Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO. Photocredit: Robert Scoble http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/5179395448/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Facebook, the now ubiquitous social networking site founded by Mark Zuckerberg, is all set for its long-rumoured Initial Public Offering Wednesday.

The website, reported The Daily Telegraph, has garnered 800 million users in less than a decade – and has also come up against controversy with regard to its privacy policies. The IPO, allowing shares of Facebook to be publicly traded, would mean the site could raise up to $10 billion, although other figures set it at closer to $5 billion. The company itself could be valued at $100 billion — making it the biggest social media IPO ever. And at least one person will be happy (apart from Zuckerberg): Bono, the Irish musician, who is an investor in a venture capital firm that has a 1.5 percent stake in the company.

Morgan Stanley and four others will handle the IPO, reported Reuters. Morgan Stanley has experience in the field, helping GroupOn and Zynga onto the market – enabling it to pip Goldman Sachs to the post for the coveted “lead-left” position.

Commentators are in a frenzy of speculation: some say that the firm will go nuclear; others that it will have to justify itself more under the public scrutiny. Still others are fearful for users’ privacy. One or two find the whole thing decidedly dull – but they’re in the minority.

“Pandemonium is what I expect in terms of demand for this stock,” says Scott Sweet, senior managing partner at IPO Boutique, an advisory fir, told Boston.com. “I don’t think Wall Street would want to anger Facebook users.”

Closer scrutiny. Whilst Zuckerberg will get a paper profit of several billion, said Richard Blackden on The Daily Telegraph, it will also mean that he’ll have to make sure Facebook meets Wall Street’s “expectations.” How it makes money out of its users will be put under ever closer scrutiny, and whilst investors are seeing more money put into online advertising, analysts say that it will put more pressure on the site, since it needs to weigh raising its advertising revenues against putting off its users. Mashable broke down the figures in a series of graphs; TechCrunch argued that stockholders will want faster returns, whereas Facebook has always worked longer term.

Should users be worried? Some analysts say that there will be more demand for the explotation of user data, which could lead to more privacy concerns, said Jeff MacArthur, the co-founder of MGImedia.ca, a social media consulting firm, quoted on The Chronicle Herald. A professor of media arts on the same site said that Facebook’s layout is unlikely to change – “in the short term” – but there will be “more targeted advertising.”

Where’s the money? Let’s put those numbers into perspective, said Dominic Basulto on The Washington Post. When Google went public, it raised $1.9 billion from investors, with a valuation of $23 billion. Google’s now worht $185 billion – so if you invested in it at the IPO, it would be worth ten times as much. Facebook’s $100 billion valuation is not set in stone – others estimate it at $75 billion. Facebook says it’s making its money by advertising – but this isn’t what Wall Street wants – “Advertising and page views have a way of drying up over time.” Wall Street wants a way of “monetizing” those 800 million users. The real money comes in apps and gaming platforms.

Is it all pie in the sky? Look at Zynga and GroupOn, said Paul Carr on The Guardian. Zynga’s consistently traded below its $10 offer price – because “the market simply wasn’t sure how long the world will continue to buy imaginary tractors to tend digital crops.” And groupon was initially priced at $20 a share – but is now at $19.6. So will Facebook “crash and burn?” The answer is “probably not.” There isn’t “much chance” of it “going out of fashion.” Despite many people saying that it’s “over”, it “stubbornly refuses to become unpopular.” Whilst many people are set to get very rich over this, “for the rest of us there’s likely to be only one surprising thing about Facebook’s IPO. And that’s just how dull a $100 billion flotation can be.”

More on the internet

• Google’s new privacy policy
• Google shares plummet
• The SOPA/PIPA protest: Who’s for the legislation
• Google punishes self over link…
• It’s time to boycott Google

Trampolining. Photo credit: lori.e.burleson

“Part gymnastics, part parkour, it is a nascent sport that has few participants — they call themselves bouncers — and a rule book that is still being written,” reported The New York Times, which noted that “building an extreme sport from scratch is no easy task.” The newspaper reported that Roberge and his fellow bouncers aim to get wall trampolining into the extreme games and flagged up just how dangerous the acrobatic daredevilism is: “As any sport that requires daring midair gymnastics, injuries are common. The slightest misjudgment of distance can cause a bouncer to miss the trampoline. Roberge has broken bones and sustained numerous sprains. Two years ago, a fall left him with eight screws and a plate in his right ankle, which is still swollen.”

