Author: Josh Wolford

No, Instagram isn’t going to delete your account. Keep filtering and carry on.

Thursday night, Instagram has some technical issues that caused some people to be locked out of their accounts. Rumors swirled that Instagram was deleting accounts – possibly to punish those who has violated the terms of service or to free up space.

What didn’t help was the @dontdeletemyig account, which popped up and soon garnered nearly 70,000 followers.

That account spread this hoax image across the network:

The #dontdeletemyaccount and #dontdeletemyig hashtags blew up on both Twitter and Instagram as some people worried that the photo-sharing site was taking drastic measures to purge users.

Why is everyone putting on black pictures with #dontdeletemyaccount on instagram

— Pocahontas (@j_harrington11) May 24, 2013

Instagram clarified the disruption as such:

Yesterday we experienced technical issues that caused people to be unable to access their accounts for a short period of time. We restored access as soon as the issue was brought to our attention, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Thank you for all your comments and reports to let us know about the problems you were experiencing. We’re always listening and we were able to fix this as quickly as we did because of your help.

Sorry for the hiccup! Thanks for your reports regarding yesterday’s technical issues. We’re back on track. help.instagram.com/165012027001436

— Instagram (@instagram) May 24, 2013

Remember: when people ask you to share something, there’s a good change that they’re full of it. Your Instagram account is safe – you know, unless you start posting porn or something.

Here’s what Yahoo just bought…as a real life person. Yes, Tumblr as a real person is just as annoying as you would expect. To be fair, this representation of Tumblr is really a representation of the more-annoying parts of Tumblr.

But still, it’s pretty funny.

[wheresrobanderson via Valleywagr]

Talk about getting lost in translation.

A Bronx teacher claims that she was fired for using the word “negro” in reference to a student. I must admit, it sounds reasonable at first – except for the fact that the teacher in question was teaching a lesson in Spanish.

65-year-old Petrona Smith, formerly a teacher at bilingual PS 211, says that she was instructing her students on how to say colors in Spanish. “Negro,” of course, is Spanish for “black.” She claims that she was fired after a seventh-grader reported the incident. Smith is black, and a West Indies native. She has filed a lawsuit over the firing.

“They haven’t even accounted for how absurd it is for someone who’s black to be using a racial slur to a student,” Shaun Reid, Smith’s attorney, told the NY Post. “Talk about context! There’s a lot of things wrong here.”

Smith even claims that she differentiated between “negro” (black) and the Spanish word for black person, “moreno.”

According to court documents, Smith was also accused of calling some students “failures,” but she says that this is also untrue. Apparently, she asked students who had failed a test to move to the back of the classroom.

In fact, Smith claims that the slurs were coming in the other direction. The Post notes that she reports being called a “f*cking monkey” and a “n*gger.”

As of now, facts in the case are pretty one-sided. A spokesperson from the city told The Post that they will review the papers – but that’s all they had to say.

Epy Guerrero, the famed MLB scout in the Dominican Republic who is credited with dozens of high-profile signings, has died. He was 71.

Guerrero began his career with the Houston Astros, where he famously signed Cesar Cedeno out of his home country.

“He was a good friend and great scout, great ambassador for baseball and a great evaluator of talent,” Smith said. “He and Pat Gillick were responsible for signing Cesar Cedeno, one of the finest players in the history of the franchise, and other players. Just a great person and a great baseball man. I’m really, really saddened to hear of his death,” said former Astros president Tal Smith.

Guerrero spent a large part of his career with the Toronto Blue Jays (1978-1995), and is credited with helping to load the franchise with great players in the 80′s and 90′s. He signed influential players like Tony Fernandez, Alfredo Griffin and Carlos Delgado. He also played a big part in the drafting of George Bell.

He served as a coach for the team in 1981.

On Thursday night, The Toronto Blue Jays held a moment of silence before their game with the Baltimore Orioles in honor of Guerrero.

In his illustrious career, Guerrero signed over 40 MLB players for four teams – the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers.

He was inducted into the Dominican Sports Hall of Fame in 2008. Guerrero died in his birth city of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

[Image via TheStar]

Morgan Freeman stopped by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Thursday night, and luckily he stayed alert and attentive. Though there to promote his new film, Now You See Me, the conversation turned to theoretical physics. That’s not of bad thing, of course.

