If I've learned anything over the years, it's that some things, once they've taken hold, feed off of themselves. They grow stronger with the passing of time, envelop more of the population, more of the calendar, more of everything. Sometimes they even swallow up other monsters of the zeitgeist, creating new uber-phenomena. Cellphones were once non-essential kit, but once they ate a few cameras, interwebs and computer-like processors, the smartphone was born and the world rejoiced. One of the biggest, most unstoppable phenomena in the known universe is holiday creep. This year in my neighborhood wintry decorations were put up by the city even before Halloween! Well, I'm here to report that the holidays are at it again. Its most recent target? The Internet meme.

Kim Dotcom is an attention-grabbing machine. His new ploy is to fund free broadband Internet access for his native New Zealand. He aims to win the money in a suit against the U.S. government for the takedown of his site, Megaupload, and then use it for the common good like a digital-age Robin Hood.

We thought we knew all we'd ever need to know about naming a wireless network. Don't use your name or address — basically, just stay away from using personal information at all. Pretty standard, right?

It's always a drag when we get a 404 page delivering the bad news that a page we want "wasn't found." A new initiative is seizing on both the meaning of "wasn't found" and the valuable real estate those pages could provide to profile children who have gone missing.