2009 Sprocket Awards
The "Sprockie"
It’s time for the 2009 year-end review. And to make this a little easier to digest, I’m giving out fictitious awards to celebrate the best and worst in the world of technology, science and entertainment.
We had some highlights. Twitter somehow became popular, giving rise to yet another way to procrastinate via the Internet. The LHC appears to be moving closer to destroying the universe or giving some scientists new physics to play with. And Saturday Night Live, after almost a decade under the radar, has finally figured out how to be funny again.
Also we have our first black president or something.
We’re also closing out the decade — a decade of nostalgia. Unsure what to actually call the years 2000 to 2009 (the “naughts”? the “zeros”?), we instead looked backwards to reminisce about decades we could actually pronounce. While this will make for some awkward future nostalgia (“Remember how we used to remember about Ninja Turtles?”), we surely welcome 2010. At last we have the “teens”. And yes, I am officially declaring 2010 – 2012 the “teens” as well. I’m not dealing with this crap for another 3 years.
Anyway, without further post padding, the 2009 Sprocket Awards.
Rupert Murdoch to Internet: “Get Off My Lawn”
Show of hands: Who doesn't understand Google?
To get everyone up to speed, Rupert Murdoch is the News Corporation CEO and owner of such fine news media outlets as Fox News, the Sun, and the Times. (By the way, the Internet needs a universally agreed upon “sarcasm” formatting.)
In recent weeks, Murdoch has begun to lay out plans to remove much of his News Corp content from the eyes of popular search engines. Claiming that sites like Google “steal” his material, Murdoch plans to implement a giant “paywall” around his news empire, forcing users to pay a subscription fee in order to view his content.
After announcing this, every tech blog and social media site went berserk with laughter, with Twitter founder Biz Stone predicting Murdoch’s plan to “fail fast”.
I, for one, cannot wait to see this grumpy old man fight the Internet. To me, Rupert Murdoch is the 12:00-flashing VCR of the 21st century.
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