Rachelle's Reading List: Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

by Rachelle Hruska · February 2, 2011

The groundhog didn't see his shadow (an early spring, could it be?!), "The Daily" has finally launched, and the end of blogging is here...again. What it truly means to be a royal (see photo left), and the coolest athletes, photos, and videos. Also, brace yourselves, Oregon Trail for Facebook is here!

1. Rupert Murdoch's iPad-only newspaper "The Daily" has launched today, and all of our favorite media types were live blogging its arrival. Below, the first cover being unveiled via Brian Stelter:

And some of my fav bites from the launch:

Caroline McCarthy was live blogging the launch over here: [CNET]

"The iPad demands we redesign our craft," - Murdoch on the "The Daily" [@jennydeluxe]

"The Daily" will produce as many as 100 pages of content per day, says Miller. #thedaily [@jennydeluxe]

Murdoch's metric of success: "selling millions" of subscriptions. He adds, "our ambitions are very big, but our costs are very low." [@brianstelter]

Fox News stopped covering Egypt to show News Corp's press conference for #TheDaily. I'm getting shocked/appalled emails from TV news types. [@brianstelter]

Murdoch says Steve Jobs, who is on a medical leave of absence, called him last week and said #TheDaily app looked "really terrific." [@brianstelter]

Murdoch saying it will cost less than $500,000 a week to produce the @Daily, cost $30 million so far. [@AntDeRosa]

At @daily launch. "Bloggers" are seated separately from "Media." Rupert, you aren't convincing me of your tech-savviness just yet.[@caro]

The iPad Newspaper is here. [Valleywag]

2. The New York Observer did an article about the end of blogging. It included the requisite # of quotes from Nick Denton, as well as press for his new Gawker design (which, it needs to be pointed out, actually has yet to launch). I read the article on my iPhone this a.m. and was thinking so many things, like how this was such a non-story whose only purpose was for traffic, or maybe a nod to the NYO's much desired relevancy in the NYC online media jungle; how the only people I could stomach in the entire article were Lock and Choire; how the disclaimer at the bottom mentioned how the earlier version didn't account for Dan Abrams (who called that favor in?); and, how the lack of women would really piss off Sklar. Then! Holy Moly! Chris Rovzar totally read my mind and made these thoughts of mine all neat and tidy in NY Mag: [Rumors of Blogs' Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated!] (thanks, Chris!) Photo on left via Soup.

"Should we do a post on this?" -they asked me. "No." -I responded. Because the only thing more sad about this piece in the Observer is the percentage of people that actually care about it.

3. Egyptians finally got their Internet back this morning after a week-long government-imposed blackout - the largest of its kind in history. [WSJ]

And this is a pretty cool photo for people that continue to compare Egypt to Iraq: [Soup]

4. "Google says Bing is using Google to improve Bing. What a bunch of Yahoos." "So it's like a search engine within a search engine? They need to go deeper." heh. [InOtherNews]

5. Yesterday was the race up the Empire State Buildings 86 flights of stairs. Check out this photo-finishing win by German Thomas Dold. [Gawker]

6. This guy on the left just told us that epring would come early this year. Could he also tell the mayor the secret on where the f we are going to store all this snow until then? [SIlive] The history of Groundhog Day. [Wiki]

7. Need to find where the Ladies are at asap? Check out this new app to hit stores today. "Wheretheladies.at" will give you real time geo-location data on where you can go find single girls to pick up. [TechCrunch]

8. Check out these 10 boozy ways to stay warm. [Minilaarni]

9. Woah. The price tag on this (small) bottle of conditioner is insane! Would you pay $150 for Philip B's new Russian Amber Imperial Conditioning creme? [Refinery29]

10. Ballet Exercise: Natalie Portman's Black Swan Workout. ELLE gives us a sneak peak at the exercises Portman did to shape up! [ELLE]

11. 35 Cooper Square to become the next "mixed use project" space? cool! [BoweryBoogie] But, there's not much time. The East Village prepares for the building to be closed down. [VV]