Jerry Yang, Yahoo's founder. Photocredit: http://fr.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3972517107

Yahoo!’s co-founder Jerry Yang has left the company and its Asian partners, continuing the upheaval at the internet company’s boardroom.

The company’s shares rose 3 percent on the news and reaction to his resignation has largely been positive. Yahoo! is currently valued at $720 million, and Yang owns a 3.6 per cent stake in it. Yang helped start the web portal, search engine and email service in 1994 with David Filo, a fellow Stanford University graduate; but the question is now: Did he jump or was he pushed?

(Interestingly, Periscope has learnt, the company was named not after the exclamation used by cowboys, but after the brutish characters in Jonathan Swift’s satire Gulliver’s Travels, since Yang and Filo considered themselves as such.)

“My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future,” wrote Jerry Yang in his leaving statement. In the same statement, Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock called Yang a “visionary and a pioneer.”

Jumped or pushed? Whether shareholders have forced him to do so or whether he went of his own accord is unclear, although Kara Swisher on AllThings D said that he “jumped, even though being pushed was surely looking on the horizon.” Four more board members will be following him out of the door.

Out with the old. Analysts, said The Financial Times, say this will “leave the way clear for Scott Thompson,” the new chief executive. It’s also possible that there will be “a broader boardroom overhaul”, with even Bostock leaving. Some analysts say that Yang was happier thinking about his own influence over Yahoo! than about the interests of shareholders – which is why he turned down the takeover offered by Microsoft.

The spectre of the past. It must have been hard to leave, said Mercury News. Yang’s tale is both “inspiring and cautionary.” The cautionary bit is that sometimes a CEO doesn’t know when the right time to move on is. The inspiring bit is that Yang and Filo made “sense of the chaos of cyberspace.” It’s unfortunate that the spectre of the Microsoft deal will always hang over him.

Removing barriers. In terms of business, his exit will get rid of barriers in finding a buyer for a take in Yahoo’s Asian assets, suggested Business Week. Scott Thompson will be able to “unwind the company’s part-ownership of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.”, and will thus be able to mount a more “credible threat” to Google and Facebook in terms of advertising. Yang was seen as a barrier to change. Yahoo’s actually “the most popular US Web portal.”

Time for a change? Dan Primack on his Fortune blog wondered whether now Yahoo! might consider being picked up by a rival, or by private equity investors.

Yes indeed. Yahoo! doesn’t know “what it does or what it’s about,” tutted Molly McHugh on DigitalTrends.  It’s cut jobs, and there have been “disappointing returns” on investments. Remember, though, that the rest of Yahoo’s board “was reluctant to a sale.” It’s probably best now to sell off as much as possible, and make as much profit as possible. Look at the share price rise – investors certainly think so.

More on the internets

• It’s time to boycott Google 
• One in five women check their partner’s email
• Facebook profits soar

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. Photo credit: William Brawley

Wikipedia has chosen to blackout the English version of the hugely popular site for the whole of January 18 in protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate.

“If passed,” said a Wikipedia statement, “this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States.” The legislation would allow the US Justice Department and content producers to seek courts orders that would force search engines to bar results associated with pirated content.

The online encyclopedia is the sixth most popular site on the internet, handling 234 million page views each day on the English edition. Similar blackouts are planned by other websites including Reddit, the popular news sharing site, and the Cheezburger websites, which attract 16.5 million visitors a month to look at funny cat videos and photos, reported The Guardian. Other tech leaders were less enamored of Wikipedia’s move. In a tweet, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo called Wikipedia’s plans to pull the plug on its website “foolish” and “silly”; Twitter will not be going dark.

Wikipedia’s decision means the site’s millions of visitors will, on Wednesday, be greeted not with the usual digital treasure trove of mostly accurate knowledge, but with a screen explaining the company’s stance on the bill and information on how to take action against SOPA.

“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition to this destructive legislation”, said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. “This is an extraordinary action for our community to take – and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world.”

SOPA battle heating up. Dominic Rushe at The Guardian reported on how Wikipedia came to their decision: “Wikimedia, the foundation behind the site, discussed the move with ‘Wikipedians’ – the authors of its entries – and the company said the majority favored action.” Rushe predicted Wikipedia’s blackout will up the ante: “So far, the Sopa battle has been largely fought out in the tech, media, and business pages. All that could change Wednesday when Wikipedia goes dark.”