“I don’t understand things like string theory, but multiple universes? I fully understand it – you understand it.” said Freeman when asked about how much knowledge he has on the topic.

Check out the full convo below, which dives into the singularity of the universe.

As host of the documentary series Through the Wormhole, Mr. Freeman should have this sort of interest, right? Right. He also recently hosted the Fundamental Physics Prize gala in Geneva, where he had the chance to spend a little time with Stephen Hawking.

“He doesn’t talk a lot,” said Freeman.

Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories is burning up the charts and breaking records on Spotify. You’ve probably listened to it a few…dozen times, right?

Well, I bet you haven’t heard it like this before. Say hello to “A-bit of Daft Punk,” every song on the album, rearranged in 8-bit.

“I think this might be my best work to date!” says creator Joe Jeremiah on Facebook.

The radio edit of Daft Punk’s new single “Get Lucky” has already broken Spotify records and currently sits at over 28.3 million streams. Now, Spotify has announced that the album on which it’s featured is also breaking records.

Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories launched on Spotify on May 21st, having spent the previous week available as a free stream on iTunes. On that day, Daft Punk set a new record for the most-streams for an album on its first day in US, UK, France, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Mexico.

And that’s not the only record that Random Access Memories is going to set. According to Spotify, if current streaming trends hold, the album will wind up as the most streamed album ever in the week of its initial release.

If it takes that crown, it will take it from Mumford & Sons’ Babel.

In celebration (if you’re a Daft Punk fan), here’s Daft Punk meets Soul Train:

Digg’s new RSS reader will be out in about a month – but it won’t be a standalone app.

Instead, Digg’s new reader will simply be a part of Digg. Speaking at Internet Week New York, Digg CEO Andrew McLaughlin said that users will ”have one download, which is Digg, and the current Digg will have added onto it reader capabilities.”

Oh, and yes, Digg’s reader will be called “Digg Reader.”

Ever since Digg announced that they were working on their own reader, shortly after Google announced that they were killing Google Reader, the goal has been to build a replacement – something fast and simple that Google Reader users will want to adopt. Digg has said that apart from making it fast and simple, they really only want to make it synchronous across multiple devices and make it easy to import from existing Google Reader accounts.

Digg’s own surveys have shown that users want very little changed about Google Reader.

Another interesting thing that they found was that 40% of respondents said that they would pay for a Google Reader replacement – something that “pleased” them. They went on to say that they wanted their users ““to be customers, not our product.”

“Free products on the Internet don’t have a great track record. They tend to disappear, leaving users in a lurch. We need to build a product that people can rely on and trust will always be there for them. We’re not sure how pricing might work, but we do know that we’d like our users to be our customers, not our product. So when we asked survey participants whether or not they would be willing to pay, we were pleased to see that over 40% said yes.”

Although there’s no confirmation here, that makes it seem like Digg is at least strongly considering charging for Digg Reader. And if that’s the case, and it’s not even its own standalone app, is Digg just trying to charge people to use Digg?

Anyway, McLaughlin confirmed that Digg Reader will launch by the end of June, just in time for the Google Reader kill date of July 1st. Hopefully for Digg, that’s not too late. By then, users will have had months to find a replacement, and there are certainly plenty out there.

Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch are continuing the apology tour, once again telling those angered by comments from CEO Mike Jeffries that they’re sorry for any offense they caused.

Earlier this month, comments made by Jeffries during a a 2006 interview with Salon surfaced, and they hit with a thud. Jeffries said that yes, his store is exclusionary, and implied that their clothes aren’t for unattractive people.

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely….”That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” he said.

That sparked a massive backlash, and the company was forced to apologize.

Last week, Jeffries posted a note to Abercombie’s Facebook page:

I want to address some of my comments that have been circulating from a 2006 interview. While I believe this 7 year old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context, I sincerely regret that my choice of words was interpreted in a manner that has caused offense. A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers. However, we care about the broader communities in which we operate and are strongly committed to diversity and inclusion. We hire good people who share these values. We are completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics.

And now, the company has apologized again.

“We look forward to continuing this dialogue and taking concrete steps to demonstrate our commitment to anti-bullying in addition to our ongoing support of diversity and inclusion. We want to reiterate that we sincerely regret and apologize for any offense caused by comments we have made in the past which are contrary to these values,” said the company after a meeting with protesters at their Columbus, Ohio headquarters.

