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18 Jan 2010 18:28

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Tech, U.S.: January 27 promises to be the most exciting day we’ve ever seen

  • morning Apple announced a vaguely worded “special event” will take place on the morning of the 27th, which will likely be whatever this slate thingy is. Nerds are excited.
  • evening Obama, after nearly angering “Lost” fans by picking the day of the show’s season premiere, will have his State of the Union on the 27th. The GOP has their claws out.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Jan 2010 09:15

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Tech: At CES, every company is obsessed with tablets for some reason

Enjoy your couple of weeks on top guys. Once Apple decides to release the new hotness, your machines will suffer bigger failures than the CrunchPad. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Sep 2009 10:52

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U.S.: Way to go, doofus: A Slate error fell into Obama’s health care speech

  • Here at Slate, we correct errors quickly and conspicuously, and usually Slate readers alert me almost instantly whenever I goof (which I try very hard not to do). But nobody told me about this blunder.
  • Slate writer Timothy Noah • Describing the series of events that led a factually-flawed detail from one of his articles to wind up in Obama’s health care speech. Dude, it’s the president. THE PRESIDENT. You’re supposed to not screw up those sorts of things. In all seriousness, the fact revolved around the plight of Otto Raddatz, whose insurance was canceled after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Noah said he died as a result. In reality, the Illinois attorney general’s office went to bat for him and he eventually got a life-extending surgery. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2009 23:29

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Music: The Revenge of the Revenge of Roxanne Shanté’s Revenge



Nothing like unsubstantiated claims to brighten an evening. Roxanne Shanté, above, was a hip-hop icon before hip hop had its big mainstream breakthrough. Everyone forgot about her for a good twenty years, until this New York Daily News story broke, claiming that Warner Music paid for her to get a doctorate at Cornell. Problem is, it's not true.
  • The lies As reported by the New York Daily News (which will have an interesting retraction to write), the hip-hop icon (who scored her one-hit wonder at 14) had a clause in her contract saying they would pay for her education for life. She fought hard to get the label to pay for her education, eventually earning a doctorate at Cornell in 2001. She’s now a “hip-hop” psychologist.
  • The truth According to Slate, Warner never had a contract with Shanté. School records say that she went to Marymount Manhattan College, but never graduated. She admitted to Slate that she never got a Ph.D. from Cornell or elsewhere. She doesn’t have a license to practice psychology. And Warner says the Daily News never tried to contact them, like the story says.
  • Slate’s dirty workBen Sheffner put together an article for Slate that ranks up there with anything The Smoking Gun has put together in recent memory. It’s just devastating. The way he dissected the Daily News’ article is admirable. The paper only quoted two sources in the article – Shanté and hip-hop Russell Simmons. Protip: When a story’s this good, fact-check your sources. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Aug 2009 11:08

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Tech: Slate cuts the crap, just gives you the Slatest news, simply.

  • And good for them. Really. OK, we’re kinda sad because it appears they’ve stolen our idea to some degree, but Slate’s newest site, The Slatest, is a news aggregator that doesn’t get bogged down by lots and lots (and lots) of links, like, say, Digg, Reddit, The Huffington Post, The Drudge Report, and … we could go on. A handful of really good news stories, linked in such a way that you know what you’re clicking, with a giant freaking ad that doesn’t get in the way. We approve. Good show, Slate. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

18 Aug 2009 11:10

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Politics: Slate columnist: Why the public option should stay on the table

  • Why is the public option so vitally important to health reform? At the broadest possible level, the public option is necessary simply because it’s impossible to identify a successful health system anywhere in the world based on a for-profit insurance model.
  • Slate columnist Timothy Noah • Discussing the weaknesses in health care reform that will show up if the public option is off the table. While Obama prefers having it, he’s shown wavering over the last week that makes it seem less-necessary than it once did. Noah puts it this way: “You can also think of the public option as a pressure valve. Without it, the government’s attempt to remake the health sector risks blowing itself to smithereens.” • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Aug 2009 10:30

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Music: Rapper homophobia evolves into “no homo” boasts on records

  • This is still a concession to homophobia, but one that enables a less rigid definition of the hip-hop self than we’ve seen before. It’s far from a coup, but, in a way, it’s progress.
  • Slate columnist Jonah Weiner • Who’s obviously thought way too hard about the role of homophobia in hip-hop. While it’s always been there, the latest mutation, the use of the phrase “no homo,” seems to at least offer a degree of wiggle room. “No homo tweaks this dynamic because it allows, implicitly,” he says, “that rap is a place where gayness can in fact be expressed by the guy on the mic, not just scorned in others.” Cam’ron, Lil’ Wayne and Kanye West (who has made statements denouncing homophobia) have all spouted the phrase on record. Is it really a turning point? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

26 Jul 2009 22:37

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Politics: Worth reading: Slate’s in-depth Web-vs.-newspapers smackdown

  • The Web side Web proponents feel that newspapers are a product of an era that no longer exists – the media gatekeeper as primary news source. We’re in an era where everything’s decentralized. We don’t need the big source of news anymore. Who needs the New York Times when you can get news from 50 bloggers in an RSS reader?
  • The print side One point that newspaper proponents can make pretty easily is that much of what shows up on the blogosphere originally appeared in various news sources. And there are many benefits to that whole organizational center that a newsroom provides. And newsprint is tangible in your hands in a way that a laptop isn’t.
  • What Slate didRather than go for the Clay Shirky-style final word, they let Web news junkies and newspaper junkies say their piece (and there are many opinions, all of which are worth reading), tested them on their knowledge, then had them debate on a podcast. It’s an entertaining debate where – best of all – nothing’s settled. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 6 Comments • Permalink

23 Jul 2009 10:12

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Politics: Was journalism icon Walter Cronkite really worthy of our trust?

  • If the nostalgia for Cronkitian news values were genuine, you’d expect PBS’s soporific News Hour would be drawing huge and growing numbers of viewers. … Alas, the NewsHour’s Cronkite-lite approach has failed to attract much of an audience.
  • Slate columnist Jack Shafer • Discussing why the legacy of someone like Walter Cronkite – the trustworthy face of journalism for a generation – was bad for news consumers. Shafer suggests that today’s era of multiple opinions all over the place is a much better market – and that trust, especially of a information source like Cronkite is a bad yardstick to follow. He ends his piece by saying: “Be skeptical, news consumers, especially of the journalists you trust most. It will make you smarter and keep them honest.” • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Apr 2009 10:39

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Politics, Tech: A Slate columnist chooses piracy over legal movie downloads

  • Pirates aren’t popular these days, but let’s give them this—they know how to put together a killer on-demand entertainment system.
  • Farhad Manjoo • On the sad state of affairs for legal movie downloading. All Manjoo wants is the digital equivalent of Netflix, but the restrictions on movie download services are so high – either not enough of a selection or too many limitations – that he ends up just using Bittorrent instead. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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