeks are doing the things we wish we were doing instead!

Yoko Ono, widow of The Beatles' John Lennon, has released an iPhone app. The app, called #smilesfilm, allows users to share snapshots of smiling faces.

That’s great and all, but we came up with nine things that a Yoko Ono app really should do.

1. Break up your band. Whatever band you happen to be in.

2. Erase all Paul McCartney songs on your iTunes account. 

3. Turn all your album cover art to plain white.

4. Change your ring tone to 15 minutes of tuneless screeching, direct from the second side of Live Peace in Toronto, still the most unlistenable bit of "music" ever recorded.

5. Automatically send emails with virtual flowers to 100 top world leaders, complete with nagging messages about what they're not doing to save the world.

6. Turn off all the alarms on your iPhone. After all, you belong in bed.

7. Send an animated fly crawling over your home screen.

8. Put huge sunglasses on the faces of the pictures you take with your iPhone - including those taken in #smilesfilm.

9. Give Peace a Chance.

Lead photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

In the grand pantheon of disgraced technology company CEOs, the resume blunder of ousted Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson seems almost trivial. Claiming an unearned degree pales in comparison to the true titans of tech transgressions - whose careers were toppled by everything from massive fraud and grand larceny to inappropriate dalliances with underlings. Each imploded in their own particular way, but all their stories come mixed with heaping helpings of arrogance and a dollop of coverup.

Here’s your chance to meet the real world of Horrible Bosses, and get a glimpse of how they were rewarded - or occasionally punished - for behaving badly:

Scott Thompson, Former Yahoo CEO

Scott Thompson was at Yahoo’s helm only five months before getting the boot for claiming to have a computer science degree from a college that didn’t offer one at the time. While a charitable observer might say he never lied, Thompson also never explained how that erroneous info got on his work bio. Nevertheless, the untruth gave investor activist Dan Loeb just what he needed in his proxy battle to stack the Yahoo board with his supporters. Thompson was given the heave-ho this month and Loeb, who runs the hedge fund Third Point, got the board seats. Thompson didn’t leave empty handed. While he missed out on a severance package, he did walk away with $7 million in bonuses from the struggling Internet portal.

Brian Dunn, Former Best Buy CEO

Brian Dunn stepped down in April as chief executive of electronics retailer Best Buy for what the company later called an “extremely close personal relationship” with a female employee more than 20 years younger. The 51-year-old Dunn did not use company resources in his “friendship,” which included lunch and drinks during the workweek and on weekends. The pair also seemed to stay in touch a lot. During two separate trips abroad for a total of nine days, Dunn contacted his “friend” by mobile phone at least 224 times. In the end, the board found that Dunn’s behavior violated company policy, yet he was still entitled to some big bucks. His separation package totaled $6.6 million.

Mark Hurd, Former Hewlett-Packard CEO

Mark Hurd resigned in August 2010 as chief executive of tech giant Hewlett-Packard following a dalliance with a contract employee who later accused Hurd of sexual harassment. While investigating the allegations, the HP board found that Hurd had doctored expense reports in order to hide his personal relationship with marketing consultant Jodie Fisher, a former soft-core porn actress. Fisher denied the relationship with the married Hurd was sexual. She settled privately with Hurd and both sides agreed not to discuss the affair. Hurd left HP with $12.2 million in severance and enough stock to earn millions more - and was immediately hired by his friend Larry Ellison as co-president, director and board member of Oracle.

David Edmondson, Former RadioShack CEO

David Edmondson resigned in February 2006 as CEO of electronics retailer RadioShack after lying about his education. Edmondson topped Yahoo’s Thompson by claiming to have two college degrees when he had none. The CEO apologized for the “embarrassment” he brought to the company. RadioShack’s hometown newspaper, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, broke the story, reporting Edmondson never graduated from the unaccredited bible college he attended. The newspaper also found that the CEO was facing a trial on his third arrest on drunk-driving charges. Edmondson left the company with a severance payment of less than $1 million in cash.