“I’m with @jimmy_wales on SOPA (it would affect Britain), Worth letting Twitter boss @dickc know your views”, advised Labour MP Tom Watson on Twitter.

Alerting passive users. Dino Grandoni of The Atlantic Wire supported Wikipedia’s bold move and said it will bring much-needed attention to the problems posed by the “much-maligned internet censorship bill.” “Unlike Reddit users, who you’d expect to be anti-SOPA partisans anyways, a Wikipedia blackout will make site’s more passive users very aware of the bill’s existence when they lose access to that repertoire of knowledge that is Wikipedia”, forecast Grandoni.

World without Wikipedia. Snarky website Gawker drew up a humorous “how to exploit Wikipedia’s shutdown” guide – “a day without Wikipedia sounds terrifying and exhilarating all at once … The right question is, ‘what won’t we do without it:’” Gawker advised readers to lie to their friends – “you will be able to make up so much shit Wednesday” – warned students not to rely on Wikipedia on Wednesday, and urged mischief-makers to “send enemies to Wikileaks and/or Enyclopedia Dramatica. They’re sorta like Wikipedia, except you can get in trouble for viewing them at work.”

“Student warning! Do your homework early”, joked Wales in a tweet. “Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!”

Murdoch backs SOPA. Mashable reported that Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation and never one scared to swim against the tide of public opinion, went on a Twitter diatribe lambasting the Obama administration for failing to support SOPA.

More in tech

• iPad3: The rumours
• The year’s most talked about gadgets
• Apple to launch smaller iPad. Maybe.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il

Buzzfeed rounded up some of the titles that were ascribed to him by foreign leaders (according to North Korea). This is one of them.

A reference to North Korean state media claim that Kim Jong-il's once hit 11 hole-in-one on one round of golf

Can’t get enough of the Kim family? Here’s Periscope’s round-up of strangest ‘facts’ about the late Kim Jong-Il.

Scenes of ordinary North Koreans weeping and wailing in mourning have appeared on state TV

Kim Jong-un has been made fun of for his ample girth

More on North and South Korea

• North Korean leader Kim Jong-il dead at 69, Pyongyang mourns, South Korea on military alert
• Kim Jong-il’s weird, wacky life
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• North Korea: Strong and weak

A Manning supporter in action. Photo credit: San Diego Shooter

The trial of ex-Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who is in court facing charges of leaking 150,000 State Department cables to WikiLeaks, has been spiced up by claims that the 23-year-old alleged leaker was perhaps better connected to the Washington D.C. gay establishment than was previously thought.

The ongoing military hearing at Maryland’s Fort Meade will determine whether Manning will be court-martialed on 22 counts of aiding the enemy, illegally sharing tens of thousands of classified government secrets, and other alleged crimes. He has already faced 18 months in pre-trial incarceration.

Self-styled hacktivist organisation Anonymous have leapt to the virtual defence of Bradley Manning. They have launched Operation Manning in support of the man they consider a hero.

‘Gay soldier’ defence tactic. Ellen Nakashima and Julie Tate of The Washington Post assessed Manning’s defence team’s so-called “gay soldier” defence. They summarized the defence’s portrayal of Manning as “a deeply troubled soldier struggling with issues of gender identity whose alleged leaking of classified material to WikiLeaks could have been prevented by superiors.” “By airing superiors’ failure to address Manning’s personal issues, the defense team is ‘trying to discover all the failures of the chain of command which would help them in setting up the mitigation argument for the sentencing portion of the proceeding,’ said David D. Velloney, a military law expert at Regent University School of Law. But they probably would not suffice to beat the charges, Velloney said.”

Did a White House media man (really) try and bed Manning? Manning’s most explosive claim, which was examined in detail by Adrian Chen of Gawker, is that White House Director of Specialty Media Shin Inouye tried to sleep with him around the time he allegedly leaked to WikiLeaks. Inouye was appointed by President Barack Obama in to handle official communication with “specialty media outlets” including those representing the LGBT, Native American, and veterans and military family communities. “He’s a friend of mine”, Manning wrote of Inouye in an August 2009 chat with the transgender blogger Zinnia Jones. “White House contact (he’s tried to sleep with me, uggh)”, reported Chen. Blogger Jones provided the chat logs to New York magazine for a July profile of Manning, which published a redacted version of the logs with the reference to Inouye deleted, noted Gawker. Manning again mentioned Inouye in a chat with Adrian Lamo, the ex-hacker who would ultimately turn him into the authorities. This time he offered a hint of an official reason behind their connection: Manning wrote that Inouye was one of his “sources” in the White House keeping him abreast of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “and the disaster that keeps going on with that”, according to logs published by Wired. These suggestions that Manning might have been given sensitive government information by an admirer have trial watchers on the edge of their seats as the case unfolds.