When controversy like this strikes a major company, apologies don’t hurt. But can they repair their image and make thing right with those who feel that message hurts people? That remains to be seen. What do you think?

Even the president of the United States can’t keep his prom photos a secret.

Not that he’d want to – a white jacket and a blue tie is a good look for President Obama. But still, come on, right?

The photos come from a former classmate, Kelli Allman, who attended Punahou School in Hawaii with the President back in 1979. TIME Magazine originally obtained the photos.

Allman’s yearbook also contains a note from Obama (then Barry Obama), which reads:

Kelli,

It has been so nice getting to know you this year. You are extremely sweet and foxy. I don’t know why Greg would want to spend any time with me at all! You really deserve better than clowns like us; you even laugh at my jokes! I hope we can keep in touch this summer, even though Greg will be gone. Call me up, and I’ll buy you lunch sometimes. Anyway, good luck in everything you do and stay happy.

Your Friend,
Barry Obama

“Greg” refers to Greg Orme, a basketball player and Obama’s close friend at the time.

As to what happened at the prom:

“It was a really fun, happy time. We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling,” said Allman. “It was pretty typical from there out as far as what happens at prom: the dinner and the dancing and the photos.”

Earlier this week, YouTube turned 8 years old. Feel old, don’t you? Me too. In one way, it’s hard to imagine a world without it, but on the other hand I can still remember when it was just starting to grow in popularity. Ah, to be young again…

In that time, there have been a lot of viral hits. So many that you probably forgot about some of the early ones. Thankfully, there’s now a song based of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to help you remember the past 8 years in viral madness.

Check out “We Didn’t Start the Viral” below:

[Dane Boe]

“Get Lucky,” the lead single off of Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories is awesome in a funky kind of way. I mean that Nile Rodgers riff, right? In fact, the whole album is awesome – but that’s another article/possible argument.

Soul Train in the 70s was also awesome. And what do you know, the two make a perfect match. Best mashup you’ll see this week, by far. Here’s DAFT TRAIN:

Earlier this month, a 33-year-old man was shot dead in his car while traveling southbound on I-95 near Oakland Park, Florida. After the shots were fired, Nicholas Romondo Walker’s silver Buick crashed into a guardrail and burst into flames. The incident shut down traffic on the interstate for nearly 4 hours.

Now, some interesting details have emerged surrounding the incident, the suspects, and the events leading up to the murder – mainly that an ill-timed 911 butt dial led police to one of the men involved.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office says that the man who orchestrated the plot , 24-year-old Scott Simon, has been arrested and charged with first degree murder after he pocket-dialed 911 just moments before the fatal shooting occurred. They believe that the plot was hatched after the men got into a fight at a Waffle House.

“On a recorded line, Scott Simon can be heard telling someone else that he’s going to follow the victim home and kill him. Minutes later, 33-year-old Nicholas Walker was shot and killed while driving his car onto the highway,” said the Sheriff’s office in a release.

Authorities do not think that Simon actually pulled the trigger, so they are still searching for two other suspects in the case.

This isn’t the first time that a butt dial to 911 has led to a criminal’s demise. Back in 2011, two men were arrested after one of the made an unknown pocket call to 911 detailing their plot to sell stolen video games at a local exchange store. And last year, a man was arrested after butt dialing 911 during a drug deal.

It looks like the world’s worst superhero, Florida Man, has struck again.

For the past six years, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University has compiled a list of the top 10 new species named in each year. They’ve just released the new list, which features a glow-in-the-dark cockroach, and carnivorous sponge, and a blue-bottomed monkey.

But about those glowing roaches – Lucihormetica luckae, country of origin Ecuador. The first luminescent cockroach was discovered in 1999, and since then over a dozen similar species have been found. This new glowing cockroach is special, however:

“This cockroach is known from a single specimen collected 70 years ago from an area heavily impacted by the eruption of the Tungurahua volcano. The species may be most remarkable because the size and placement of its lamps suggest that it is using light to mimic toxic luminescent click beetles,” says LiveScience.

Other species named to the list?

• Lilliputian Violet, a tiny Peruvian flower.
• Lyre Sponge, a plankton-eating deep-water sponge
• Lesula Monkey,  blut-butted old-world monkey

Of the nearly 9 million (debated) species in the world, these are some the best discoveries to finally be named by scientists. Over 140 new species were whittled down to 10.

