marclafountain.com

"The Smart Fortwo could do for Midtown gridlock what Mr. Bloomberg’s successful bans on smoking and..."

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:26:18 -0400

“The Smart Fortwo could do for Midtown gridlock what Mr. Bloomberg’s successful bans on smoking and trans fats did for New Yorkers’ health: after a few miles in this anemic two-seat tomato can, drivers will sprint to the subway and abandon the surface streets for good.”

- New York Times Review of the Smart Fortwo

That’s a shame. I’m a Mini owner who wants to go smaller and more fuel efficient. But, Smart doesn’t sound like a very, uh, smart move.

Google Maps Adds More: Wikipedia Entries and Geo-Coded Photos

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:18:49 -0400

Google Maps Adds More: Wikipedia Entries and Geo-Coded Photos: A great tool that just keeps getting better and better.

topherchris: Tumblr Radar IMG TiltViewer It: - Uses Airtight...

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:42:10 -0400

topherchris:

Tumblr Radar IMG TiltViewer

It:
- Uses Airtight Interactive’s cool TiltViewer swf.
- Scrapes the Tumblr Radar for the popular images.
- Caches the results of this scrape for at least 15 minutes.
- Displays the Tumblelog title and a link to the post when you flip over an image.

Amazing work, Chris.

"The study showed that when heterosexual men are exposed to positive emotional stimuli—in this case,..."

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:00:10 -0400

“The study showed that when heterosexual men are exposed to positive emotional stimuli—in this case, erotic photos of a man and woman—an area of the brain associated with anticipation of reward is stimulated. In the immediate aftermath of that stimulation, men are consistently more likely to take bigger financial risks than they otherwise would.”

- Stanford Study Shows Stimuli Unrelated to a Decision Can Still Influence Men’s Choices

HBO Just Added to iTunes, Some Episodes Cost $2.99

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:22:06 -0400

HBO Just Added to iTunes, Some Episodes Cost $2.99: No Entourage. :-(

"Gone are the days when Google could take full advantage of its quirkiness. It’s the market..."

Mon, 12 May 2008 14:02:59 -0400

“Gone are the days when Google could take full advantage of its quirkiness. It’s the market leader now, which presents a classic conundrum: Which is more important, process or innovation? For all Google’s success, it still has just one meaningful way of making money: its powerful search-advertising system. It’s a gusher, but it’s the only one. All the other projects it has in the works are just that, projects.”

- Where Does Google Go Next?

I actually think this assessment is a bit harsh. But, I do agree that Google needs to prove it can make significant money outside of search.

HBO Finally Coming to iTunes?

Mon, 12 May 2008 11:30:00 -0400

HBO Finally Coming to iTunes?: From Portfolio.com:

The deal marks the first time that Apple has agreed to a separate price structure for a content provider, one of the employees said.
…

One possibility is that HBO programming will have a higher retail price than the flat $1.99 fee Apple currently charges for video content; another is that HBO will receive a larger cut of the same flat rate than other iTunes content providers receive.

Halle-frickin’-lujah! It’s about time! I just hope the prices aren’t set unreasonably high. (Not that HBO would ever do anything like that.)

Coldplay on iTunes vs. Amazon

Sun, 11 May 2008 20:20:51 -0400

The Apple iTunes Store and Amazon MP3 will each let you buy a pre-release track from Coldplay’s soon-to-be-released album, Viva La Vida. But, strangely, they are each offering different tracks.

The Apple iTunes Store, in a potential flex of marketshare power, is offering the album’s title track, Viva La Vida. Amazon MP3 is offering a different track called Violet Hill (and not mentioning the overall Viva La Vida album on that page).

However, you can’t yet get the Viva La Vida track on Amazon MP3 and you can’t yet get the Violet Hill track on the Apple iTunes Store. But, apparently both will be available in both places on May 20th.

All I can guess is that Coldplay and/or Capitol Records are getting paid by Apple and Amazon for the rights to exclusive tracks on each store. And, that’s lovely for them. But, it’s kinda frustrating to make fans go to different online stores for different tracks. And, I thought labels usually promoted one track at a time to nurture hits and build momentum for an album. Strange.

didyouevernotice: Are We The Lost Generation? Check out the...

Sun, 11 May 2008 12:40:51 -0400

didyouevernotice:

Are We The Lost Generation?