Sanjay Kumar, Former Computer Associates CEO

Sanjay Kumar, ex-CEO of IT management software and solutions company Computer Associates, pleaded guilty in 2006 to his role in a $2.2 billion accounting fraud. He also admitted to interfering with a federal investigation by authorizing a payment of $3.7 million to silence a potential witness. Kumar, who was once a part owner of the New York Islanders hockey team, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, which he started serving in 2007. Computer Associates, which later changed its name to CA Technologies, paid more than $225 million to a shareholder restitution fund. Kumar contributed about $20 million from his own assets.

John Rigas, Founder, Former CEO of Adelphia Communications

After leading Adelphia Communications for more than five decades, Chief Executive John Rigas was sentenced in 2005 to 15 years in prison in a multibillion-dollar fraud case that collapsed the company he founded. Rigas and his son Timothy Rigas, who was Adelphia’s chief financial officer, were convicted of 18 felony counts of fraud and conspiracy. The younger Rigas got 20 years in prison. The Rigases were convicted of stealing $100 million from Adelphia, which had been the fifth-largest cable company in the nation. They also were found guilty of conspiring to hide $2.3 billion in company debt.

Bernard Ebbers, Former CEO of WorldCom

Bernard Ebbers was sentenced in 2005 to 25 years in prison for leading the nation’s largest-ever corporate fraud. The former chief executive of telecom carrier WorldCom was convicted of nine felonies in an $11 billion accounting scandal at the company. When WorldCom filed for bankruptcy in 2002, it was the largest in U.S. history and led to shareholders and employees losing billions of dollars. Ebbers forfeited the bulk of his assets to burned WorldCom investors. Those assets included a Mississippi mansion and other holdings worth as much as $45 million. The day before his sentencing, Ebbers called the predicament he was in “bizarre.”

Robert McCormick, Former CEO of Savvis Communications

Robert McCormick resigned in 2005 as chief executive of IT infrastructure management outfit Savvis Communications (now owned by CenturyLink) after it was revealed that he spent $241,000 entertaining business associates at a Manhattan strip club. The company’s board might have looked the other way, if McCormick hadn’t used his corporate charge card to pay for lap dances and then claim to be a victim of fraud when American Express demanded its money. Dubbed the “The Lap Dunce” by The New York Daily News, McCormick never submitted an expense report for the party at Scores. The company claimed it did not pay for McCormick’s night out on the town.

Joe Nacchio, Former CEO of Qwest

One-time Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio was convicted in 2007 of 19 counts of insider trading and was sentenced to nearly six years in prison. Nacchio was convicted of selling $52 million in stock in 2001 after it became known internally that the telecom carrier (also now owned by CenturyLink) was in danger of missing sales forecasts. Nacchio, who resigned in 2002, was ordered to forfeit almost $46 million and pay a $19 million fine. In 2011, Nacchio sued his lawyers from prison, claiming they were negligent. He also accused them of overbilling, pointing to charges that included lawyers' underwear purchases.

Gregory Reyes, Former CEO of Brocade

Gregory Reyes was convicted in 2007 in a stock options backdating scandal at networking solutions vendor Brocade and received a 21-month prison term. The conviction was later overturned and the ex-CEO was retried. Prosecutors won again and he was sentenced in 2010 to 18 months in prison. At his second sentencing hearing, Reyes broke down crying, and his attorney had to read his statement for him. At his second criminal trial, Reyes blamed the company’s outside counsel, which he claimed signed off on the backdating of stock options. The judge at the sentencing hearing didn’t buy the argument, saying that, at some point, people have to take responsibility for what they say and do.

Thompson photo courtesy of Yodel Anecdotal. Raju image via World Economic Forum/Flickr.

Step 1. Wash Your Phone (Carefully!)

Here are the only Apple-approved instructions for cleaning an iPhone. They seem like good advice for any mobile device user. Don't do anything else. It will void your warranty. If you use water, do it carefully, and keep the wetness away from all openings. Don't use any kind of chemical. If your mobile is already contaminated, you'll just have to live with it.