“For decades, we have averaged 18,000 species discoveries per year which seemed reasonable before the biodiversity crisis. Now, knowing that millions of species may not survive the 21st century, it is time to pick up the pace,” Quentin Wheeler, director of the Institute at ASU, said in a statement. “We are calling for a NASA-like mission to discover 10 million species in the next 50 years.”

[Image via LiveScience]

Kmart is killing it with the ads as of late. Last month, the retailer came out of left field and dropped a contender for funniest ad of year with “Ship My Pants.”

Like that ad, Kmart’s new ad “Big Gas Saving” makes use of a language trick to make the innocent sound a bit salty. Man, those sure are some big gas savings.

The “Ship My Pants” ad currently boasts over 17.3 million views on YouTube. I think you can call that a massive success for any ad. With the new spot, Kmart has created another winner.

Check it out:

With “Ship My Pants,” Kmart saw a lot of social media support, mostly thanks a well-advertised Twitter hashtag. This time, people are continuing the trend of hashtagging their delight with the ad:

Kmart is on FIRE!!! RT @matt_fletch: Kmart does it again! This is hilarious. #BigGasSavings ow.ly/lkqkU

— Matthew James Morgan (@MattMO2Go) May 23, 2013

Now you’ve really done it. Your big, dumb hands have fumbled your iPhone and it falls, in slow-motion, straight into the pool, toilet, puddle – whatever. Panic turns to helplessness. Your phone is waterlogged.

What do you do? Surround the device with silica gel packets? Throw it in a bag with some rice? HALP.

DryBox says they have the solution. Their patent-pending hyper-drying chamber can completely dry your soaked device in less than thirty minutes, and apparently there’s an 80% success rate in restoring phones to their former glory – as long as the wet phones get inside the DryBox within 36 hours of initial exposure.

“The DryBox Rescue system utilizes a patent-pending drying chamber as part of a process that rapidly removes moisture at the molecular level from small electronic devices…DryBox saves time, money, and frustration.”

As of now, there are only a few DryBox locations where you can take your device – one in Austin, Texas and two in San Antonio. But DryBox wants to rent their devices to stores across the country, in a profit-sharing deal.

[Drybox via Engadget]

Considering the fact that Morgan Freeman’s voice is one of the most soothing sounds that the human ear could ever perceive, it’s not too shocking that he may have put himself to sleep with his internal monologue on live TV.

During an interview with Seattle’s FOX affiliate Q13 news, the 75-year-old actor seemed to have trouble staying awake, as he appeared to doze off a few times in the span of a few minutes.

Freeman and Michael Caine, who had no problem picking up the slack, were there to promote their new film Now You See Me, set to release at the end of May. The crime thriller follows a group of illusionists who use their skills to pull off bank heists during their performances. The film also stars Isla Fisher, Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, and Woody Harrelson.

Check out snoozin’ Morgan below:

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Wednesday night to promote his new book, and the two provided the usual amicable but combative sparring we expect from any O’Reilly-Stewart meeting.

The two wound up talking Fox News, the DOJ’s crackdown on journalists, the IRS scandal, and more. Check out both parts of the extended interview below:

Hey, dads out there: do you ever feel like your kid is getting in the middle of your conversations with your spouse? So much so, that it may as well just be another man in the house instead of your sweet, adorable child?

Here’s what you’re about to see:

“Actual conversations with my 2 year old daughter, as re-enacted by me and another full grown man.”

Creator Matthew Clarke says this is Episode 1, so I’m assuming that means he plans to do an Episode 2 and maybe more beyond that. Good. We’ll we watching.

[via ConvosWith2YrOld, YouTube]

Remember that ad for Apple’s iPad Mini last year that featured the Heart and Soul duet? Sure you do. Well, Microsoft is taking inspiration from it – but not to make their own musical ad, but to bash Apple’s iPad’s lack of real, useful features.

The new ad for Windows 8 is called “Less talking, more doing” and it makes fun of Siri, who is rendered useless.

“Sorry, I don’t update like that,” says Siri. “I’m sorry, I can only do one thing at a time – I guess Powerpoint isn’t one of those things. I guess we should just play chopsticks.”

Ouch. Sick burn, Microsoft.