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19 Jul 2010 11:30

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Tech: Posted without comment: iPhone 4 Antenn-aids for sale on Etsy

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Jul 2010 16:15

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Politics: Thanks SEO: Gene Weingarten laments the lost art of headlines

  • Newspapers still have headlines, of course, but they don’t seem to strive for greatness or to risk flopping anymore, because editors know that when the stories arrive on the Web, even the best headlines will be changed to something dull but utilitarian.
  • Washington Post supercolumnist Gene Weingarten • Explaining how newspapers have had to suck the life out of their headlines in pursuit of eyeballs. “Putting well-known names in headlines is considered shrewd, even if creativity suffers,” he writes. Personally, we write our headlines with some focus on SEO, but we’re totally willing to get out of the way of a good joke. One paper that does a good job of mixing SEO and classic headline art is The New York Times, probably because they can afford to. And SEO doesn’t mean you can’t be clever. See the headline Weingarten put on his story: “Gene Weingarten column mentions Lady Gaga.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jul 2010 10:44

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Tech: Woot.com calls the AP out on their hypocritical quote-ganking

  • But when we found your little newsy thing you do, we couldn’t help but notice something important. And that something is this: you printed our web content in your article! The web content that came from our blog! Why, isn’t that the very thing you’ve previously told nu-media bloggers they’re not supposed to do?
  • A message from Woot.com • Regarding the Associated Press using quotes from their blog post on their sale to Amazon. Considering the AP has a stupid, stupid rule regarding the quoting of content by outside sources, we’ve mostly avoided their content except when absolutely necessary. Woot.com says that they’ll allow the AP to use their quotes, but it’ll cost them $17.50. Unless, they’re willing to make this deal with the site: “Instead of cutting us a check for the web content you liberated from our site, all you’ll need to do is show us your email receipt from today’s two pack of Sennheiser MX400 In-Ear Headphones, and we’ll call it even.” Well played, sirs. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jul 2010 21:28

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Culture: The Muppets – and Swedish Chef – were born for YouTube captions

  • This is a truly innovative use of YouTube. Not only does it take advantage of the medium in a way that understands the element of surprise, it’s funny, and it’s especially funny because of the way it uses captions. Somehow, the Muppets Studio is getting even better at using YouTube.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

30 Jun 2010 21:02

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Biz: A little Woot! (wait, a big Woot!) for our friends at Woot!

  • Well, that’s the funniest thing we’ve seen all day. Woot.com is one of the coolest concepts for shopping online anywhere, and they’re totally irreverent to boot. And now that Amazon has acquired them, that’s gonna change, right? Actually, no. See, Amazon acquired a similarly irreverent site called Zappos.com about a year ago, and they left the corporate culture alone. The company’s CEO, Matt Rutledge, puts it this way: “We plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot – with a wall of ideas and a dartboard.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Jun 2010 21:02

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Biz: Starbucks says “screw it,” stops charging for wi-fi like losers

  • It had reached a point where it was affecting sales. For years, Starbucks was one of the few coffee-shop chains that didn’t have free wi-fi, instead charging high fees for usage. Then, they gave Starbucks Card holders two hours free. Now, they’re opening it up for everybody July 1st – and using their clout to sweeten the deal, big time. The details:
  • yesIt’ll be a simple process to log in – just hit a button and you’re on. You can stay as long as you want, bucking the independent coffee shop trend away from moochers.
  • noThat’s not all – they’ll offer free access to pay sites like The Wall Street Journal, and free music and movie previews. Holy crap. This could be big, everybody. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Jun 2010 11:14

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Tech: Geniuses take netbook CPUs and make a cool server out of them

  • See this smug bastard? Wondering why he’s so smug? Well, his company, SeaMicro, just blew up the server industry. This device he’s sitting next to uses hundreds of Intel Atom chips – 512 to be exact – to create supercomputer-level performance with a lower energy footprint than traditional servers. Why does Intel Atom sound so familiar? Oh yeah, those are the chips that they use in slow, low-power netbooks. Nice idea. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

16 May 2010 11:47

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Biz, Tech: Freestyle: Coke wants you to mix up your soft drinks

  • These machines, with their minimalist design and touchscreen interfaces, can create as many as 104 different flavors of soda. But despite this, they’re actually way better designed than old machines. As anyone who’s ever worked in a fast food restaurant can tell you, traditional fountain soda requires a massive infrastructure of plumbing using boxes of syrup and heavy tanks of carbon. These machines replace those massive boxes of syrup with heavily concentrated inkjet cartridges, a way more eco-friendly solution. They’re going mainstream soon. Whoo. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 May 2010 14:07

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Tech: Rube Goldberg would be proud of this Google Chrome ad

  • OMG OMG THAT’S FAST! This Google Chrome ad was shot using a 2700 fps camera to show how fast the rendering speed of the pages were. And in every case used here, it was faster than lightning. This advertising campaign is nothing but win. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 May 2010 12:05

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Offbeat: “Will it Shred?”: The poor iPad sucks as a skateboard, just an FYI

  • Oh, the agony. This awesome parody of the “Will It Blend” series of videos takes an iPad and tries to turn it into a skateboard. We bet it would’ve worked better had they turned the thing upside down and skated on the non-glass side.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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