Who is Bradley Manning? Gawker said Manning’s “self-portrait” as “a cunning sexual strategist, screwing and seducing his way to influence among D.C.’s quasi-closeted military and political scene” “contrasts wildly with the mentally-disturbed, bullied and lonely Manning suggested by psychologists and military incident reports – one his attorney seems prepared to play up in his defense.” “Strangely, Manning’s connection to the D.C. gay establishment, not to mention the White House, has been glossed over”, insisted Gawker. “This is certainly a relief to any influencers he knew—or “knew”—during his time on the scene but obscures the whole story of America’s Public Enemy Number One. Manning wasn’t just an desperate, attention-seeking soldier. He was also a young gay man with an activist bent, a presence at rallies and fundraisers, and, if his boasts are to be believed, a friend in the White House.”

More on Julian Assange, Wikileaks

• WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange avoids extradition for now, wins right to petition UK Supreme Court
• Assange and the suspension of WikiLeaks
• Assange shows up at Occupy London

Badoo: Facebook for sex?

Badoo, a dating website based in London’s Silicon Roundabout, has 400 employees, and has reached 130 million users in 180 countries, which brings it into the top four social networks in the world. It brings in $100 million a year, according to TechCrunch. Badoo’s London site is owned by Andrey Andreev, a Russian entrepeneur. But is it just Facebook for sex? It’s meant to be a place to “chat, flirt, socialise and have fun”, but, according to The Huffington Post, a third of the site’s million British users admit to using it to find – well, sexual partners. It has 125,000 new users a day, and over seven billion monthly page views.

It may be coming up the outside track to Facebook – but is the social networking site losing users anyway? It’s about to make its much-vaunted initial public offering, and has 800 million members around the world, with about 200 million in the United States. So should the now-venerable social networking site be looking to its laurels? Will the thrusting young blade Badoo be knocking Mark Zuckerburg’s featherd hat off? We shall see, we shall see … Commentators are roundly praising Badoo, and whilst there are signs that some people may be leaving Facebook, it’s best to bear in mind that it still has the largest slice of the internet social network pie. By a long, long way.

Global reach. What’s so good about Badoo, said Josh Constine on TechCrunch, is that the site adapts itself to its locality – so in the UK, it’s for “casual dating”, in the Czech Republic “it’s a marriage site, and in Indonesia burqa-clad women find self-expression.” Rather than trying to be Facebook, it focused on “helping strangers connect.” It uses “micropayments”, and subscriptions to “special features”, so you can see who’s viewed your profile. It’s a “sensible path to monetization” – “give away the core functionality, take serious funding”, and “get users hooked”, then “upsell them on perks.”

Free stuff! It’s the free features that do it, said Mashable. “Ice Breaker” means you can start conversations; “Interests” means you can leave things you actually do – rather than “pre-defined ones” that other dating sites use.

Get out of the way, Facebook! Facebook may be downsizing, anyway – when Tyson Balcomb, reported Jenna Wortham on The New York Times, had a chance encounter with a woman in a lift – and found that he knew a lot about her having never met her – he thought “ ‘maybe this is a little unhealthy.’” Some, though, are refusing to join in – “including people who have given it a try.” Some say it even alienates them. Facebook, whilst accepting that some people won’t ever join up, is trying to make established users stay on the site longer – and is growing in places such as “Asia and Latin America.” Whilst Facebook grew 56 percent from October 2009 to October 2010, it only grew ten percent from then to this year.  Facebook holdouts report that their lives are going on pretty much as they did before.

“Our goal is to offer people a meaningful, fun and free way to connect with their friends, and we hope that’s appealing to a broad audience”, said Jonathan Thaw, a Facebook spokesman, quoted on The New York Times

“If I want to see my fifth cousin’s second baby, I’ll call them”, said Erika Gable, a PR worker, quoted on The New York Times.

Yeah, you’re so not cool! Adam Clark Estes on The Atlantic Wire put it pretty succinctly. He said “To wear out that worn out Social Network quote a bit more: Joining Facebook isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Quitting Facebook.”

