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An email went out to Buffer customers at about 4pm ET today informing customers that Buffer, the popular Twitter scheduling service, was hacked:

I wanted to get in touch to apologize for the awful experience we’ve caused many of you on your weekend. Buffer was hacked around 1 hour ago, and many of you may have experienced spam posts sent from you via Buffer. I can only understand how angry and disappointed you must be right now.

Not everyone who has signed up for Buffer has been affected, but you may want to check on your accounts. We’re working hard to fix this problem right now and we’re expecting to have everything back to normal shortly.

This banner was added to the Buffer home page:

Sorry – Buffer was hacked and some scam posts were sent. We’re working hard to investigate. Stay updated via Twitter (@buffer).

Follow the headline link for the latest from Buffer.

Wired:

Fearful of relegating TV to remaining “dumb,” consumer electronics manufacturers look to the success of Apple’s iPhone/iPad/iTunes, Google/Android, or Amazon ecosystems as examples of what could happen with smart TV.

But do consumer electronics companies really think they can monetize the new feature of accessing the web with smart TVs? Even with an industry standard for smart TVs, it’s not likely that those companies could start charging Netflix, Amazon, Pandora, and others for access to their screens. And conversely, by not controlling the device, these service providers operate at the whim of the smart TV.

I’m one of those people that think, Gene Munster’s “predictions” notwithstanding, that Apple has no intention of releasing an actual television set but instead will develop the present Apple TV into a fuller featured set-top box.

Bored Panda:

To celebrate this wonderful and colorful season, we’ve got a beautiful collection of photos of autumn landscapes that highlight the last explosion of rich, vivid color before the coming winter.

I feel sorry for those in tropical places that never get to experience Fall. That is, until the snows/rains come and then I’m just envious of them.

Great geek costume, has the added value of making your child easy to see from a distance.

Here ya go…

The Artery:

The Boston and St. Louis symphony orchestras are home to some of the country’s most talented musicians, but neither is above some good old-fashioned smack talk ahead of the World Series.

Trash talking band geeks prove that band geeks can’t trash talk.

Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir are world championship boxers and, together, one of the greatest sports stories ever told. If you are at all a sports fan, watch the documentary Klitschko. You’ll see what I mean.

Both brothers made their professional debut on November 6, 1996 in Hamburg. Since then both have been heavyweight world champions in boxing. They have stated they will never fight each other.

There is a lot to admire about both brothers. Vitali made his fortune as a boxer, then went on to get his PhD and serve as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. And now Vitali is running for president of his native Ukraine. Fascinating story.

Great review by Peter.

A special free issue, celebrating the Loop Magazine’s re-design. Including an exclusive piece by Matthew Modine: “What I learned from Stanley Kubrick”; “Who would buy an iPhone 5c?” asks Daniel Eran Dilger; “Based On A True Story” – Matt Dusenbury is talking about movies; Chris Domico is wondering “Where Is The Music Pendulum Now?”; and Jim Dalrymple’s “Thoughts on Apple’s iPad and Mac event”

Download the app and the issue free for iPhone and iPad.

I’m so proud to announce that The Loop Magazine 2.0 went live on the App Store this morning. We’ve been working on this app for quite a while and I’m confident that there isn’t a better magazine experience anywhere else in the world. […]

John Gruber talking about Microsoft’s Frank Shaw:

Betting against the iPad as a device on which people can work, for any meaning of “work”, is a bad bet in the long run. Shaw though, is doubling down on just that bet.

Shaw would do better by getting Microsoft to make a product that people actually want to buy.

Designed for iPhone and iPad.

I just downloaded this app—it looks great.

While I’ve posted on this topic before, the rules and the solutions are evolving. While the NFL remains committed to their deal with DirecTV, the public remains determined to watch the games on line in real time.

The only Americans who are technically allowed to watch NFL’s live streams are those customers who purchase DirecTV’s (DTV) all-access Sunday Ticket package, a deal worth $1 billion to the NFL.

What’s a cord-cutting fan to do? For just a couple of dollars you could digitally pretend to be from somewhere overseas, which would give you access to every single NFL game, live and in high definition, through your Internet connection. And while doing so almost certainly violates the NFL’s terms of service, it might not be otherwise illegal.

That’s the promise of Canadian startup Adfreetime.com, one of a handful of providers to offer what’s called a DNS-switching service.

Federico Viticci has been busy again.

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iRig BlueBoard is the first wireless MIDI pedalboard for iOS and Mac that allows you to control your music apps and more from the floor. Now control parameters of your MIDI-compatible apps like AmpliTube wirelessly from the floor. Switch between presets, change patches, turn effects on and off and control effects like volume wah pedals all from the stage floor without worrying about tripping over wires. Setup is as simple as turning the iRig BlueBoard on and telling it what you want to control. iRig BlueBoard features four backlit soft-touch pads housed in a sturdy, stage-worthy chassis, two TRS expansion jacks for connecting additional MIDI controllers like expression pedals, and is powered by four standard AAA batteries.

IK Multimedia’s iRig BlueBoard allows guitarists, vocalists and keyboard players wireless control of Core-MIDI-compatible music-making apps running on an iPhone (4s or later), iPad 4, iPod touch (5th gen) or Mac (models from June 2012). The pedalboard has four backlit pads up top, which can each be assigned controls to switch between presets and banks, tweak parameters or change patches on the fly. Expression, volume or wah pedals can also be connected to the two 0.25-in jacks on the side of the device for control of onscreen dials and knobs.