Step 2. Choose Your Phoning Hand

Before you even walk into that bathroom, decide which hand is for the mobile and which is for wiping. If your device hand touches anything nasty, it's out of play. So make a choice and stick with it.

Step 3. Commence Your Business

Hopefully you don't need instructions for this part other than a reminder to keep your device hand well away from the drop zone, as it were.

Step 4. Return the Phone to Your Pocket (With One Hand)

This is the most delicate part of the procedure. When you're ready to rejoin polite society, you can restore your device to your pocket - but you must do so one-handed, taking care to avoid contact with potentially soiled items and surfaces. Once your device is securely stowed, you may wipe, stand and flush.

Step 5. Wash Your Freaking Hands

I'm embarrassed to feel it necessary to include this step, but once you have evacuated, and before you touch your mobile device again, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water.

After researching this topic, I don't think I'll ever again feel comfortable borrowing someone's phone unless we all promise to follow this protocol. I promise. Do you? 

Please leave your promise in the comments.

But what if the very talks that we believe are making us smarter are actually dumbing us down, simplifying complex ideas into snippets of "shareable" information apt for fast consumption? This is why Chicago-based improvisers Seth Dodson and Kellen Alexander created "NED Talks: Spreading Worthless Ideas," a spoof of the popular TED Talk videos. Their show challenges the entire structure upon which TED is built.

"The idea for NED Talks came about after watching TED Talks," says co-creator Kellen Alexander. "We thought that it looked like fun to give presentations, and we figured we should create one for people who like to talk into microphones but have nothing worthwhile to say."

Yet it's clear that Americans love TED, and TED videos have spread far and wide. If they're so stupid and pointless, however, how could this have happened?

Alexander likens the spread of TED Talks in pop culture to the reality TV phenomenon.

"When the first season of "The Real World" started, it was the most authentic. Then it got progressively less authentic because the people that went on the next seasons of the show started acting based on the seasons they'd seen," he says. "So then it digressed into what people see now, which is basically just getting into arguments and hooking up."

TED Talks began in 2006. Now, six years later, TED has become a household, brand name, akin to Apple or Honda. Stories like this piece in last month's issue of The Atlantic suggest exactly what Dodson and Alexander realized more than a year ago, long before this article was written. Writes Megan Garber:

We talk often about the need for narrative in making abstract concepts relatable to mass audiences; what TED has done so elegantly, though, is to replace narrative in that equation with personality. The relatable idea, TED insists, is the personal idea. It is the performative idea. It is the idea that strides onstage and into a spotlight, ready to become a star.

Once seen as a crowning achievement in one's intellectual career, today TED Talks feel more like status symbols, a notch on the bedpost, something to highlight on a resume rather than a truly intellectual endeavor into unknown territory. Or, an inculcation into the cult of social media celebrity.

This is not to belittle some of the ideas put forth by those who have presented at TED. But there's something reality TV show-esque about the whole thing, about recognition in the American social media-ified pop culture landscape. Which brings us back to NED Talks and reality TV.

"Countess LuAnn de Lesseps of The Real Housewives of New York City once said: 'Always know what you want,'" Alexander says.

"I thought that was very inspirational."

Dodson and Alexander will be back for another installment of NED Talks in June 2012. In the meantime, please enjoy this video from a NED Talk by Miami Volt.

NED Talk image courtesy of Kellen Alexander and Seth Dodson.

So you have turned your $600 iPad into a $20 warming coaster. But still, it is pretty neat. (I wanted to say cool, but well.) I am not sure that I would attempt this too often, as the image of a hot cup of liquid sitting directly on top of my iPad is enough to make me twitch.

Just point your mobile browser here and warm up! I doubt we'll see this as an approved iTunes app anytime soon.

