Mystery Author Dead & more (4#) -

Robert B Parker, author of the Spenser novels, passed away at his desk while he was at home in the Cambridge section of Boston. He was 77 years old.

# A research report reveals that 44% of visitors to Google News scan the headlines there without clicking through to the source newspapers' individual websites, according to TechCrunch.

+ A lot of newspaper websites are poorly designed; their screen pages contain too much extraneous material, take too long to load, and are mostly a big waste of time.

# Has news coverage of the Haitian earthquake situation turned into Disaster P*rn? Brendan O'Neill raises some troubling issues.

# Eulogy for Casper,
the commuting feline. He'll be missed.

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