Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on TwitterBe a Facebook FanTumble us!

13 Jul 2009 10:04

tags

Culture: Ryan Seacrest’s ubiquitous self is getting a huge cash-in

  • $45 million over three years to grin for American Idol’s cameras source

13 Jul 2009 09:55

tags

Tech: Coming soon: A free, Web-appy version of Microsoft Office

  • Perfect. Now we can run it on Chrome OS. Microsoft Office 2010, which was released in a developer-only technical preview version this morning, will bring the worlds of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote to the Web browser – just like Google! (We want to know how long it took them to build it for IE6, or if they even tried.) Incredibly curious like we are? Well, you’ll have to wait until later this year, when the full beta comes out. source

13 Jul 2009 09:46

tags

Biz: At Goldman Sachs, profits are huge, yet inexplicable

  • $2.12 billion amount Goldman Sachs lost in a single quarter last fall, when they needed bailout help from the government source

13 Jul 2009 01:00

tags

Biz, U.S.: The fight over Shepard Fairey’s Obama “Hope” illo gets messy

  • Plaintiffs have profited from the sales of Mr. Garcia’s copyrighted photograph image and Defendant AP seeks to reap some of the profit by claiming that it – and not Mr. Garcia – is the rightful owner of the copyright in the photograph.
  • A legal memorandum in support of photographer Manuel Garcia • Regarding Fairey v. Associated Press, i.e. the legal battle over the iconic Obama “Hope” poster. For those not in the loop, Shepard Fairey did an immaculate illustration based on a photo Garcia shot and AP ran on the wire. After it blew up, AP sued Fairey, who claimed fair use. Now, Garcia’s claiming neither of them have the right to claim that photo as theirs. We agree that Garcia has a claim over this, but point out that if you look on Getty Images, Obama has literally hundreds of photos taken of him each week (and in April of 2006 alone, he showed up on Getty 41 times) – a fact which we think dilutes both his and AP’s claims. He’s a famous person who gets photographed a lot. Fairey just grabbed a random photo. • source

12 Jul 2009 23:00

tags

World: Kim Jong Il and Steve Jobs have something in common

  • North Korea’s lead dude has pancreatic cancer. Well, that explains a lot. The recent decline in public appearances by the North Korean leader, along with the heavy amount of ballsy provocations by the country, has hinted that something might be up with his health. And a report by Yonhap Television News confirms it. So, yeah, time to start thinking about that line of succession. source

12 Jul 2009 21:29

tags

Politics: Max Headroom: We wanna know which senator felt up David Brooks

  • Looking back For some stupid reason, the Bush administration’s dirty laundry with the CIA keeps coming up. Neocon icon Bill Kristol builds an intelligent context around the start of this Fox News panel chat.

  • Looking back For some stupid reason, the Bush administration’s dirty laundry with the CIA keeps coming up. Neocon icon Bill Kristol builds an intelligent context around the start of this Fox News panel chat.

  • Having her back John McCain, pretty much our favorite talking head ever, says some nice, supportive things about his former running mate, the soon-to-resign Sarah Palin, on “Meet the Press.”

  • Looking back For some stupid reason, the Bush administration’s dirty laundry with the CIA keeps coming up. Neocon icon Bill Kristol builds an intelligent context around the start of this Fox News panel chat.

  • Having her back John McCain, pretty much our favorite talking head ever, says some nice, supportive things about his former running mate, the soon-to-resign Sarah Palin, on “Meet the Press.”

  • Touchy-feely New York Times reporter David Brooks discusses the time an unnamed senator was feeling up his inner thigh at a dinner a couple years ago. Anyone wanna guess who it was?

12 Jul 2009 21:23

tags

World: Not cool: Five more journalists were put in Iran’s jails

  • 41 journalists are currently imprisoned in Iran for doing their jobs source
 

12 Jul 2009 20:12

tags

U.S.: Countdown to space shuttle launch in 3, 2, 1…psych!

  • NASA called off the Endeavour’s launch from Cape Canaveral today. That’s the shuttle’s fourth delay. source
  • Endeavour was scheduled to lift off at 7:13 p.m., but thunderstorms got in the way. source

12 Jul 2009 18:48

tags

U.S., World: The easiest way to cut back on expenses: cut back on babies

  • 0.4% predicted drop in the U.S. birth rate this year source

12 Jul 2009 18:14

tags

Offbeat, World: What the $%#@? Experiment shows swearing reduces pain

  • Another reason to love scientists. Researchers at Keele University in England are saying they’ve shown swearing can actually lessen pain. They asked participants to put their hands in iced water and say either one of five swear words or one of five words to “describe a table.” As you may have guessed, the cussers kept their hands in longer – because the words brought on a “fight-or-flight” response, accelerated their heart rate and heightened aggression. source