This is where Hennessy Youngman comes in. The dude is actually not who he says he is, which is a clue that yes, this is a performance. Hennessy Youngman is Jayson Musson's persona, and he shows up in online YouTube episodes of a series he likes to call "Art Thoughtz." Hennessy has taken it upon himself to be an Internet art historian of sorts - or should we say Art Critic - most likely discussing issues of race, gender, art history, the Art World and life. He appears on the Internetz wearing an Angry Birds hat, some awesome bling and a delightfully dirty sense of humor. His latest episode is about how we perform our identities online, which is in and of itself performance art. Pioneering video artist Nam-June Paik would be proud of Hennessy. Here's why.

In Lucy Liggett's essay on museum.tv, she writes that it is Paik who actually challenged our experience, understand and definitions of "television," as it were.

Nam June Paik pioneered the development of electronic techniques to transform the video image from a literal representation of objects and events into an expression of the artist's view of those objects and events. In doing so, he challenges our accepted notion of the reality of televised events. His work questions time and memory, the nature of music and art, even the essence of our sensory experiences. Most significantly, perhaps, that work questions our experience, our understanding, and our definitions of "television."

In Youngman's new video, which is featured on thesocietypages.org, he suggests that performance art is no longer unique and isolated to the few. It is open to the many, to the Internet users, to the world. It is here that we all perform - from the Occupiers to the random Facebook-ers and Twitter users - to everyone who put themselves out there. If we are vulnerable on social media, we will get our 15 minutes of fame. In the same way Paik challenged our ideas about television, Youngman asks us to rethink our experience of social media. Hennessy warns that the video is mad long - it is only 10 minutes long - but I implore you to stick around. I guarantee it's worth that sliver of your hour.

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

"The emotional connection between humans and horses is more calm, quiet and non-verbal ideally," says Sujatha Ramakirshna, M.D., a Chicago-based child and adolescent psychiatrist. She runs the website TeachingKidsEmpathy.com, which is devoted to promoting the development of compassion in young people. And as a child growing up outside of Fort Worth, Texas, she rode horses. "Horses will know if you're afraid or confident better than you. You really can't lie to a horse."

A Horse is a Horse, Of Course Of Course

Horses are one of those hidden secrets, it seems. The connection between horse and human is far different from cat and human, or dog and human.

"With horses, it's all about balance and coordination," explains Ramakirshna. "You have to watch their ears - what are they listening to? Are they tense, relaxed or loose? It's something else. It's really hard to explain unless you've ridden. You have to feel the horse's interaction and react. It's like a dance partner, more or less."

Then an idea came to me: What if horse stories on the Internet outnumbered cat and dog stories? I didn't want make a horse's ass of myself, however, so I decided to take a look at some actual data on number of horse stories read on Facebook. I reached out to the folks at Digg to see if they might have some answers about the differences between cat, dog and horse stories. Digg dugg into data from its Social Reader, which it launched at the end of December. They provided ReadWriteWeb with stats from February 2012.

The Cat-Human Relationship: Like Two Humans

Last month, Digg discovered that far more people read stories about dogs than cats or horses combined. It didn't come as a surprise. I wasn't crushed.

Cat story reads numbered 29,339 vs dogs, which gained a whopping 72,586 reads. As for the horse? Only a mere 9,739 reads for the month of February. But the truth serum is in the details, not the big numbers.

The top cat story felt tragic, maliciously targeted at the benign, sensitive cat lover: What If All the Cats in the World Suddenly Died? I do not need to interpret this headline for you. The Internet has an evil sense of humor.

Smithsonian Magazine reported on a study about cat-human relationships done by scientists in Vienna, Austria. "It took 120 hours of observing 40 cat-human pairs for scientists to conclude that the bond between the two cat be similar to other human relationships," writes Sarah Zielinski. The study concluded that "it seems that an important area of negotiation between the owner and the cat is mutual attention and friendly tactile interactions," which resemble human-to-human long-term and complex relationships.

Like most human-to-human relationships too, the cat-human relationship might just drive one insane. A story in The Atlantic (which also made it to the Digg top 10 cat stories) suggested that perhaps cats are actually making their owners crazy. The research and subsequent argument were not only subtly disturbing, but actually made me think twice about deciding to own a cat as an adult. Besides, I've seen the mind manipulation games that cats play with their human owners.