More on the interweb

• What we’ve learned about Mark Zuckerberg this week
• Facebook reaches settlement with FTC
• Facebook to Float?
• Facebook flooded with porn

Google: An index-card system with ideas above its station.

Oh how quickly we were taken in. I remember it so well, the first, glorious days of the Interweb. Nobody really knew what it was, or what it was for, or how exactly it would make our lives better; but it was there, and suddenly, like the flu in Contagion, everyone had it. But how to navigate around this brave new e-world?

There was the lovely AskJeeves – how I miss him! There was Yahoo, and Lycos, and … something called Google. Oh how we loved Google. Think of the sound of the word! At once it combines uber-geek-cheek (never forget, it comes from the word googolplex) and the sort of bewildering coolness that shows you are up to the minute whilst everyone else isn’t; it also sounds like a baby gurgling, which fitted in perfectly with the youthwards bent of this new experiment. Its logo was as multi-coloured, for heavens’ sake, as the toys we have as a baby. And  because of its fiendishly complicated algorithm, it searched the web much more effectively and much more efficiently than poor old Jeeves, or Lycos, or Yahoo. So it won. If internet search engines were animals, it would be the aggressive, dominating grey squirrel; the other, sweeter, statelier engines gave way, like the nimble red, until they clung on only in a few remote outposts, curiosities for tourists to laugh at.

Like moths to a multi-coloured flame, we dipped our sweaty fingers into Google’s enticing fire. We couldn’t see the darkness beyond it. How did we know that an indexing system would take over our lives? That an advanced form of Dewey’s Cataloguing system would know more about us than our mothers?  Imagine if the filing cabinet in the library mutated. Imagine, when you went to look for a copy of a novel you hadn’t read yet, if it suddenly sputtered into life. Imagine if it knew everything about you – what you’d just read, even what you hadn’t read but wanted to; what you preferred searching for, what you preferred hidden; what you feared, what you secretly loved, what you were embarrassed about. You’d never go back, would you? It’s a freaking filing cabinet!

Like moths to a multi-coloured flame, we dipped our sweaty fingers into Google’s enticing fire.

The specific spur for this view – although it has been building up for a long time –  is Google’s new adverts. They are on the tube, in magazines, and they are more sinister than anything the most fascist of regimes could ever come up with. Continuing the theme of infantilisation, they show cheerful, brightly coloured people getting into what are supposedly ridiculous situations. One shows a man in London, knee-deep in water, calling a plumber in New York. Quite why anybody would do this, unless they had recently had their brain removed and replaced with sawdust and expectorated bits of Larry Page’s lunch, is beyond me. Google seem to think it’s plausible, believing that if they know where you and your computer are, you will be able to  avoid such disasters. Well, Google, I think you’ll find that most people know where they live. I’m sure that even Osama bin Laden, when he was hiding in his Pakistani safe house and the washing machine broke, knew where the nearest plumber was and didn’t accidentally call the one that serviced the White House.

The adverts also try to justify the increasingly creepy way that Google tailors its responses to searches. The idea is that if it “knows” your preferences, it can help you more. It gives the following example: imagine you are searching for “drive”, and instead of getting golf clubs, you get – cars! If that happened to me, I know I’d blow a gasket. Google are saying that if you’ve searched for golf clubs recently, then it will guess that with the word “drive” you’re actually thinking about golf. I have one question for you Google – what if I was actually thinking about cars, you insane, corporate, cultish muppets?

Lets take this to its logical conclusion. Imagine I have an eating disorder and I order too much food online. Google will then only show me the fattiest, most junky restaurants. If I am interested in anorexia, then it will only show me pages about that. The whole idea is so deadening and sickening that it’s almost worse than the opposite –  if Google decided to utilised its morass of information for didactic purposes, and ushered fat people onto diet pages, anorexics onto clinics. Where does that end?  Now that’s a whole other kettle of fish, and it makes me decidedly worried.

Google thinks we are mindless, drooling drones who are not even capable of typing an entire phrase into a search engine, because presumably we are too fat or lazy or stupid. It thinks that we are bound by what we have previously searched for. It thinks that we are children – and not even particularly inquisitive children, at that. I’m glad that Google Plus has been such a massive failure. If I log out of Google Mail on my iPhone, a bossy message comes up telling me to give my location and details so I can join Google Plus. I don’t want to join Google Plus. I don’t want to be told what to do by a machine.

I don’t want to join Google Plus. I don’t want to be told what to do by a machine.

