Noticed how shitty and blurry this season of House of Cards looks? Part of that’s thanks to Comcast’s hampering of Netflix, and part of that’s because until our infrastructure changes—don’t hold your breath—streaming video is going to look inferior to things like Blu-ray or playback from locally stored HD files. Of course, 99.99 percent of […]
Tech
Posted inTech
:D No, wait. :(
The short version: HUMANS HAVE NO NEED FOR HUMAN FACES ANYMORE. When you see a colon and a parentheses, you know exactly what it means. The smiley face has become ubiquitous online, and psychologists have even looked into the ways it’s used in emails. Now, researchers say that not only do we know what the […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Today in Corporations That Control Your Life
As Denis mentioned in Good Morning News (and as your Twitter feed is probably still freaking the fuck out about), Comcast is trying to acquire Time Warner, at which point will they not only will control a huge swatch of media and infrastructure, but they’ll also probably change their name to OmniCorp and expand Comcast’s […]
Posted inBooks
Amazon Crushes Barnes & Noble Under Its Heel, with Help from the Department of Justice
Jay Yarow at Business Insider writes: Barnes & Noble laid off its Nook hardware engineers, according to a source that tipped Business Insider. The engineers were let go last Thursday, according to our source. Barnes & Noble’s e-book sales were reportedly improving a few years ago, but now they’ve all but bottomed out, and Barnes […]
Posted inArtsy
Portland Cartoonist Erika Moen Launches a Patreon (Also, Patreon Sounds Pretty Brilliant)
Oh Joy, Sex Toy by Erika Moen Local cartoonist Erika Moen—who, it should be noted, has been interviewed in the Mercury, and has also appeared at Comics Underground, the comics reading series Alison and I produce—has a campaign up on Patreon, a newish crowdfunding site that, until this morning, I hadn’t even heard of, let […]
Posted inTech
This Year, Everyone Is Trying to Unmask Anonymous Commenters in Court
Juliet Linderman at NOLA.com says: The attorney for former New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Director Stacey Jackson is seeking private information from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune about two anonymous online commenters. U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Wilkinson granted a request Tuesday (Jan. 21) from Jackson, who faces federal corruption charges, to subpoena NOLA Media Group for information […]
Posted inSports
“Soccer” vs. “Football”: Another Great YouTube Comment Recreation!
Here’s another of the great YouTube Comment recreations, in which two aged Shakespearean actors exactly recreate a battle between commenters on YouTube. Today: What begins as a battle between the definitions of “soccer” and “football” turns into a scathing debate on the vagaries of intellectualism! WHO WILL WIN? (Spoiler alert: You.)
Posted inMovies & TV
Man with Google Glass Thrown Out of Movie Theater and Interrogated: Who’s the Bigger Asshole?
Rob Jackson at Phandroid writes: At an AMC theater in Easton Mall in Columbus, Ohio, one Google Glass Explorer went to see Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, but got a rude awakening instead. An hour into the movie he was approached by a federal agent who, without hesitation, snatched the Google Glass off the man’s face […]
Posted inTech
Wikipedia Arts + Feminism Edit-a-Thon
A few months ago, I wrote about the Oregon Arts Project, a movement to improve coverage of regional arts organizations on Wikipedia by training arts-minded new contributors to the site. There’s another, similar event on the horizon: The upcoming Art + Feminism Edit-a-Thon aims to boost Wikipedia’s coverage of female artists while also encouraging women […]
Posted inTech
Net Neutrality Takes a Punch in the Mouth
Earlier this morning, a federal appeals court struck down the FCC’s rules for Net Neutrality, enacted back in 2010. The rules were intended to prevent a future where media companies and telecoms (like Verizon, the company appealing the FCC’s rules) take the business model of cable television and apply it to your internet, with all […]
Posted inTech
The Worst Obamacare Web Site in the Nation?
Oregon: Several states and the federal government have struggled with exchange technology, but none as much as Oregon. Cover Oregon’s online enrollment system still doesn’t work more than three months after it was supposed to launch, and the state has hired or reassigned hundreds of workers to manually process applications. Officials say they hope the […]
Posted inTech
I Won’t Leave My Cell Phone In Your Stupid Basket
Fair warning: If you go to a party and there’s a basket by the door demanding you leave your phone behind so you can be “more present” during the proceedings, you have every right to steal one and leave the party forever. Because much more dangerous than the trend of people using their smart phones […]