Archives for January 2009

The Daily Loper – January 30, 2009

January 30, 2009 by Lopy

Coyote, Why Did You Take Me So Far From Home? Edition

Todays links of interest:

How Would You Feel if Your Flickr Account Were Permanently Deleted?
One Flickr user loses her account because of apparent copyright violations. But were they really? And how do we — as consumers — see that our rights are given equal weight?
Men smell of cheese and women of onions
And sometimes we have nothing to add. This is one of them.
The Plotz Thickens: Slate Editor Sends Staffers on Sabbaticals
Speaking of new media models, Slate is giving its staff a chance to take some time away from the rapid-pace online environment to create something great for the publication.

The Daily Loper – January 29, 2009

January 29, 2009 by Lopy

She Looks Like Eva Marie Saint in “On The Waterfront” Edition

Todays links of interest:

The Middle-DVD!
Best news we’ve heard all day: the DVD for The Middleman, the best TV show to come out last year that none of you watched at all, will be out this summer. Not only that, it will be produced by Shout! Factory, thereby ensuring that it will be high quality. Good show!
Springsteen promises high-energy halftime show
Here’s the problem: anybody who has seen Bruce live — and some of your ‘lopers have seen him several times — knows that a) it won’t be long enough and b) it will probably be better than the game itself.
How To Work Out Like An Indie Rocker
Oh, dear gods, no.

The Daily Loper – January 28, 2009

January 28, 2009 by Lopy

Here I Am . . . Let’s Make Records Edition

Todays links of interest:

The Greatest Snack Food Stadium Ever Built
Trust us: the pictures don’t do it justice. Nor do they convey the actual smell.
The Day the Music Died: The End of Indie 103.1
L.A. Weekly looks at Indie 103.1, and the hole that its death leaves in the L.A. radio soundscape.
Democrats Launch Petition Against Rush Limbaugh After Firing Back at Obama
Stupid Democrats. Here’s how to repudiate Rush his ilk: succeed. Restore America. Instead of talking about how outraged you are (heaven forfend!), shut up and show the world just exactly how wrong he is, and how wrong he always has been.

The Daily Loper – January 27, 2009

January 27, 2009 by Lopy

You Will Have Pancakes and You Will Like It Edition

Todays links of interest:

Streaming video cannibalizing DVD rentals, says Netflix
Not sure why this sounds so negative. We were under the impression that consumer adoption of digital media through legal sources was some sort of holy grail.
Netflix attracting more subscribers through streaming video
Hmm, watching video at home…the new recession-proof industry.

Imagining an iTunes eBook Store

January 27, 2009 by Kirk Biglione

Update: This post was published on 1/27/09 – exactly one year to the day before Apple announced the iBookstore. For an update on what was announced, see The Day Apple Didn’t Change the World.

Confession time. I was wrong about reading ebooks on the iPhone.

When I evaluated various ereading devices a few months back, I came to the conclusion that the iPhone was not suitable for long form reading. Months later, I’ve now read several books on the iPhone and I have to admit that the experience is growing on me. In fact, I frequently find myself looking at my bookshelf and thinking, “I wish I had that book on my iPhone”.

In most cases those wishes are an impossibility because there’s no (legal) way to get the book in question onto my iPhone — or any other reading device, for that matter. In some cases, where digital editions are available, they aren’t available in a format that would work with any of the current iPhone reader applications.

There’s hope that all of this may be changing soon, as publisher interest in the iPhone/iPod Touch seems to be growing by the day. Publishers are rushing to experiment with all manner of ebook releases targeted at the iPhone.

In part, publishers are turning to the Apple platform as a way to neutralize the momentum building behind Amazon’s proprietary Kindle platform. Ironically, not long ago record labels were headed in the opposite direction, offering up their catalogs to Amazon in hopes that Amazon’s MP3 Store might neutralize some of iTunes’s momentum.

The Daily Loper – January 26, 2009

January 26, 2009 by Lopy

Chicken in a Fuckbag Edition

Todays links of interest:

Marvel sued for $750m in movie profits
Veddy, veddy interesting.
The awfulness of Billy Joel, explained
Absolutely brutal, especially the evisceration of “It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll To Me,” one of the most contemptible songs ever written.
BSG Recap: A Disquiet Follows My Soul
Jim’s latest Battlestar Galactica recap. Coulda used one more rewrite.

20 Musical Moments to Die For

January 23, 2009 by Jim Connelly

Somewhere underneath all of that hair is Neil Young. This month, on Musical Moments to Die For: secrets, influences, and secret influences, all book-ended by the two best bands to ever come from Athens, GA.

We’ve also got the front-runners for greatest guitar and organ solos ever; Neil Young’s most despairing moment; and not one, not two, but three variations of the beat solidified by the late, great Ellas McDaniel.

As always, I’m not necessarily talking about hooks here, more like traps. The parts of these songs that bring me back to them over and over again.

This is the sixth in a series: The first one had 25, the second one had 24, the third one had 23, the fourth one had 22, the fifth one had 21.

And yeah, you probably see the pattern and think you know the endgame, but I can promise you that there’s a twist!

The Daily Loper – January 22, 2009

January 22, 2009 by Lopy

What Am I? What Am I? Edition

Todays links of interest:

Why I can’t get enough of Windows 7
Not the first good thing we’ve heard about the post-Vista beta that Microsoft is offering.
ABC’s ‘Lost’ returns to record-low premiere ratings
This is worrisome, because the way things are going, ABC will end up replacing it with "Dancing with The Oversinging Stars," and we’ll never know if it ends up making any sense or not.
Nearly 37.8 Million Watch President Obama?s Oath And Speech On TV
For those saying "Reagan Beat Obama", uh, no. These are television only (and probably US only) numbers. Add in international, online, and, right, that huge crowd in Washington. Toss in the Times Square crowd. All righty then.

The Daily Loper – January 21, 2009

January 21, 2009 by Lopy

Double Bird Strike Edition

Todays links of interest:

Palin to media: Leave my kids alone
Media to Palin: How can we leave them alone when you’re always forcing them into the conversation?
Warner Brothers Eliminating 10% Of Staff
By the way, congratulations to India and Poland, who will be getting a lot of new jobs thanks to Warner Bros.
LA Observed: Advance word of LAT layoffs
In which we try to discover if a newspaper is truly a newspaper if it doesn’t have actual people working for it.

The Daily Loper – January 20, 2009

January 20, 2009 by Lopy

It’s The Beginning of a New Age Edition

Todays links of interest:

Time Warner’s Warner Bros. cuts nearly 800 jobs
Ouch. Really. It’s going around the entertainment business.
Online TV Sites Battle for Viewers
As online stations offer the same content, what qualities will distinguish them from each other? How will one thrive over another?
Jaguars quarantined after zookeeper attacked
See, here’s the deal: jaguars do what jaguars do, and if we’re gonna keep them in zoos, we have to accept this. So tired of the animals being punished because we have this bizarre need to cage them against their will.