Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

15 Dec 2011 10:11

tags

Tech: Hallelujah: Microsoft will automatically upgrade Internet Explorer

  • before Internet Explorer was a bit of an anger-inducing product for Web developers because users would be slow to upgrade their browsers, leading to large numbers of users on IE6 and IE7 years after those browsers were out-of-date. Despite Chrome and Firefox having automatic upgrade options, for years, Microsoft resisted. Developers cried.
  • now In a major change in policy, Microsoft will automatically update browsers for home users — to IE8 for Windows XP users and IE9 for Vista and Windows 7 users. They won’t die entirely, though — corporate IT users can block the upgrades, and there will be opt-out mechanisms. But maybe this might be the death knell to IE6? God, let’s hope so. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Dec 2011 04:01

tags

U.S.: Madison Ave. tragedy: Freak elevator accident kills woman in NYC

  • 10 a.m. the time at which Suzanne Hart, an NYC advertising executive, died in a freak elevator accident Wednesday
  • 7 p.m. the time at which officials were able to fully to fully extricate her body from the elevator source
  • » How often does this happen? It’s fairly rare for an elevator to cause such an issue in NYC — despite the fact that roughly 60,000 elevators operate in the skyscraper-heavy city, there were just 53 accidents in 2010, only three of which were fatal. (Accidents of this nature, however, aren’t unprecedented; Jerry Fuchs, a prominent indie rock drummer who played with !!! and LCD Soundsystem, amongst others, died in 2009 after falling into an elevator shaft.) But the level of shock amongst her co-workers at Y&R — which had its employees work from home in the wake of the news — was strong; Hart was a well-respected figure in the advertising world. And to make things worse, the company was in the midst of moving to a newer building with a better elevator. This story is just awful.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Dec 2011 21:08

tags

Politics: MSNBC is sorry…for what, exactly?

  • An unnecessary apology? Yesterday, a post over at America Blog noted that “Keep America American,” a phrase Mitt Romney sometimes uses while campaigning, is also a slogan once used by the Klu Klux Klan. Now, while this is embarrassing for the Romney campaign, it’s probably not an intentional effort by Romney to co-opt the KKK’s message, or pander to the group’s base. That is, it’s almost certainly just an unfortunate coincidence. What’s odd, though, is that hours after reporting on the story, MSNBC felt the need to issue an apology. But why? We missed MSNBC’s original report, but as you can see above, Chris Matthews specifically apologizes for “report[ing] on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the KKK way back in the 1920s.” But…the phrase was used by both groups. It’s a fact. MSNBC doesn’t dispute this. So why was it, in Matthews’ words, “irresponsible,” and indicative of an “appalling lack of judgement,” for the network to point it out? Can someone who saw the original report shed some light on this? source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Dec 2011 11:06

tags

World: Belgian mass attack: Woman’s body discovered in gunman’s storage facility

  • six number of deaths in yesterday’s deadly rampage in Liege, Belgium, including the gunman
  • 120+ number of people injured by the incident, which involved a man firing guns and grenades from a roof source
  • » A woman’s body discovered in a storage facility: As investigators continue to figure out what led Nordine Amrani to cause such a rampage, a new discovery added a layer of confusion around the incident. The woman, who reportedly worked as a cleaner, was found in a story facility that Amrani once used to grow large quantities of marijuana, which he previously went to jail for. A significant number of weapons were found at the facility and at Amrani’s home. However, officials were careful to say that he had no apparent ties to terror groups, a definite fear in the region months after the deadly mass shooting in Norway.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Dec 2011 10:23

tags

Culture: Louis C.K. sells DRM-free comedy special, profits handsomely

  • I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have #(&!loads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say that the experiment really worked. If anybody stole it, it wasn’t many of you. Pretty much everybody bought it. And so now we all get to know that about people and stuff. I’m really glad I put this out here this way and I’ll certainly do it again.
  • Comedian Louis C.K. • Expressing pleasure at the success of his self-produced comedy special, “Live at the Beacon Theater.” The comic, currently on an upswing as a result of his hit FX comedy “Louie,” did something fairly novel with the release model for the special — he threw it online himself, charged $5 for streaming or a digital download, passed on the DRM, and made a point of asking nicely for people not to throw the video on torrent sites. (Some did, but they were roundly criticized by their Pirate Bay peers.) The result of Louis C.K.’s move? In just its first couple of days on sale, it sold 110,000 copies, leading to $500,000 in sales and $200,000 in pure profit. He puts it like such: “This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video.” Which means, guys, that Louis C.K. is a genius apparently. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Dec 2011 21:28

