#1 in the NYT

December 8, 2005 6:26 AM

#1 reviews a browser and a picture frame in today's New York Times.
posted by killdevil to MetaFilter-Related at 6:26 AM (27 comments total)

I've always been curious and boorish:
How much does the New York Times pay for an article like that?
posted by Captaintripps at 6:31 AM on December 8, 2005

Firefox had "hacker roots"? Who knew?
posted by delmoi at 6:38 AM on December 8, 2005

There are extensions to remove flashy advertising and even some that change the way Google looks and functions.

Did some editor change "flash" to "flashy"?
posted by delmoi at 6:39 AM on December 8, 2005

It's too bad the reviews have to be so totally nonconclusive and boring. Good for Matt, I guess, but the byline could be Pope Clement XII and it'd still be a three-paragraph puff piece that's not allowed to be either positive nor negative, merely descriptive. I seem to remember Matt himself complaining about this, but all I can find is his hooray, I'm in the NYT blog entry.
posted by Plutor at 6:48 AM on December 8, 2005

I like how he screams his name at the end of each article.
posted by oxala at 6:50 AM on December 8, 2005

I loved the article.MATT HAUGHEY
posted by null terminated at 6:50 AM on December 8, 2005

Blast!MATT HAUGHEY
posted by null terminated at 6:50 AM on December 8, 2005

a three-paragraph puff piece that's not allowed to be either positive nor negative, merely descriptive.

But if it's a puff piece, then by definition it's positive.
posted by scratch at 6:56 AM on December 8, 2005

Could be worse, odinsdream. Could be much, much worse.

Todd Lokken
posted by caution live frogs at 7:01 AM on December 8, 2005

MATT DAMON
posted by oxala at 7:03 AM on December 8, 2005

scratch: "But if it's a puff piece, then by definition it's positive."

I thought "puff piece" meant that it was throwaway. Like "fluff". The dictionary tells me I was wrong.
posted by Plutor at 7:14 AM on December 8, 2005

my dictionary sings to me sometimes.
posted by andrew cooke at 7:23 AM on December 8, 2005

The photo they chose to show in that frame is pretty freaky.
posted by agropyron at 7:40 AM on December 8, 2005

The photo of the frame that he has on Flickr is better. In the sense that it made me go "oh, I want that".
posted by smackfu at 7:49 AM on December 8, 2005

That is a freaky photo.

Yeah, they're kinda fluffy but if you check out all the little circuits reviews they tend to be that way. I'm still getting my sea legs over there and finding a balance between reviews that are totally dry data sheets and reviews that are the equivalent of a snarky blog post.

I actually wanted to start out the firefox piece with something like "Name one annoying aspect of your favorite website. Chances are someone wrote an extension to Firefox that eliminates it." before diving into all the details.

The pay isn't much, it's mostly just ego. If want to see something more interesting, I did just meet the guy that came up with the word TiVo. He was fascinating.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:55 AM on December 8, 2005

Holy crap. I was JUST (as in twenty minutes ago) looking into digital photo frames to give to grandma for Christmas. All the frames on Amazon were reviewed poorly and I sure as hell don't want a subscription service.

I come here, I read the review, I do some further Googling, and I've just ordered one. Grandma will be happy.

Is there anything Matt can't do?

Maybe I shouldn't ask this here, but my goal is to give her something that she can just plug in to the wall and enjoy a lifetime of random photos of Bondcliff Jr, with occasional refills when we swing by with a loaded memory card. It looks like this is my answer, but I also thought my Harmony Remote would solve all her "I can't figure out your TV set" problems. It didn't.

Assuming I load it for her at my house, can this thing be set for Grandma Mode? Can she take it home, plug it in, and have constantly changing photos without any further interaction?

Between Cool Tools and MeFi, gift giving has gotten a lot easier.
posted by bondcliff at 8:07 AM on December 8, 2005

bondcliff, you can stuff about 80 photos on the frame, and set the slideshow to like 1 photo per minute, and then grandma has a static slideshow that lasts almost an hour and a half between repeats.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:18 AM on December 8, 2005

Do you have an agent?
posted by The Jesse Helms at 8:20 AM on December 8, 2005

Perfect. Thanks, Matt.
posted by bondcliff at 9:04 AM on December 8, 2005

What's funny is that I have a Kodak Smart Picture Frame from 3 years ago, and the Philips doesn't beat it by much in price or features. I would've thought they'd be either much cheaper or larger, considering how much more commons LCD's are now
posted by smackfu at 10:06 AM on December 8, 2005

it kind of lights up a dark room, the LCD is very bright and sharp.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:07 AM on December 8, 2005

As seen on MetaFilter:
Wonder if Francis Heaney, he of the Holy Tango of Literature, will be taking a crack at our own MATTHEW HAUGHEY ME TAUGHT YAHWEH in his next edition?
posted by rob511 at 3:48 PM on December 8, 2005

Leave Matt Haughey alone.MATT KLINE
posted by matkline at 3:54 PM on December 8, 2005

Those reviews look remarkably like login pages to me. I guess I just don't "get" these fancy new-age articles.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:09 PM on December 8, 2005

That frame looks pretty cool. I especially like the battery feature. Take one down, pass it around... That's good thinking. The shitheels who try to build subscription services into these things make me want to shit lumps of rocket fuel. I'm still not going to pay $250 for one of these. As soon as I have time I swear I'm going to take apart an old 12" Powerbook 250 or some such hunk of shit that HAS ETHERNET and build the guts of it into a nice frame. I have some coves in my apartment's walls that would even allow it to have some depth. Anyway...

Pretty nice parlay into gadget guru, Matt. You've done awesome work over at PVRBlog, people noticed, and it's awesome to see how it's gone places. Being the go-to geek for every 20-second radio short on TiVo would get annoying after a while but playing that up to reviewing gadgets for the NYT rocks the party. Pretty sweet.

What's the deal with the Google start page as the Firefox article image?
posted by scarabic at 8:04 PM on December 8, 2005

Those reviews look remarkably like login pages to me.

Heh. I had a funny moment of frustration when I hit the login page myself. My first thought was "Shit! do I still have the bookmark for that weird utility that would format an archive-link for any NYT url? Damn! I don't even know if that thing still works!"

Then I realized the Firefox had pre-entered my password for me. I don't remember registering. But I guess after years of bug-me-notting and such, I must have caved. Hasn't ruined my life, either, apparently.

I hit "login" and read the article. I will now proceed to get on with my life.
posted by scarabic at 8:08 PM on December 8, 2005

DENNIE CRAIN!
posted by garypratt at 9:12 PM on December 8, 2005