12. Two of my favorites are teaming up this Fashion week! The girl duo behind Vena Cava is teaming up with the girl duo of DANNIJO. Check out the back story here: [ELLE]

13. The 2011 Brooklyn Beardfest and Stach Bash was Monday, and it was quite a spectacle: [Flavorpill]

14. Learn how to code with this easy guide. Be the next Zuckerberg! [Lifehacker]

15. There are 11 food and drinks banned in the U.S. today. They include: Absinthe, Pig's Blood Cake (a mix of pig's blood and rice on a stick), Sassafras oil, Haggis, Fugu, Kinder Eggs, Pommac, Authentic Italian meats, horse and human meat, vegemite (kindof), and Four Loko. [11points]

16. Did you guys know I'm totally into Brian Williams. So are others. He's totes bringing sexy to nightly news! [F*ckyeahbrianwilliams]

17. Try to Imagine Times Square with no ads. Can't? Then use this app. Use "No Ad-NY" to take a 360-degree picture of Time Square and use an online picture editor to remove all the ads. [TechCrunch]

18. The Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego are set to make a comeback...on Facebook. The new games will be available to play starting today! [Techland]

19. Francis Ford Coppola has refined a singular code of ethics that govern his film making. There are three rules:

1. Write and direct original screenplays 2. Make them with the most modern technology available 3. self-finance them.

Read rest of his interview here: [The99percent]

20. Lindsay Lohan is currently under investigation for grand theft. Police obstained a search warrant to look for $2,500 piece of jewelry she is suspected to have. [DailyBeast] But the piece of jewelry was returned before the warrant was executed. [TV Guide]

21. Famous for not being Famous. I too would love to read this profile. [Fimoculous]

22. Mindy Kaling is totally funny, and Paz de la Huerta is totally in need of rehab:

23. With 46,125 followers, "Music to have sex to" is the 4th largest Tumblr. Go have a listen. Then go check out the top 10 tumblrs. [Urlesque]

24. This is a wonderful project. This video will most likely be the most important and cool thing you see today: [Zach Klien]

25. Fossil, Fueled. A vehicle certainly left an impression in the Windsor Terrace section of Brooklyn yesterday. [NYT via InOtherNews]

26. Oh man. Check out this video of an epic epic snow car crash from the "Blizzard of Oz" storm this year. [Gizmodo]

27. Al Gore tries to make sense of all the snow. He responds to Bill O'Reilly on his show. [theHill]

28. Hollywood's biggest names made a sickening amount of money this year. Vanity Fair crunched the numbers. Who came out on top? James Cameron made $257 mil, Johnny Depp, $100 mil, Leo Dicaprio, $62mil. The top paid woman in the industry? Kristen Stewart at $28.5 mil. [Defamer]

29. GQ profiles the 25 coolest athletes of all time. You can go to their website to vote for your favorite. Because there is a major diff between the best athlete and the coolest athlete. [GQ]

30. I'm a huge fan of the Smile's Matt Kliegman and Carlos Quirarte. Check out their latest interview in oakazine: [OAK]

31. The Sony World Photography Awards 2011 have released their professional finalists and shortlisted images. [Telegraph] The photos are stunning. I too love this photo and the meaning behind this photo showing off the Palestinian people's resourcefulness during the siege of Gaza: [CVXN]

Professional Shortlist, Photojournalism and Documentary, Contemporary Issues: Anastasia Taylorlind, United Kingdom. Mahmod Berghote stands with one of Marah Zoo’s world famous painted donkeys. The zoos two white donkeys caused an international media frenzy when Mahmod and his brother first spent three days painting stripes onto them using black hair dye. Unable to find an animal trader to bring a real zebra through the tunnels from Egypt, the Bargote family decided to make a fake pair using white donkeys. The story was reported all over the world as a feel-good news piece and often used as an example of the Palestinian people’s resourcefulness during the siege of Gaza.