David lafontaine's
Sips from the firehose
A site that attempts to render the internet down into one easy-to consume mental beverage.
Leaf Boats
Leaf Boat, originally uploaded by Wordyeti. The heavy rainstorms of this past weekend were much-needed, and therefore much-welcomed in Los Angeles. The anticipated apocalyptic mudslides in the fire-ravaged areas never materialized, but that hasn't stopped the local TV...
Facebook Changes Privacy Policies; Notice Shows Reason Why – Spammers Flood Comment Thread
The note sent out by Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg today showed why there is such a need for privacy control & reform on Facebook & other social networking sites. Man, this was a real eye-opener for me. Like 350 million other users, I got the notice that...
This Week in Paid Content: Thanksgiving Week
So this week, we’ve got a rising level of chatter about Murdoch’s media properties banning Google links in favor of getting paid by Microsoft’s Bing search engine, the BBC throws a wrench into paid content in England (and perhaps everywhere else), the idea of sprinkling porn onto newspaper websites to see what happens is floated, and what orcs and dwarves can teach newspapers.
Who Am I Really? Kaiser Permanente’s Curious Confusion
Online KP.org password sign-up confuses me with other people with the same name, asks for data on people I haven't seen for years. Against the advice of almost everyone I know, I recently switched from Anthem to Kaiser Permanente for our corporate health policy. ...
Wallflowers at the New Media Dance: Newspapers Can’t Decide On Paid Content
The overriding theme these days seems to be borrowed from the debate over the war in Afghanistan: dithering. Waffling. Hemming and hawing.
The newspaper industry is shifting from foot to foot, licking its lips, and generally acting like a 14-year-old boy at his first school dance, afraid to take the Big Leap.
Newspapers’ Dying Swan Song: SF Chronicle Tries Glossy Paper, Splashy Color
This is a strategy that is also being pursued in New York by NY Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman, who has invested more than he would like to admit to (millions? hundreds of millions?) into high-tech printing presses, capable of churning out massive print runs with razor-sharp color. The 15-tower, triple-width ultra-compact Commander CT press looks a lot like the last-generation Nikon F6 film camera. It was the apex of film technology, what many analysts recognized at the time as “the perfect camera” — but that alas, was rolled out just as every working professional made the move to use digital.