Fashion Mags 'Mean Girls' of the Pub World

clipped from www.alternet.org Elle's ad pages for September are down 21 per cent, Harper's Bazaar 25 per cent, Vanity Fair 27 per cent, W, 53 per cent, and Vogue, 36 per cent. Lady mags are dinosaurs. And since fashion mags aren't the queens of the hallways anymore, it's no surprise that many of those former queens are trying to give themselves a quick makeover, to show they're not with the drowning clique. "personally, read Vogue for over three decades as though it were scripture," as one Salon writer quipped, she has since decided to call off the affair. I'm pretty. You're ugly. Buy this. A former model wrote a poignant essay this week about why she just quit the industry. Jenna Sauers writes, "I often reflected on the fact that studies show that women, after looking at fashion magazines -- full of pictures of girls very much like me, sometimes even pictures of me -- feel bad about themselves. I also often wondered why it is, given this fact, that we buy the magazines again next month." women are now turning to blogs Good fashion blogs economyofstyle.blogspot.com wwwthebudgetfashionista.com

Study Finds Organic Not A Nutritional Plus

clipped from www.reuters.com Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007. A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference. "A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance," said Alan Dangour, one of the report's authors. "Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority." The results of research, which was commissioned by the British government's Food Standards Agency, were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The pesticides in conventionally grown food destroy water quality due to run off and are harmful for agricultural workers. That's also why some of us buy organic.

Libraries Shut Out of Stimulus $$

clipped from arstechnica.com City libraries shut out of broadband stimulus money? Looks like urban libraries are getting a bum deal when it comes to applying for broadband stimulus grants. The American Library Association wants this fixed. A rare moment when a San Francisco Public Library free Internet access terminal is not in use. Matthew Lasar The first round of stimulus grants "in effect de-prioritizes libraries and discourages them from applying for funding," complains the American Library Association in a letter sent to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. "The ability of our libraries to meet community needs is in jeopardy—especially when library use has heavily increased across the country in these difficult economic times." many jobs require a Web-based application That has put more pressure on job hunters to find computers, and more pressure on the library to help them. the library provides one hour computer/Internet connections. Rarely is a station unoccupied.

If anything, libraries should be first in line.

Paper Heart, Love, and Michael Cerna make the world go round

clipped from jezebel.com Paper Heart is a mocku- docu-dramedy about real-life funny person Charlyne Yi (Seth Rogen's stoner buddy's giggly girlfriend in Knocked Up) claiming she doesn't believe in love. So she sets out with a director pal to learn what love is. Enter Michael Cera. Enter heartwarming quirkiness with an excellent soundtrack. Enter Paper Heart, which opens in select theaters August 7. Added bonus! After watching this film, you may finally develop a response to the plaintive, immortal words of Huey Lewis (and most if not all of the News): Do you believe in love? Do you believe it's true? Wee-ooh-ooh-ooh-wee-ooh?

Everything sweetness and light...

Maiden name no more

clipped from www.theglobeandmail.com I took my wife's last name You'd think it's a small sacrifice to make at the altar, but few people - especially relatives - understand Josiah Neufeld The official at the drivers' licence office squinted at me suspiciously, examined for a second time my birth certificate and marriage licence, and repeated, "You want to change your last name to your wife's?" "Usually it's the other way around." He consulted the form on his screen and said slowly, as much to himself as to anyone, "Yes ... you can do that." Of all the independences one sacrifices at the altar, a name might seem like a small one. Women have been leaving theirs there for centuries. I did it because any form of power comes with duties. I'm obliged to take responsibility for my power, to learn its effects - even unintentional ones - to see what it does to others when I'm not watching, to use it in the best way possible. Sometimes to relinquish it.

Any other lads out there who left their name at the alter?

As Dobbs digs in, CNN rebuts, ridicules, distances itself from birth certificate claims

clipped from mediamatters.org CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein told staffers of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on Thursday that the controversy regarding the legitimacy of President Obama's birth certificate -- a topic Dobbs has avidly pursued on the air -- is a "dead" story. But in an interview, the cable news chief left open the possibility that Dobbs may continue to raise questions about why the president has not produced a long-form birth certificate. The absence of such a record has spawned rumors that Obama was not born in the United States, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. "He's got more than 30 years as a television journalist, and I trust him, as I trust all our reporters and anchors, to exercise their judgment as various stories evolve," Klein said of Dobbs, whose daily CNN program is a mix of news and opinion. Hawaiian officials discarded paper documents in 2001 Obama's long-form birth certificate no longer exists and a shorter certificate of live birth that has been made public is the official record,

The Southern Poverty Law Center has taken this up with CNN, calling for the ouster of Mr. Dobbs from the airwaves.