Digg's second most-read cat story implies the super-human nature of kitties: Feline Physics: Why Cats Can Survive Falls From Great Heights. It comes complete with an amazing two-second, Muybridge-esque video dated 1890 of a single white cat gracefully falling and landing.

Cats rarely listen to verbal commands. They are predators, and they are loners. So two loners living together might make for craziness, indeed. Not to mention a lot of fur and hair.

Yet the cat-human relationship is nothing like the horse-human connection, which appears to transcend the feline prowess.

I Want a Puppy: Don't Treat Dogs Like Humans

Dogs, like horses, are social animals and they live in groups. Yet the dog is a predator; the horse is a prey animal.

"You can give a dog a treat to make it sit, but you can't give a horse a carrot to make it go," says Ramakrishna. "It's a completely different set of skills."

An article on DogBreedInfo.com delves into the dog/human relationship - which is, owners should never treat their dogs like humans.

"When dogs live with humans, the humans become the dog's pack. For the relationship to succeed, humans must become the dog's pack leader. The mistake is made when the humans in the pack only give the dog love, and the other factors are overlooked. To a dog, constant affection without rules and limits goes against every grain in a dog's instinct."

There were far more dog story reads on the Digg Social Reader: 72,586 to be exact. There are more dog owners out there than horse owners, surely. Oddly, the top link reveals some truths about what dog owners secretly know about their canines: They are wild, wolf-like predators. The top most-read story is called My Friend Dog Who Has the Creepiest Shadow Ever. The second most-read story is an infographic comparing the costs of dogs versus cats, small mammals, small birds and fish (which is, naturally, the least expensive type of pet, if you can even call it that). The third, sensationalistic tabloid-esque dog story makes the mistake of considering dogs as humans. A Twitter user captures an "attempted dog suicide" in West Hollywood. It's unclear whether or not the dog decided to jump to its death, or if this is just another wrongful personification of an animal. @Potasnik live-tweeted the entire event. Someone called the police. The "suicidal" dog survived.

"A dog is an animal and does not possess the same reasoning skills as humans," writes DogBreedInfo.com. "They do have emotions, but their emotions are different than those of humans. They are simple creatures with instincts, and their emotions lack the complex thought process. They feel joy when they know you are pleased, they feel sad when someone dies. However, they do not premeditate; do not plan ahead and do not dwell in the past or future. They live for whatever is happening at the moment."

A dog is nothing like a horse.

Why Every Little Girl Wants a Pony

In her work, Ramakrishna studies the relationship between children and animals. Her Why Children Need Animals (forthcoming in 2013), looks at the role animals play in the lives of human families, and the physical and cognitive development of children.

Indeed, we can understand a lot by watching how children - and people in general - interact with their four-legged companions. But the human-horse relationship is unique. It encourages empathic understand in a way that relationships with dogs and cats do not.

"You have to understand what type of mood the horse is in, and learn to understand the horse's emotions," she says. "It really does help kids think about the other person's perspective. The other person being the horse."

There were only 9,739 horse story reads on Digg, from a total of 7,500 news stories. Yet each is more fascinating than the next one, and none of them prey on basic emotions, on the personification of one's pet. The top horse stories are about wonderment, the bigger picture. This is evidenced by the top most-read horse story, entitled Ancient Warming Shrunk Horses to Housecat Size, followed by 25 Goats Riding on Horses and a Scientific American slide show, A Visual History of Ancient Miniature Horses, which gives a fascinating overview of this beautiful creature. You really can't say the same of the cat and dog stories.

"Little girls are fascinated with horses," says Ramakrishna. "Every little girl wants a pony, and I think a lot of it is the fact that you're independent. If you're on a horse riding, you can get around pretty well. It's a little bit of freedom that you wouldn't have otherwise, similar to riding a bike or skateboarding."

But it's a horse. A living breathing horse that one must not only ride, but feel.

So @horse_ebooks's question from yesterday makes sense. "how do you feel" it asks.
Because only a horse knows the answer to that.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and @Potasnik.