tags

Politics: Democratic senators call out Obama’s HHS Secretary on birth control

  • We ask that you share with us your specific rationale and the scientific data you relied on for the decision to overrule the FDA recommendation [to increase access to Plan B].
  • Fourteen Democratic Senators • In a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who last week overruled an FDA recommendation that Plan B, the emergency contraception, be available without prescription to minors. In the words of Greg Sargent, who reported the story, “it isn’t every day that 14 Senators aggressively call out their own party’s Health and Human Services Secretary.” Then again, a lot of Senate Democrats are up for re-election next year, so there is an element of realpolitik at play.  source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Dec 2011 21:15

tags

Politics: Newt stumbles, Paul and Santorum gain

  • Newtiny on the bounty? This is the second poll this week indicating a slip in Newt Gingrich’s support. The winners are Ron Paul and Rick Santorum (and, to a lesser degree, Jon Huntsman), all of whom saw gains since the beginning of the month. Gingrich’s favorability dropped 19 points in the last week, and on the question of who has “stronger values,” Romney beats him by 21 points. Meanwhile, the oft-forgotten Gary Johnson–who, it’s worth saying, is a libertarian who holds many of the same positions as Paul–is still stuck at 1%. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Dec 2011 20:51

tags

Politics: This 1995 profile of Newt Gingrich is a fun read

  • I would really love to spend six months to a year in the Amazon basin, just being able to spend the day watching tree sloths.
  • Newt Gingrich • In a 1995 Vanity Fair profile. There are lots of fun tidbits in this piece. Even back then, Gingrich was thinking of a presidential run, but his then-wife Marrianne didn’t approve. “I don’t want him to be president,” she said, “and I don’t think he should be” (he eventually divorced her). Newt often describes himself oddly journalistic terms, as if he’s a pundit writing an op-ed column, and this was true in 1995 as well.  He says here that he’s “a mythical person,” “a psychodrama living out a fantasy,” and that “what makes me unusually intense is that I personalize the pain of war, the pain of children being killed.” source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Dec 2011 20:39

tags

Politics: House passes payroll tax-cut bill … with a Keystone-shaped catch

  • If Sen. Reid wants to hold up the jobs bill, he will go on Santa’s naughty list.
  • Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) • Offering a somewhat … uh, interesting take on the House’s passage of a payroll tax cut, which Republicans pushed through with a fairly large caveat — it would speed up the process of approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which was delayed until 2013 to give some time to examine environmental issues brought up by critics. The bill is expected to die in the Senate, and even if it weren’t, Obama would most likely veto it. The divided Congress is under the gun to pass a payroll tax cut and a spending bill to fund the government beyond Friday. Sounds like a fun week, all. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Dec 2011 17:45

tags

Politics: Is Newt Gingrich beginning to fade?

  • 37.7% Newt’s support from Nov. 30-Dec. 3; that is, in the couple of days before Herman Cain withdrew from the race
  • 24.4% Newt’s support–in the same poll–from Dec. 3-Dec. 7, the first few days after Cain withdrew source
  • » What’s going on here? Actually, we’re not sure. Common wisdom says that Cain’s support flocked to Gingrich after the former dropped out of the race (or, sorry, “suspended” his campaign). So how come the same University of Iowa poll–taken in the state over a weeklong period–shows a drastic fall in the former House Speaker’s support after Cain’s exit? Of course, the standard “this is just one poll” disclaimer still applies; this could just be an anomaly. But a 13.3% decline in one week is significant, and outside the poll’s margin of error. Given the boom-bust tendency of the GOP field this year, we can’t help but wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Newt (note: it’s rather unusual for a polling house to make available the intra-week trends of a single poll; much respect to Reuters, who co-sponsored this poll, for doing so).
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>