Twitter defamation lawsuit

clipped from consumerist.com Tenant Sued After Using Twitter To Complain About Moldy Apartment If the the puiblic didn't read Amanda Bonnen's Twitter feed before, they will now, thanks to a defamation lawsuit brought against her by Horizon Group Management in Chicago. Bonnen, a tenant, posted an update that said, "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay." Now she's being sued. The management company says it has been greatly injured in its reputation as a landlord in Chicago because of the Tweet, and seeks an excess of $50,000 in damages. You can read the complaint here. Update: Horizon responds. Uptown Resident Sued For Twitter Post [CBS 2 Chicago] (Photo:TarikB) Amanda Bonnen has closed her Twitter account and the post is gone, which probably is all Horizon wanted, but now that the suit is public, the post will continue to live Or she already settled with them apparently has only 15 followers doubt her tweet was capable of degrading "its reputation as a landlord in Chicago

Public/private communication - post is search-able, but she only had 15 followers.

Sotomayor Approved With Just One Republican Yea

clipped from www.theawl.com Sonia Sotomayor (the activist Latina judge who adjudicates through the lens of her personal experience, unlike Clarence Thomas or the Italian judges, what's his name and what's his name, they're all black to me, since I live in the year 1910) has made it through the sort of grueling, sort of totally ridiculous Judicial Committee hearings with approval for a Senate vote on her elevation to Lord Queen Justice of NAFTA. That will be another boring spectacle. "Among the seven Republicans on the committee, only Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voted in favor," says the Times. It is sad that the Republican understanding of Sotomayor's deep-seated unfitness to serve, because she believes that judges interpret and therefore create law in the course of their work, law which actually circumscribes human and governmental behavior (instead of Baby God or the Giant Space Jesus Monkey doing so), will not be further heard because of things like democracy and voting and our attention span.

by Choire - Mr. Very, Very Funny

Welcome to my future

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Library fan nears 25,000th book An avid reader in south west Scotland is on the brink of borrowing her 25,000th book from her local libraries. Louise Brown, 91, from Stranraer, took her first book on loan from Castle Douglas library in 1946. Since then she has borrowed at least six books every week throughout each year and has recently increased that to about 12 volumes every seven days. Library staff said they were amazed by the achievement, particularly since Mrs Brown has never had an overdue fine. Forget the spinster fear of dying alone with your cats eating off your face - what about being crushed under your library books as you attempt to return them?

Amy Poehler's Spring Breakdown - is straight to DVD such a crime?

Bust Magazine's Aug/Sept Fall Preview bemoans the fact that this never saw the theatrical light of day. Is the jury is still out?
Netflix or public library check-out?

DYI iPhone Scanner

clipped from lifehacker.com Create an iPhone Document Scanner from Cardboard You might need a scanner every so often, but they're far too big for their occasional usefulness. If you've got an iPhone and some time to cut cardboard, you can ditch some paper and capture documents without the glass bed. University of Cincinnati student Kyle A Koch frequently synced his iPhone and backed up his iPhoto library, but wasn't so hot with the paper and study material organization. Since he knew he was reliable with iPhone images, he put his industrial design studies into practice and crafted cardboard-based docks that elevate the phone just enough to properly frame and capture 8.5x11 documents. You can order a customized, pre-assembled version of Koch's scanner apparatus in cardboard or medium density fibreboard, but Koch also includes a free EPS file for downloading and DIY building. Combined with a universal capture/OCR tool like Evernote and the powerful camera on an iPhone 3G S, it's definitely a work-able scanner solution

Very crafty.

Jailbreak iPhone for Goggle Voice

clipped from lifehacker.com GV Mobile Available for Free on Cydia iPhone/iPod touch: Yesterday tech site TechCrunch reported that Apple blocked an official Google Voice app from the App Store; meanwhile, they also kicked unofficial versions (like previously mentioned GV Mobile) out the door. But you can still get GV Mobile for free. The catch: You've got to be willing to jailbreak your iPhone. Why? Because Apple is demonstrating that they're perfectly happy locking out any application or tool that will improve your iPhone experience in ways that don't gel with their corporate synergy. (Yeah, we said corporate synergy—nice work, Apple.) The developer of the recently kicked-out-of-the-App-Store GV Mobile has decided to go ahead and release GV Mobile for free rather than let his work go to waste (it should show up in Cydia sometime today or tomorrow). Guess that's one more reason for us to keep on jailbreaking our iPhones.

Free My Phone.Net for activist info. regrading all things net neutrality, etc.

