Archive for January 2007

Holy Headlines, CNN!

January 29th, 2007

I’m not complaining or anything, but has anyone noticed how tabloidy the CNN.com front page has gotten lately? The subject matter is more topsy-turvy than ever and the headline writing seems deliberately offbeat.

“Libby’s Defense Tackles Bush’s Former Spokesman” (TACKLES?!?)

“Dead Soldier To Father Kid With Woman He Never Met”

“Idiot Window Washer Hangs By Toes 6 Floors Up”

A screenshot of the front page as of one minute ago is below:

Just to repeat, I’m not complaining, but I’ve definitely noticed a gradual change from CNN’s matter-of-fact hard news approach to a more entertainment-based approach over the last year. For better or for worse, I think most news outlets will move in the same direction if they aren’t already.

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How To Best Stalk Jeff Croft

Once his Twitter-roll is on here, you'll even be able to track what the boy eats.

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January 28th, 2007

Get DOM Assistance with Nyman's DOMass

A nice, compact set of javascript methods to manipulate the DOM. Like me, Robert is all about the filesize.

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Oh, Minty Day!

A few minutes ago, The Wolf released version 2.0 of his highly successful and highly awesome stat package, Mint.

I’ve been beta testing it for several months now. It’s good. You should get it.

(Shaun also launched a new version of Shauninman.com because the paint was starting to dry on the “old” one, but we’ll ignore that for now.)

The Wolf has also figured out something Alan Greenspan never could: how to buck inflation. The price of Mint is still $30 and existing users can upgrade for a mere Jackson.

Anyway, that’s it. It’s a nice upgrade. My only beef is that the interface is de-Mint-ified a bit by default, but by throwing this hack at the end of your /mint/app/styles/vanilla_mint/style.css file, you can get green again:

/* BEGIN RETURN TO MINTYNESS */

.display table.striped tr.alt td,
.display table.visits table.striped tr.alt td
{
background-color: #F0F7E2;
border-top: 1px solid #E7F0D0;
border-bottom: 1px solid #E7F0D0;
}

.display table tr:hover td,
.display table.visits td tr:hover td
{
background-color: #F0F7E2;
}

.display table.striped tr:hover td,
.display table.visits table.striped tr:hover td,
.display table.striped tr.alt:hover td,
.display table.visits table.striped tr.alt:hover td
{
background-color: #cde9a7;
}

/* END RETURN TO MINTYNESS */

At the request of Chris, here is a sample of what the mod looks like:

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Introducing the Newsvine Question of the Day

January 23rd, 2007

One question per day. 150 words or less per answer. One answer per person.

Those are the only rules for the freshly announced Newsvine Question of the Day competition, and thanks to the nice people at Nike, each winner this week will receive an iPod Nano and Nike + iPod Sport Kit as a victory keepsake. Did you know Nike means victory in Greek?

We’re very excited about the launch of the Newsvine QOTD because it’s the first in a series of “lighter” activities we’re prepping for debut on the ‘Vine. Sometimes you’re just not in the mood to read and debate articles and essays and would rather spend a minute or two here and there doing less time-intensive things. The QOTD is designed to be read quickly and answered quickly. We’ll see how it evolves.

So head on over to the QOTD landing page (http://questions.newsvine.com) and answer the first question. It’s about the public figure below:

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January 19th, 2007

My New Favorite Web Site

An instant daily read.

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January 18th, 2007
A clear sign that something is wrong with this medium is that people are updating their Twitters with “doin stuff”. Hmmmmpf.

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January 17th, 2007
Another gem: http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/2007/01/fraggle-choad.html

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January 16th, 2007
Just discovered http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com. Good times (and remarkably SFW)!

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January 15th, 2007

Footnote: The place for original documents online

Chris Willis' new effort. I likes!

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Video of 14 year old Jimmy Page in 1957: I watched “It Might Get Loud” last night and part of it featured this 53 year old video clip. Don’t miss the interview a couple minutes in where Jimmy says he wants to do biological research when he grows up. As for the movie, it was pretty good, if you’re a fan of the three guitarists. I personally didn’t think The Edge added much, but I’m not a huge U2 fan either. Jack White and Page, however, were great.

How to Swear in English, if You’re Korean: “Little children and pregnant women should not watch, because it will be bad for their education.” Gets funnier every time I watch it.

Saturday Night Live: China Cold Open — I don’t watch SNL much anymore but this week’s (repeat) opening skit on U.S./China relations was hilarious. I love the translator.

TrentWalton.com:

Trent’s site is really nice. The single-blog-post index is an interesting touch. Make sure to click “Prev” to peruse some of Trent’s other posts.

How to make a Lost Cat poster if you’re a graphic designer and you don’t like doing free work for people. (via jimray)

“Apple of My Eye”: A short movie, filmed and edited entirely on an iPhone. Beautiful stuff. (via gruber)

PilotHandwriting:

Write some letters on a piece of paper, upload it via webcam, and this site will turn it into a font. Very slick. If I didn’t have deplorable handwriting, I would try it. (via Cameron)

How the Big 12 came back to life:

This is one of the best investigative sports articles I’ve ever read. Really, really fascinating. If you care at all about college football, you must read it. Two really interesting things I learned: Colorado really screwed themselves, and ESPN pretty much screwed the Pac-10.

We just launched msnbc.com’s new photoblog today. It’s pretty hot and it’s not even full featured yet. Peep it.

iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual:

If I ever decide to write an iPhone app, this will be the first book I buy. (via gruber)

The Battery Flashlight: Pretty cool. I can’t think of another example of a product where the battery is actually part of the user interface.

“What is the level of technology that is required to make a foam stick?” — Wham-O Moves to America (The Daily Show)

How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? A great infographic showing how the digital distribution of music has sucked artists’ royalties almost completely dry. People have argued they were never healthy to begin with, but the difference here is major. The same is going to happen to every meatspace product that transitions to digital. The iPad isn’t going to save content royalties.

Dude with ridiculous business-card throwing skills. It’s good to know business cards still have a use. (via tan.gy)

If ever anyone had a look that screamed “potential air guitar champion”, it is Rob Weychert. Watch him tear it up in the 2010 Air Guitar World Championships. I am proud to say this man has slept on my couch.

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