500 million and rising also makes it clear to anyone not paying attention that Facebook is no fad and that it is a cultural force shaping our collective culture. Even if you have no desire to ever set up a profile, you can’t ignore it and you are now oddly defined in the negative and left out of the zeitgeist.

A service of that size won’t disappear anytime soon, even if Facebook has hit its plateau in the U.S. But net users are fickle and the web’s short history includes dozens of sites that were once high-flying that have either since died (Geocities), lost their luster (Yahoo) or faded into irrelevance (Friendster).

So how could Facebook lose its place at the center of the web?

Which of Mickey Rourke’s Recent Female Co-stars ‘Shits Herself’ When Cameras Roll? — Vulture.

Facebook had a master password that allowed employees to access any account and still records far more information about how you use the site than you’d assume, according to a new interview with a Facebook insider.

American blog, The Rumpus, has published an interview with someone it claims is a current Facebook employee. The biggest revelations: there was once a master password that would access any profile and Facebook records which profiles you visit most (essentially a stalking count) amongst many other bits of data.

The alleged employee says a master password once allowed Facebook employees to access any account. The password was apparently a variation on ‘Chuck Norris’ and was used for engineering purposes but other employees were aware of it. Most interestingly, the interviewee claims that misuse of the password led to two Facebook employees being fired.

Though the master password is apparently no longer in use, the interviewee claims that employees can simply query Facebook’s back-end database to look at private information. They also claim that there is a specilaised tool to access specific profiles but that Facebook requires a reason to use it and employees can be sacked for misusing it.

The interview also claims the social network records every element of your activity on the site. That goes beyond messages you write and receive to how many times you click on a particular profile, which photos you view, who has tagged you most in photos and notes. The information is apparently behind a recent change that now shows your best friends first in a search rather than simply an alphabetical list.

Facebook gave a statement to Techcrunch pouring scorn on the interview: “This piece contains the kind of inaccuracies and misinterpretations you would expect from something sourced ‘anonymously’ and we’ll leave it at that.”

However, it’s clear that Facebook is able to access profile information when it needs to, for instance to help police with their investigations, so the existence of a master password or tool for accessing private information is not so far fetched.

Does this interview suggest that one employee has simply misinterpreted Mark Zuckerberg’s call for a less private, more open world? We suspect he didn’t mean spilling all of Facebook’s secrets, whatever he’s done with his own profile.

Out now | £free | Facebook (via The Rumpus/Techcrunch)

Photograph by Gregg Segal

Andrea Wong steals a show? Noooo. I can’t believe it! Fast Company’s Danielle Sacks gives us the scoop: http://preview.tinyurl.com/ly85j5

Watson graced the red carpet in a split front flowing gown and parasol on July 7.  The event was moving along as planned until Watson greeted one fan at the same time the front of her dress parted to reveal her underwear.

David Letterman had some fun at Emma’s expense, revealing photos on his late night talk show while encouraging her to discuss the matter.  She remarked, “At least I was wearing underwear.”  She then put her face in her hands and muttered, “I’m still learning this stuff.”

View David Letterman video (7 minute mark on slider) below.

by Scott Carmichael on Jul 3rd 2009 at 11:00AM

silicon breast explodes

Apparently, one of her size F silicone implants had ruptured.

Doctors were quick to point out that the plane may not have been the main reason for the damage, but that the pressure difference could have accelerated an existing defect in the silicone product.

She is out of danger now, but is stuck in bed for at least a week. Doctors explained that she won’t be able to have the breast implant replaced, though I’m not enough of an expert to know why, nor was I aware that a simple defect in a silicone implant could cause it to rupture like this. You really do learn something new every day.

Jeff Goldblum

Although similar pranks also swirled around Harrison Ford, George Clooney, Rick Astley (come on, that was just an excuse to Rickroll some more), and Natalie Portman, the Goldblum rumor was one that really took hold. It’s easy to see why, of course. The others are too preposterous, whereas Goldblum is just clear of the spotlight so that when The Fly comes on TV, you stop to wonder, “Hey, why doesn’t he do more movies? What is he up to? I should look him up on IMDB.” Of course, you never do, and so he’s someone you could easily believe was off in New Zealand filming something risky, like Jurassic Park 4. Thankfully though, it was all a stupid Twitter prank.

Or was it? Stephen Colbert paused to remember the actor on The Colbert Report, and Goldblum himself showed up to deny it … only to finally confirm the rumors after all. The video is below the jump and, well, what can I say? We’ll miss you, Jeff Goldblum.