Web Monitor
16:01 UK time, Monday, 18 May 2009
A celebration of the riches of the web.
Web Monitor is tirelessly clicking on every link and viral video all to sort the wheat (links below) from the chaff (cat videos). Make sure you share your best links with us by either sending us a comment via the box to the right of this page or recommending them to us on where we're called "bbcwebmonitor".
• Eminem is releasing his comeback album so in the Observer where he's been for the last five years - it turns out he's been dealing with a drug problem and can't really remember the last four years:
"The problem was, as I'm going to be explaining over and over again for a while, is that I had a pretty bad drug problem. I was messing with Valium, Vicodin, Ambien and anything to [help me to] sleep. Basically I'd take Vicodin to get me through my day."
• Leslie H. Gelb has written a book about how to think about and use power in the 21st Century. Sadly for his wallet, it isn't a bestseller. , which he lists in the Daily Beast. Essentially, he says, if you want to be famous, it's better to be wrong (of course he is not famous - that's because he's right) and lists authors of bestsellers that he thinks are wrong.
• The latest MPs expenses outcry on YouTube is a replacing celebrities, proclaiming 'Remember, a Member of Parliament escapes poverty with our help'. The that the lack of Tory MPs is down to a lack of suitable images.
• Magicians that their show is getting political. Their main campaign is against airport security which they highlight with a trick: Teller sneaks a metal pan which is on fire through a metal detector followed by a fire extinguisher. However, they don't want stricter controls:
"We're just against the idea of people allowing themselves to give up freedoms when confronted with fear... The point we're making is that if two goofball magicians can slip this stuff by with full lights shining on them and the full attention of the audience, then what could a really bad person do?"
• What has self-control got to do with marshmallows? started with an eager interest with his children's friends' ability to avoid eating marshmallows, reports the New Yorker. It seemed the kids who could put off eating a marshmallow did better in exams. But Mischel argues it's not so much intelligence leading to the wisdom to exercise self-control as intelligence being at the mercy of self control: even the smartest kids still need to do their homework. This leaves only one question - are marshmallows really that irresistible?
• The New Scientist reports a revolutionary idea - asking directions when you're lost. Their video shows a a city without using GPS or even a map. Instead, it just asks pedestrians to give it directions.
• The a day doesn't necessarily mean living hand-to-mouth. Instead, they report, a sophisticated array of savings and loans are used to equal out the bad from the good days. However, negative interest on savings are also the norm in some places.
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