When I met Charlie Schmidt, midway through the accidental fame convention, he was at the bottom of a lecture hall, surrounded by a small knot of onlookers. The owner of the most famous cat on the Internet was holding court.

“If you held her and kept moving, she’d go into a stupor,” he was explaining. “But if you held her and didn’t move, she’d bite you.”

What’s iPhone etiquette in a world full of iPhones? Is it possible to produce one at the table without being that guy? I’m here to tell you that it can be done. Consider the four following scenarios…

Virtual goods drive some people nuts. I understand this.
Why, you might ask, would sound-minded citizens spend real money for imaginary items in some Facebook game? Would not that money be better going to something useful, like lunch, or the local orphanage?
Besides, (you might continue) how much real money could one possibly [...]

Just when I thought the golden age of social media nonsense had passed, along comes Stephen Harper.
It’s agenda time in Ottawa. Parliament has returned from that winter break we all heard so much about, and now it’s the season of budgets and throne speeches and responses to throne speeches and whatever it is they do [...]

The first thing to know about Chatroulette – the latest gonzo fixation to sweep the Web – is that it’s not safe for work. It’s not safe for children; it’s not safe for the squeamish; it’s not safe for any purpose. It contains people.

Everybody wants to know what this new Apple iPad means. Is it the salvation of the media? The end of the personal computer? Is it merely the most uncomfortable product name in recent memory? I’m sympathetic to the head-scratching, so I’ll tell you what the iPad means: The iPad means that, within a couple of months, there will be no physical position in which we won’t be able piss away time on the Internet.