Check out the creativity coming out of the AARP. But then again, the Boomer’s have always talked a great game. Watch it anyway.

(via OrganizeIT)

Brilliant!

ipodrulz: Again… Nice.

Sat, 10 May 2008 11:14:51 -0400

ipodrulz:

Again…

Nice.

bijan: via marco: peetypassion: MacBook - thin enough. So...

Fri, 09 May 2008 23:56:19 -0400

bijan:

via marco:

peetypassion:

MacBook - thin enough.

So funny.

Love it!

hydeordie: danhacker: Heroes season 3: Villains promo - I’m...

Fri, 09 May 2008 23:53:37 -0400

hydeordie:

danhacker:

Heroes season 3: Villains promo

- I’m going to put this out early, Peter will go Dark Phoenix and Syler will have to set things right.

i don’t even watch this show, but you had me dark phoenix!

Can’t wait and September feels so far away!

Could Apple, NBC Be Patching Up Differences?

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:59:00 -0400

Could Apple, NBC Be Patching Up Differences?: From Macworld:

As of this past Tuesday, episodes from five series produced by Universal Media Studios, the production arm of NBC Universal, were available for purchase on the U.K.’s version of the iTunes Store: Heroes, House, The Incredible Hulk, Eureka, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Notably, the shows are available for two different prices—current programs Heroes, House, and Eureka sell for the standard iTunes UK rate of £1.89 an episode while the older shows cost £1.19 each.
…

Earlier this week, the network made full episodes of two of its popular shows, 30 Rock and The Office, available for iPhone and iPod touch users to watch online for free.

Both parties should be well motivated to end this feud and iTunes Store customers would love it. All we are saying is give peace a chance!

Somehow I hadn’t noticed Inquisitor, an awesome search...

Fri, 09 May 2008 19:06:39 -0400

Somehow I hadn’t noticed Inquisitor, an awesome search enhancer for Safari. But, today’s news that it’s been acquired by Yahoo brought it to my attention. Inquisitor is helpful (and more importantly cool-looking). But, it makes me realize yet again that Dr. Marc J. LaFountain is always lurking out there trying to steal my web mojo.

Obama Picks up 9 Superdelegates, Union Endorsement

Fri, 09 May 2008 16:44:45 -0400

Obama Picks up 9 Superdelegates, Union Endorsement:

I’m thrilled about Obama’s inevitable nomination. But, I continue to feel that having superdelegates who aren’t accountable to voters is both undemocratic and unDemocratic. Nominees should be picked by the people, not by party insiders. And, the fact that the system actually assigns an entity a .5 superdelegate vote just makes the whole thing all the more ludicrous. This process badly needs reform.

CollegeHumor Hardly Working: American Psychos It helps if you...

Thu, 08 May 2008 20:52:18 -0400

CollegeHumor Hardly Working: American Psychos

It helps if you saw the film or read the book, but is funny regardless.

Don't laugh at us

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:30:11 -0400

staff:

Yes, it’s totally silly that one year after launching Tumblr, we’re moving the official Tumblr blog off of Wordpress because it was too much work to update.

We want to spotlight all of the neat stuff happening on Tumblr. So today we’re announcing the official Tumblr tumblelog: staff.tumblr.com

There’s a lot we want to do here. In addition to showing off the new features we’re building, we’re dying to brag about everything we see you folks doing. To cover it all, we’re inviting some new members of the Tumblr family to contribute. Introductions to follow.

Thanks, everyone!

Yay!

NBC Streaming Full TV Episodes to the iPhone

Thu, 08 May 2008 10:50:07 -0400

NBC Streaming Full TV Episodes to the iPhone

Mother's Day vs. Father's Day in Indonesia

Thu, 08 May 2008 08:33:34 -0400

Me: Do they have Mother's Day in Indonesia?
Francisca: Yep, but on a different day than in the U.S.
Me: Is Father's Day on a different day too?
Francisca: They don't have Father's Day because they don't need it.
Me: Uh. Why is that?
Francisca: Because every day is Father's Day in Indonesia.

didyouevernotice: RECOUNT Movie Trailer This looks like it...

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:36:00 -0400

didyouevernotice:

RECOUNT Movie Trailer

This looks like it could be really good.

Looks good. I love the line about honor and dignity being restored to the White House. Classic.