This nifty graphic playfully suggests how to balance your media intake.

For better or for worse, probably worse, I’m somewhat addicted to Facebook. I probably check it daily – sometimes a few times a day – to see what my friends are up to, to laugh at their witty remarks, to gape at photos of their last vacation, lovely children or pets, you get the picture.

I’ve noted the various scams related to Facebook and Twitter, but never paid them much mind – until this week, when I discovered a couple of Facebook friends had been hacked. Scammers got into their accounts and started IM-ing whichever of their friends were online, claiming they were stuck in London and needed a quick infusion of cash to get home. In both cases, nobody fell for it, but the incidents were embarrassing. They had to explain to business contacts, family and friends that it wasn’t really them, they’re just fine. Facebook suspended their accounts for a day, took them through a security protocol and they reset their passwords.

Even the FCC chairman is not immune from the ignominy.

One article claims that Facebook can’t do much to prevent the hackers. Um, really? Another talks about the social implications of getting hacked.

The first line of defense is knowledge. The more people who learn about this scam, the better to foil the scammers. It does make me wonder why they’re willing to spend so much time hoping for the one or two suckers who fall for it when they might, oh I don’t know, put that time into getting real jobs? Well, I guess it’s the same mentality behind playing the lottery…

Make sure your antivirus software is up to date, change your password often (and make it hard to guess) and follow these guidelines for keeping your time on Facebook as safe as possible. Another good link for Facebook privacy settings.

Imagine that, a website for one-sentence stories. Some of them – the ones that aren’t run-on sentences – are short enough to Twitter.  Who says the novel is dead? Maybe it’s just evolving…into noncommittal fragmented chunks of meaningless prose. Heh.

I can’t call these excerpts because they’re the whole shebang:

Dmac9000:

I wasn’t exactly sure how to take the news that my son was in a championship beer pong tournament.

harriedkarie:

Standing on the steps of the church where they’d just gotten married, my grandparents first heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and realized that they would soon be separated.

If you’re looking for something with staying power, check out Tweet Book - an entire novel written on Twitter.

Update: Here’s a better example from Peter Urpeth. (Thanks for the rec, Rod!)

New Scientist talks about the environmental impact of owning a cat vs. owning different size dogs. Insofar as humans can own animals, of course.

Hamsters are the most eco-friendly pets, apparently, followed by cats, then the VW Golf. Medium-sized dogs, for some reason, are right behind a Toyota Land Cruiser. Go figure that one out.

The calculations take food consumption into consideration. It’s all that meat that Rover eats!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m officially jealous!

This week, anchor/reporter Scott Swan and photographer Steve Rhodes are in Vancouver for the WTHR Olympic pre-trip. Their goal? To gather video for stories that will air during our Olympic coverage in February 2010.

Scott’s been kind enough to update us on his adventures via the Olympic Zone blog. So far, he’s caught a seven-pound salmon (admittedly it looked cold on the boat), taken a ride in a seaplane, visited a resort, ziplined over Vancouver (or something like that – read his blog for details) and today? Apparently skiing on Whistler! (See all of his pix here.)

Speaking as someone who has skiied exactly twice in my life, both painful and embarrassing experiences that I have no wish to revisit, I can say that I don’t really want to ski down a mountain. But the view is pretty amazing, no?

The view from the top of Whistler

Also, our pals at NBC have been sending us all kinds of neat stuff, including this slideshow of 24 Olympic athletes (and their Twitter names).  

Stay tuned for more Olympic fun on Channel 13!

Are you a blogger interested in attending the 2010 Olympic Games? 

One female blogger and one student blogger will be sent to the  2010 Olympic Winter Games as winners of an online contest announced by Microsoft Corp. and the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC).  The winning bloggers will use the latest Microsoft technologies to report daily from the Games alongside members of the credentialed press corps. Qualified bloggers may enter the contest here.

Contestants must be at least 18 years of age and have written a blog for at least three months at time of entry. They must also be United States residents and either a female blogger or a currently enrolled full-time undergraduate or graduate student in good standing at a U.S. college or university. 

- Please note that this is NOT a WTHR contest.

Sometimes it helps to look at funny pictures of cats.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

A military plane was doing a flyover for the Colts preseason game against the Eagles last night – and it apparently alarmed a lot of people who were wondering why a big plane was flying so low over downtown Indy! It was all part of the show for the game…which the Colts won!