All we need is an efficient method of searching for information. But the danger is that this filing cabinet of index cards is becoming more than what it actually is, than what its actual function is. If the thing that you use to search becomes more important than what you are searching for, then things are really getting out of hand. I think it’s time to take  a stand. Google’s time will come. Don’t forget, it arrived very recently; and it, like many other things, will fade. Who’s to say we’ll even be using computers as they are in 20 years’ time? Forget it. Go back to AskJeeves. Hell, even try Bing. Or maybe even go back to the filing cabinet. We should remember that all Google is, is a search engine. No more, no less. It’s time to boycott Google entirely.

Look closely at the screen. Has this guy been sleep texting? Photocredit: clurr http://www.flickr.com/photos/clurr/3129333360/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Sleep texting is on the rise, apparently. Many are reporting that they send texts whilst slumbering. Jessica Castilio, a twenty-four year old from Texas, apparently managed to ping off two messages to her boyfriend whilst in the land of nod – a feat requiring no less than 11 different stages, and that’s not excluding the typing, reported The Daily Telegraph. But do we really do it? Unsurprisingly, there have been no studies into the phenomenon, although The Daily Mirror reports that a woman sent 44 emails in her sleep in 2008. Let’s hope that the chap with the smartphone in his arm isn’t afflicted.

Not sure about this one. Dr Ron Kramer, quoted by The Daily Telegraph, non-committally stated that texting had become “ingrained” in the younger generation.

Some sensible advice. Dr David Cunnington, quoted in The Daily Mirror, advised, sensibly, that the best way to avoid it was to leave your phone out of your bedroom at night. He’s from the Melbourne Sleep Disorder Centre in Australia, so you’d better listen to him, is Periscope’s advice.

“[W]hen you send a text to someone while your either sleepy, awoken from sleep, or just plain not paying attention, and it makes absolutly no sense what so ever.
Erik: Hey man, you going to that party this weekend?

Zach: No man, I don’t want a chocolate sunday.

Erik: Wtf?

Zach: Oh sorry man. I fell asleep last night. I must have been sleep texting you XD.” The definition of sleep texting, on UrbanDictionary.

iOCD? Bryony Gordon in The Daily Telegraph suggested that it would be “irresponsible” to suggest that “alcohol” might be a factor in the phenomenon – so she didn’t. It’s a “First World” problem, affecting only “the pampered middle classes.” Other such problems include “THROPH” – “Tesco Has Run Out Of Plain Hummus syndrome”, which results in people looking “green around the gills” at having to resort to “sour cream and chive.” There’s an increase, too, in sufferers of “iOCD”, a “crippling condition” that leads to people behaving “obsessively and irrationally” when it comes to things made by Apple. Don’t approach them if you see them installing a new operating system on their Macs, whatever you do.

Nah, it’s just the weed. It’s more likely “vodka, pot, and excessive pasta” that are to blame, said Chris Matyszczyk on Cnet. Although we should study these messages, to see if they reveal anything about our subconscious selves. Though they might seem incoherent, they might actually be “cries for help.” We should get cracking on decoding them – it could be a revolution in human communication.

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Just ask Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis Police Department. On 18 November 2011 a group of students at the University of California Davis campus held an Occupy protest, during which they formed a human chain by linking their arms together. When they refused to comply with the police request to leave, Pike and another officer walked across the group, administering orange pepper spray straight down the line of unmoving students. A video of him casually going about his business (despite screams of ‘shame on you’ and ‘who do you serve?’ from the angry crowd) has enraged watchers. “The worst part of this video, taken at UC Davis yesterday during what sounds like a brutal police action against protesters during an eviction of the university’s occupation camp, is how casual the cop is: like a gardener using pesticide”, adjudged Gawker, which invited its readers to email Davis (at japikeiii@ucdavis.edu) “to let him know what you think of his actions.”

UCD Police Chief Annette Spicuzza told the Davis Enterprise that she’s “very proud” of her officers actions. But the internet has turned on Pike and ridiculed him tirelessly. There are now thousands of Pike memes doing the rounds. Here are the pick of the pepper spray cop memes, as selected by Periscope.

There’s a Tumblr blog with plenty more pepper spray cop memes if you want more.

More on Occupy

• Occupy Wall Street: Day of Action
• Is this the end for Occupy Wall Street?
• Occupy protesters evicted
• Occupy Oakland evicted
• St Paul’s implodes after OLSX