media
Found Material
Cruising Down Memory Lane
TheSpoof.com
February 23rd, 2012
What do Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Gene Hackman and Chumlee have in common? They’re all skewered in this parody “scoop” about Cruise’s (fictional) diary being purchased by Las Vegas’ own Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. Read more »
Vegas Tech
Five Apps Las Vegas Needs Now
February 16th, 2012
Think hard about the last time you consulted a folding map or looked up a number in the phone book. If you can’t remember, that’s because we’ve all got smartphones with applications that put handles on the urban experience. Las Vegas is served well by global apps: Google Maps, Foursquare and Yelp are fully functional both on the Strip and off. But that’s not enough. We need apps to make it easier to live here, and five apps spring to mind immediately. Read more »
Site to See
Goths Occurring in Nature
GothsUpTrees.net
February 16th, 2012
What with their pale complexions, black velvet capes and art collections thick with Brian Froud, you may be tempted to believe that you haven’t much in common with the average goth. But that fact is that you have much more in common with Joe and Betty Goth than you know. Read more »
Found Material
Degrees of Misperception
BaltimoreSun.com
February 16th, 2012
The enduring reputation of UNLV basketball during the Jerry Tarkanian era is that it was a renegade program filled with guys who were more interested in scoring points than making grades. But this 1992 Baltimore Sun story, which came on the heels of a New York Times investigation, explains Read more »
Vegas Tech
The Death of Righthaven
February 9th, 2012
Righthaven, you may recall, is the Las Vegas company that started suing websites for posting clips of articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Righthaven filed these lawsuits without notifying the website owners, and without giving them any opportunity to remove the offending content. The company hoped the threat of expensive litigation would motivate site owners to settle quickly, and the strategy worked—for a while. Read more »
Site to See
Check It Before You Wreck It
IsItOld.com
February 9th, 2012
I know your works, my huckleberry friend. You mean well. You see that video of the kitten riding the vacuum cleaner or an amusing post on TextsFromLastNight.com and you think, I absolutely must spam my contacts list with this good news as soon as possible. Read more »
Found Material
Drying Up?
LATimes.com
February 9th, 2012
It’s always good, irritating fun to read other city’s predictions of the sky falling over Las Vegas, but in this instance, the Los Angeles Times might have the added benefit of being right. Read more »
Vegas Tech
Debating the Future of Google+
February 2nd, 2012
Google+ is to Facebook as Sony’s doomed Betamax format was to VHS: It is more compact, more versatile and presents a clearer picture. Yet VHS trounced Betamax, because Sony’s marketing campaign, which stressed the format’s superior technical aspects, made Betamax look like a walled garden. Read more »
The Week
Putting a Lid on the Internet Soup
January 26th, 2012
The Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) were crafted to make it easier to combat Internet piracy, but as the bills wended their way through Congress in recent weeks, many in the Internet community—from giants such as Google to dorm-room startups—have seen them as a threat to the very essence of the Internet. Read more »
Media
Old Media, the Wild Web and the Meaning of “Free”
January 26th, 2012
After Google, Wikipedia, and tens of thousands of other websites protested the proposed Protect IP and Stop Online Privacy acts (PIPA and SOPA, respectively), Brian Greenspun, a Las Vegas newspaper publisher who includes himself among those “struggling in the media business,” responded by pointing out that the Internet is not free. His column in the Jan. 22 Las Vegas Sun does not specify whether he means “free as in beer” or “free as in freedom,” but his comments suggest he means free as in beer. Which means he starts his argument by completely missing the larger point. Read more »
