DefinitiveInk

France Will Switch Off Pioneering Minitel After 30 Years | paidContent

It was the internet before the internet.

Now France’s Minitel, a pioneering Videotex information service used by 25 million people at its height, will be switched off after 30 years online.

via paidcontent.org

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: If This Fusion Restaurant’s Website Could Talk.

HEY HEY HEY! Watch this slide show! LOOK! We have modern chairs and minimalist light fixtures!! LOOK! It’s an orchid floating in a pool at sunset! Want to hear some DANCE MUSIC? Mute it any time you like! Just click the animated parakeet flying around the screen! You want to get into the site? Just click the smallest fork!!! DANCE MUSIC!!!!!

via www.mcsweeneys.net

I love this imagined dialogue and in all seriousness it is exactly why the NearSay Marketplace is there to help confused restaurant sites everywhere share their news in a better way.

UPDATE: Google's New Recipe Search - Blog - food52 - food community, recipe search and cookbook contests

Take, for instance, a recent search for “cassoulet.” The top search result is a recipe from Epicurious, one of the larger and better sites. But if you refine by time, your choices are “less than 15 min,” “less than 30 min,” or “less than 60 min.” There is no option for more than 60 minutes. In truth, a classic cassoulet takes at least 4 hours to make, if not several days (the Epicurious recipe takes 4 hours and 30 minutes; yet there in the results are recipes under each of these three time classes. One from Tablespoon goes so far as to claim to take just 1 minute. (It’s made with kidney beans, canned mushrooms, and beef, so it’s not long on authenticity.)

If you refine by calories, you can even find two cassoulets that are purportedly fewer than 100 calories per person: the Lamb Shank Cassoulet from Good To Know contains a full lamb shank and sausage link per serving, yet is supposed to weigh in at just 77 calories a serving. No such dish exists unless the serving size is a pinch.

via www.food52.com

:( But I want a recipe for Cassoulet that takes 1 minute and has 77 calories.

Netflix you know me so well...

Here’s more from Carr: “One executive from a major publisher, who declined to speak for attribution because the company is in the midst of negotiations with The Atavist, all but wolf-whistled when I called. ‘It’s almost unbelievable that these three guys came up with something so spectacular,’ he said. ‘This is something we are all working on, and the solution that they came up with both in terms of the reader experience and the production is really remarkable.’”

via www.mediabistro.com

"Unbelievable" really? Just proves that everything really is just timing. It's nice stuff but really goes back almost fifteen years, - voyager expanded book, livereads, many many others. Just smart (and it is smart) multimedia into text with good use of annotations, extras, and windows. I don't know if it is the NYT coverage or the non-technical book publishing industry executives who have constant golly-gee moments that makes things like this and the "vook" into wonders of innovation. Perhaps the people who worked on this in the 90's don't work there, or maybe trade publishers are unaware to what goes on in textbooks or travel guides. Not do diss what the team at Atavist have done. Very nice examples of e-reading. I just bought Lifted and am looking forward to reading it.

Conclusion: All New York Times Style section loathing is actually self-loathing.

via gawker.com

From "Why Is the New York Times Style Section So Loathsome? An Investigation" - nice piece. I was thinking where is my Bushmill's profile? About a Thursday Styles Article about a guy who seems to be decorating his apartment from things I've given recently given away over the past few years from team photos, club chairs...

If the information is valuable to law enforcement, it could be lucrative for marketers. The major American cellphone providers declined to explain what exactly they collect and what they use it for.

via www.nytimes.com

Facebook Is AOLifying the Internet -- And That Sucks | TPM Idea Lab

Over a decade after the web portal stopped making sense, Facebook is trying to assemble itself, like some ill-conceived Voltron, into the next.

via idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com

Why Don't Sting and His Wife Just Make An Advice DVD?

  

via www.harpersbazaar.com

They Would Be #1 On Amazon and satisfy their need for attention. 

Journal’s Article on ESP Is Expected to Prompt Outrage - NYTimes.com

One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.

via www.nytimes.com

I knew this was going to happen.