Playing Devil's Advocate with iPhone and Google Voice

clipped from daringfireball.net By John Gruber But does anyone really think AT&T pulls the strings in this relationship? Google Voice doesn’t just interfere with the carrier’s business model, it interferes with Apple’s iPhone business model. Not just AT&T but all iPhone carrier partners pay Apple a hefty subsidy for every iPhone sold, and that subsidy is based on assumptions about how much the average iPhone customer is going to pay in monthly service charges for voice, data, and SMS. And, to play devil’s advocate for a moment, I’m not sure the decision is entirely unreasonable. think about it in terms of Apple’s competition with Google. Google Voice is a mobile phone service provided by the maker of one of the biggest competitors to the iPhone OS What if Google Voice were instead Microsoft Voice? Would you be as surprised then that Apple is discouraging iPhone owners from using the service? Just saying.

Interesting point of view.

Notable Tweets on Microsoft Yahoo

Search engine showdown.

clipped from www.searchenginejournal.com A few hours after the first news coverage on the upcoming announcement about the Yahoo-Microsoft search deal, it started to generate substantial buzz on Twitter. If you search “Microsoft Yahoo” on Twitter Search, you’ll get tremendous number of Tweets, with updates coming in every second. Some of the notable Tweets related to the Yahoo-Microsoft Deal:

Twitter to be the new Google?

clipped from www.searchenginejournal.com it stares at you upfront - the Twitter Search Box. As Loren commented to me via IM - “looks like a search engine to me…“ The redesign was made more for first time visitors to the Twitter home page and who are not yet using Twitter. Putting the Twitter search box right up front would give these visitors a first taste of how great Twitter is as a discovery engine and not just a social media tool for communicating with Twitter members. It’s a good strategy for Twitter which defines what it could do aside from being a micro-blogging service. And this could also be the start of biggger, bolder things to come for Twitter.

"it stares at you upfront - the Twitter Search Box."

The staring twitter search box. Such fear and dread lurks behind this simple description.

Google Voice vs iPhone

clipped from www.techcrunch.com Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core: Official Google Voice App Blocked From App Store Earlier today we learned that Apple had begun to pull all Google Voice-enabled applications from the App Store, citing the fact that they “duplicate features that come with the iPhone”. Now comes even worse news: we’ve learned that Apple has blocked Google’s official Google Voice application itself from the App Store. who’s behind the restriction: our old friend AT&T. Google Voice scares the carriers. It allows users to send free SMS messages and get cheap long-distance over Google Voice’s lines. It also makes it trivial to switch to a new phone service, because everyone calls the Google Voice number anyway. John Gruber has confirmed with a trusted source that AT&T is to blame for the Google Voice ban. Apple can point to the App Store’s 50,000 applications all it wants, but how many of them could truly be called groundbreaking? Are they really putting a dent in the universe?

Go to FreeMyPhone.net to do something about it.

Yahoo or Microsoft set to do the morning after walk of shame

clipped from gawker.com Yahoo, Microsoft To Go Steady Tomorrow: Report After a failed romance last year, tears; then fighting and the nastiness; followed by a slow, painful reconciliation starting earlier this year. Yahoo and Microsoft have finally — finally — united with an advertising deal, All Things D reports. The pact will be announced within 24 hours, reporter Kara Swisher writes. It's been a long time coming. Given the two companies' stock performance (see chart below), and the level of, uh, charisma their CEOs posses, it's no wonder it took this long to screw up the courage to take on Google together. Should be entertaining to watch. This sounds like a "nobody's ugly at 2:00 a.m." situation. I'm just wondering who'll be doing a "walk of shame" when it's all over.

Ugliness is written all over this.

Google Book Settlement @ NYPL "Big Brave New World of the Jetsons"

This afternoon at the Celeste Bartos Forum at the New York Public Library, the main players in the Google Book Settlement gathered for a bit of PR soothing for an ornery audience made up of librarians, publishing industry workers, professors, and the NYPL 's general counsel.

To sum up the dominant metaphors in play - Now that Google has finished scanning every book on the face of the earth, the horses have been let out their barns, but lojacked, and we're all sitting around our kitchen tables on the internet, except those of us without access who are waiting in long lines out the door on 42nd Street for the one terminal that the settlement provides free for each public library building to access the new Google Book Search index.

• This settlement covers books out of print & under copyright with a 1/09 cutoff date.
  
• Authors & Rightsholders (publishers) will get a one-time payment of anywhere between $60-$300.
• Books found on the Book Search can be bought from $2-$200 - average price $6-$7.
• Price can be set by rightsholder.
• 37% will go to Google - 63% to Books Rights Registry (which will pay author & rightsholder.)
  
• Orphaned works are thought to comprise 10% of these books.

Best exchange - Google: "Money from [sales of] orphaned works will go to charity."
NYPL Director: "This is the most charitable place."
Google: "The money will be held in escrow for five years."
NYPL Director: "We're here for the long haul."