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13 Mar 2010 22:00

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Politics: Rachel Maddow’s skinny on Daylight Saving Time: It’s useless

  • The idea for this clip is pretty goofy, but it’s interesting to note the misconceptions that have come up regarding the falling back and springing forward. Farmers actually dislike the concept of Daylight Saving Time. FYI: This morning, you’ll be springing forward an hour.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Jan 2010 13:05

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Politics: Dear Tucker Carlson: Three points on The Daily Caller

  • Today’s a big day for ideological parity. Five years after Arianna Huffington launched “The Huffington Post,” Tucker Carlson‘s got his own toy, “The Daily Caller.” And we want to see it succeed, because we like Tucker (even when we dispute his politics). That said, bro, we have a few thoughts for you as you go forward. Let us know what you think.
  • The design = meh We think that The Daily Caller has a lot of potential, but the font usage – Arial for the logo and typography, and the usage of Hobo here – leaves a lot to be desired. HuffPo’s design isn’t great either, but at least her serifs don’t anger the natives.
  • We like S.E. Cupp In terms of conservative columnists, we’d pick Cupp any day of the week over Ann Coulter. More acerbic, but in the right ways. More fun, too. We’ll probably disagree with her, too, but she doesn’t make us want to destroy things like Coulter.
  • Ideological smarts OK, we don’t buy the whole “conservative response to HuffPo” thing, but we do like the fact that you clearly aren’t afraid to show your biases. We need our journalism to be ideologically honest. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s definitely a good start.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Dec 2009 11:32

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Culture: Will someone give NASA TV a kick in the butt? It needs it.

This guy runs the most boring network on TV. Despite the fact that the subject matter is fascinating (space!), the commentary often puts people to sleep. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

28 Jun 2009 23:51

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Politics: Max Headroom: Iran’s still the talk-show talking point of choice

  • David Axelrod stammers “Meet the Press” had Obama’s main strategist trying to explain why HuffPo’s Nico Pitney asked a planned question at a press conference. Watch him sweat.

  • Fareed Zakaria comparesFareed Zakaria (one of our favorite CNN analysts, BTW), compares Iran to the fall of Communism in Europe, and says it’s unlikely Iran will fall the same way. He sides with Obama.

  • Fox News disagreesFox News brought on analyst Dr. Walid Phares for “Fox and Friends” to debate whether the U.S. should intervene in Iran. His answer? Yeah, Obama needs to stop being timid.

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Jun 2009 23:14

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Biz, Tech: This is why we’re working on a redesign that simplifies things

onlinejournalism0622
Posted by Ernie Smith • 9 Comments • Permalink

02 Jun 2009 10:17

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Culture: How did Conan do last night in his “Tonight Show” debut?

  • one Newsweek’s Josh Alston sez he’s doing well. “Conan tears himself to shreds in such a deft manner, that it’s easy to forget that self-deprecation is actually a super-annoying personality trait.”
  • two New York Daily News critic David Hinckley noted how “Conan made it subtly clear that the new kid in town will be a little naughtier and that for better or worse, “Tonight” is now his ride.”
  • three David Letterman was perfectly goofy about the whole thing. “I’m still here,” he said “I knocked off another competitor.” He also said his mother noted how he didn’t get the “Tonight Show” gig again.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 May 2009 21:50

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Politics, U.S.: How did New England become a mecca of gay marriage?

  • Clearly, attitudes about gay people have changed in New England. I mean, they must have, right? Or was the region always more accepting in general despite my personal experiences?
  • PlanetOut columnist Carter Todd • Discussing what, to him, is a bizarre evolution of the gay marriage debate. Todd grew up in New England and did not believe the region to be particularly gay-friendly nor particularly open about its sexuality, and in fact found Boston to be not gay-friendly at all. So he raised the question to his readers: Why New England? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

14 Mar 2009 17:40

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Politics, Tech: Our biggest criticism of Twitter: Marketing “experts”

  • Twitter is actually great. Don’t listen to the haters who claim that all people ever do with Twitter is tweet about how they’re going to use the bathroom. It’s a great, versatile communication tool, and has largely taken the place of the chat rooms of Internet past. (Sorry, mIRC. We were good friends back in the day.) We’ve even made some good friends through Twitter. But we do have one problem with the site: Its overuse as a social marketing tool.
  • Social marketers must die. We agree, Twitter’s a great promotional tool. We use it ourselves to tell people about our latest updates. And it tells people when we’ve last trashed on U2. And we even chat with them! But then there’s users like @MikeKlingler and @DiyanaAlcheva. Both of whom have over 15,000 followers. Both of whom followed us today. Both of whom we’ll never actually communicate with. For the love of God, stop ruining a good thing!
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

11 Mar 2009 20:34

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Culture, Politics: Ryan Adams + Mandy Moore = Married. Call them “Random.”

  • On celebrity couple names They’re a necessary evil. They create mass hysteria. They adopt more kids and gather more press than they really should, so why not take the thing that makes them truly notable – their name recognition – and bastardize and commoditize it? Magazines are happy. Talk show hosts are happy. And you make them collectively weak.
  • Why they deserve “Random” First of all, who seriously expected Ryan Freakin’ Adams, the guy who releases six albums a year of varying quality, to marry the third-tier Britney Spears who somehow came out of teen stardom unscathed? And “Random” is a great way to describe it. And a clever way to work their name together. Happy honeymoon, Random! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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