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02 Sep 2011 19:51

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Biz, Tech: Netflix’s crappy day: As its stock falls, a new competitor shows itself

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2011 15:58

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Politics: Ex-FEMA head Michael Brown rips Hurricane Irene media coverage

  • The guy’s acting like he’s having a hard time standing up, and you see people just strolling along behind him. I thought, what a great contrast. Why didn’t he just stand up and say, ‘We were very lucky’?
  • Former FEMA head Michael “heckuva job Brownie” Brown • Somehow turning media critic after Hurricane Irene (in ripping CNN for their coverage of the storm). Hey, Michael, no offense, but you’re the last person that should talk here. Glad to see that the crisis was weak enough that you can rip the media for the coverage. You and Ray Nagin should probably keep your media commentator cards to yourselves. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2011 14:41

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U.S.: Long Island babysitter tragedy: Freak accident blamed for deaths

  • bad A Long Island babysitter, 39, suffered a heart attack and died while caring for a young infant Thursday night.
  • worse When the babysitter collapsed, she collapsed onto the infant. And the child died as well. This story is incredibly tragic and sad. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2011 13:13

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Tech: Michael Arrington, TechCrunch another example of incestuous tech ethics

  • As we wait to see just how involved Arrington will remain, as a media company that should supposedly hold up some sort of journalistic ethics, AOL is coming out looking quite sleazy.
  • The Atlantic Wire’s Rebecca Greenfield • Offering her take on the debacle revolving around Michael Arrington and TechCrunch. Here’s the issue we see, as outsiders: Michael Arrington has always been as much of a player in Silicon Valley as he’s been a journalist, so there’s always been a small conflict of interest there. But by making the “player” element a bigger part of his job title by creating a venture capital fund, he makes himself a target. But wait. Tech journalism is already incestuous and ethically broken. A few examples: Business Insider’s Henry Blodget was once a financial analyst barred from the securities market for fraud. The WSJ’s Kara Swisher is married to a female Google exec (which she discloses). And Gizmodo parent Gawker Media pays for stories that can draw millions of eyeballs to their sites. The difference is that AOL, which bought TechCrunch a year ago, is a big company that knows better. Or should. And the end result is that it makes AOL look really bad. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2011 12:37

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U.S.: Tropical depression to Gulf Coast: You can call me Lee!

  • It’s expected to become a tropical storm tomorrow. Because we are apparently in the thick of hurricane season all of a sudden, this unnamed tropical depression, which forecasters expect to become Tropical Storm Lee, will likely dump a ton of rain on the region, including New Orleans. We’ll keep an eye on this one and hope it’s not too bad. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2011 12:19

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Biz, U.S.: August’s depressingly bad job numbers will depress you greatly

  • 17k number of jobs gained in the private sector in August — down significantly from July
  • 17k number of jobs lost in the public sector in August — see where this is going, guys?
  • 0k number of jobs created as a whole in August; unemployment stayed at 9.1 percent source
  • » Another month of 9-plus-percent unemployment: Of the past 28 months, 26 of them have sported unemployment above 9 percent. And here’s a number that will depress the crap out of you — 14 million people are currently unemployed, which makes job gains of 100,000 seem like not enough, let alone completely flat months like August.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2011 00:24

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Tech: Blog design engine Ownzee cool, but could use some structure

  • It’s like a visual blogging app. Remember a few months ago, when we featured a service called Webdoc? Well, we had a lot of fun with that. We saw a lot of potential for the idea of allowing people to design posts on the fly (sort of a next-generation Tumblr or Storify), though the service had a few things we thought it could improve upon. Ownzee appears to be using better, less-cumbersome technology for its format. Here’s a roundup.
  • The good First off, the wide-screen format appears to be using a rich-text editor reminiscent of Aloha, and appears to be easier to use. You can do cooler things with more real estate, obviously, though we think the font palette is a little lacking. (No Helvetica?) It’s clear that, though it’s similar to Webdoc, it’s built from a stronger starting point. As they improve the service, this will prove beneficial.
  • The bad Unlike Webdoc, Ownzee appears not to support external HTML or CSS, which would extend the format a bit. However, this wouldn’t be an issue if the service offered easy-to-build templates, so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time. As a result, the format lends itself less to doing serious cool things and more to being a social meme-maker like Canvas. It doesn’t have to be this way, guys!
  • The unfortunate Sadly, The dealbreaker for us is the price — we like the idea, but wonder if charging a $5 monthly fee for this is the way to go. Unlike SquareSpace, you can only do so much with the format in its current iteration, which makes the technology, cool as it is, a little less-useful. Our suggestion: Make it freemium, then offer InDesign-style design tools (grids, rules, extra fonts) for a fee. source
  • » Overall thoughs: There is a market for a good, serious, on-the-fly design tool that takes the lessons from CMS tools like Tumblr and WordPress and converts them to a totally-visual HTML5-only format. The thing that we see right now is not that tools like WebDoc and Ownzee are bad ideas — far from it — but that their scope is too limited. These design tools, while quite advanced, lack structure and full context. If we were Ownzee, we’d be looking to offer ways to quickly structure designs – say, grids, good templates, solid themes and ways to prevent end-users from repeating themselves — that would give it print-design-style conventions. This is why Storify (which basically does this with social-media storytelling) is taking off. Just think how much better posts like these would look if end-users had starting points. We’d certainly use something like that.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

01 Sep 2011 21:48

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Politics: New York Times: Obama’s scheduling fight with Boehner embarrassing

  • The contemptuous reaction from the House speaker, John Boehner, to the president’s request to address a joint session next Wednesday — the day Congress returns from its summer recess — was appalling. No matter how he feels about Mr. Obama personally or politically, there can be no excuse for his lack of respect for the office, to which he is second in the line of succession. And it was distressing to watch President Obama fail, once again, to stand up to an opposition that won’t brook the smallest compromise.
  • The New York Times Editorial Board • In a piece titled “Oh, Grow Up,” on the infighting between Obama and Boehner over the timing of the president’s speech on jobs. To put it simply, we’re with them. Especially on this particular point: “Worse, the vital importance of the speech — and the need for Congress to take its full responsibility for creating jobs and reviving the economy — was upstaged by yet another Washington soap opera.” God, it’s like Washington breaks a little more with each passing day. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Sep 2011 17:21

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World: Libya: Animals at Tripoli Zoo neglected amidst fighting

  • Languishing in cages: A video from CNN highlighting the plight of the animals still locked in the Tripoli Zoo, where their care and basic necessities have been both neglected by many, and made generally unavailable. The images of visibly undernourished tigers and lions are unpleasant to see, as it is to reflect on the fate these animals could face unless they get help — presumably a slow death by hunger and dehydration. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Sep 2011 17:04

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U.S.: Insomnia in the American workforce carries a high price tag

  • $63 billion in U.S. economic loss because of insomnia source
  • » Sleep, important to everything: Researchers at the Harvard Medical School and the University of Michigan have determined that the combined cost in loss of productivity as a result of insomnia in the American workforce is, well, that startling number you see above. Frankly, having had a few sleepless nights as a direct result of the dire economy ourselves, isn’t turnabout fair play? Seriously, though, the health findings on insufficient sleep are resounding enough that we should aspire to find solutions to this, regardless of the level of economic drag.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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