Once I started watching this, I found it hard to tear myself away. Crazy.

A configurable world clock, with statistics like births, deaths, each divided into various categories, and lots more.

Official Travel Guide to Norway: Rjukan is situated deep in the narrow Vestfjord Valley in Telemark. Due to the high mountains surrounding the valley, among them The Gaustadtoppen Mountain at 1,883 metres above sea level, there is no sunlight six … Continued

Grantland:

The Stanley Cup is the most beautiful of sports trophies. It shimmers. It’s big. When ancient peoples returned from the hunt, they held their prize aloft. When players today win a championship, in a timeless gesture of triumph, they throw their hands above their heads. And in sports, nothing fits better between a player’s hands than the Stanley Cup. It is perfect.

It didn’t begin that way.

Ken Dryden was not only a great goaltender (in the Hall of Fame for my beloved Montreal Canadiens) but he is also a great writer. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of his amazing book, “The Game” (Widely acknowledged as the best hockey book ever written and lauded by Sports Illustrated as one of the “Top 10 Sports Books of All Time”), he’s written another chapter. If you’d like to see why Canadians love hockey so much, pay particular attention to the small town aspect of the chapter.

The New York Times:

Men in lifting belts wheel hand trucks stacked high with food from across the globe: 80 pounds of ground beef, 700 pounds of top butt, 175 shoulder tenders, 1 case of New York strips, all from the Midwest; 5 pounds of chicken livers, 6 cases of chicken bones, 120 chicken breast cutlets; 30 pounds of bacon; 300 littleneck clams, 110 pounds of mussels from Prince Edward Island, another 20 pounds from New Zealand, 50 trout, 25 pounds of U10 shrimp (fewer than 10 pieces per pound), 55 whole dorade, 3 cases of escargot, 360 Little Skookum oysters from Washington State, 3 whole tunas, 45 skates, 18 black sea bass, 2 bags of 100 to 120 whelks, 45 lobster culls.

That’s just the fish and meat order.

Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant?

I drove down to Santa Cruz with some friends on Sunday and got my first tattoo on the inside of my forearm. Thank you all for helping to make The Loop the success that it is and thanks to Jenn and Tim for putting up with me.

If you need a tattoo, I highly recommend seeing Tim at Good Omen Tattoo.

Hold onto your beard, JimD.

Manufactured by Krups, The Sub is, in Newson’s words, “a giant pressurised vessel” and “a male-oriented object made of anodized aluminium.” Consumers can purchase what they’re calling “Torps,” metal cylinders filled with brew, that they then load into The Sub like a torpedo into a firing tube. But instead of sinking an enemy U-Boat, The Sub then chills the beer down to two degrees Celsius, which is four degress colder, Heinken reckons, than your ‘fridge can get it.

1997 Jeep Cherokee:

If you do not own a toolbox, have never changed your own oil, and are scared of firearms: THIS VEHICLE IS NOT FOR YOU.

If you have been posting on Facebook all about how excited you are for pumpkin latte season: THIS VEHICLE IS NOT FOR YOU.

If you get offended easy and often, whine to your co-workers, and bitch a lot: THIS VEHICLE IS NOT FOR YOU.

If you own a Bieber album, white Oakleys, Affliction t-shirts, or those candy-assed stitched-pocket jeans: THIS VEHICLE IS NOT FOR YOU.

This the greatest Craigslist ad ever and I’m not man enough to buy it from this guy. Thanks to my friend Jeff La Grua for the link.

I love the open net at the end of a game, when just about anyone can score a goal from any position. Watch for the slow motion clock countdown at the end.

Adobe:

Elephants are increasingly endangered as people expand into their habitats, and poaching has drastically exacerbated the plight of the African elephant in particular. In 2012 the National Geographic cover story “Blood Ivory” revealed a complex, international web of trade that has contributed to the deaths of at least 25,000 elephants each year. Fewer than 700,000 now remain in the wild.

With every tweet that includes the hashtag #ProtecttheElephants Adobe will donate $1 to the National Geographic Society to help save these elephants.

Please tweet. If for no other reason than to cost Adobe a buck.

Thanks to Techi.com for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. If you love technology but you’re tired of browsing through hundreds of RSS feeds each morning, check out Techi.com.

It’s a technology blog that features only the top tech stories from around the web each day and is updated 24/7. You get a short summary of each story if you don’t want to read the whole thing and you also get access to exclusive articles.

Check it out and subscribe to their daily newsletter.

The First Cut:

Already, their thoughts are drifting up a flight of stairs to the sprawling dissection lab, where in two days they will meet and become intimate with something many have scarcely encountered: Death.

Today they begin the defining course of their medical education.

A required rite of passage on the way to a doctor’s white coat, gross anatomy offers first-year students a hands-on tour of an actual human body.

Talk about hands on training.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

Religious fervor is on my mind as I walk in the bright morning sunlight from the parking lot to my Apple Store. I pass the line of people waiting for the new iPhone, and most have been camping on that filthy walkway all week. Don’t they have jobs? Or classes? Or significant others? These hardcores wouldn’t deign to pick one up next week. They need it today. They’re in it to win it.

What’s it like to be involved in an Apple Product Launch from the POV of a store employee.

Some daily brain tickling puzzles. Enjoy…