August 2008 Archives
I was going to write about Palin's wikipedia entry yesterday, but I had a wedding to go to. In that time, the New York Times covered it pretty well, but I'll add my two cents anyhow.
I, like many, went straight to Wikipedia when I heard the news that Palin was McCain's VP choice because a) I assumed it would be fairly concise and b) it showed up high on the Google results. I wasn't overly surprised to see that the page had already been updated to say that she was the nominee. Soon after stories started to come out about a single user (who went by "YoungTrigg") that did a hefty amount of the editing.
Like I said, the Times did a fine job summing up the story, so I'll just add a few thoughts: First, Wikipedia is now the number one result for Sarah Palin. That's a pretty amazing thing. We kind of take Wikipedia for granted now, but it's kind of crazy to think that this thing written by hundreds or thousands of people is more influential than anything coming out of a single mainstream media outlet. Not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, just an impressive thing. Second, and I mentioned this when I wrote about Russert's wikipedia entry, but the speed at which Wikipedia can update major stories is extraordinary. It's reaching a point in its reach and influence that all changes (for major people/events) are made immediately. In economic terms, there it's coming close to perfect efficiency.
Hard to believe.
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Tags: politics
The Telegraph has an awesome profile/history of the Japanese hi-tech toilet phenomena. It includes the history of their rise to prominence (including some info about early advertising), the competition between Toto and Inax and a bit about why the toilet's have never made a splash (sorry) in the US.
Interesting fact from the article (which I quickly added to Holy Crap! Facts): "According to census figures, there are more Japanese households with Washlets than there are with computers."
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Tags: history, toilets
As I was reading all this stuff about McCain's choice of Palin as his VP I started to get increasingly offended. The statement I kept reading over and over again was something to the extent of, "McCain's choice of Palin is an effort to woo women who were pro-Hillary." What I wasn't reading, from either left or right leaning media, was just how sexist a statement like this was. Do we really believe that there is this giant pocket of women out there who are all of a sudden going to turn their backs on what they believe in and vote for someone just because they have some chromosomes in common?
In my bit of bubbling rage, I ran across this entry from Danah Boyd where she echoes my sentiments exactly (or as close to exactly as possible since I wasn't speaking as a woman obviously). In her entry she writes:
"As a woman, I'm offended. I'm offended that McCain is choosing a woman who is clearly ill-equipped to be the president of this country in an effort to woo over Hillary's supporters. I'm offended because McCain's decision is one of the most misogynist ones I've seen in recent history. Does he honestly believe that women in this country are so stupid as to believe that any woman is a substitute for another woman? That all that us women boil down to is our XX chromosomes and estrogen? C'mon now."
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Tags: gender, politics
Last night I was at the bar and had an idea for a ringtone. We were chatting about how someone should do a side-by-side test between iPhone 3G in NYC and a dialup modem. From that I got the idea to make a ringtone with the screeches and clicks of dialup in action (remember that?).
Anyway, after checking in with some folks and finding out making a ringtone was as easy as opening GarageBand and exporting to iTunes, I made one for myself. So without any further ado: iPhone dialup ringtone. Enjoy.
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Tags: iphone, ringtones
Okay, sorry about this, but it's still quite exciting for me when people ask to talk to me. Anyway, PR Week did an incredibly flattering profile of me this week (which I think is in the magazine as well) and Anjali did a super nice interview with me over at her blog One Size Fits One.
There's one quote of mine I especially like in the PR Week piece: "It's exciting that people find things I've put on the Internet." I can't say that enough. I realized recently I had actually missed the four year anniversary of this blog. I usually take the opportunity to thank everyone for making it happen. This year I was just too busy with everything else and didn't even notice the occasion until about a month later. Needless to say, I believe that I have all you to thank for my success. Every time I get an email via the site or someone signs up for the likemind mailing list I'm a little bit amazed that this stuff works. I hope that never goes away.
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Tags: me
I just sent out an email to the brand tags list and posted it to the blog over there as well, but I figured I'd update everyone here.
First off, in case you forgot, I launched battle mode a couple months ago, which pits two random brands against each other. Check the leaderboard to see who's winning (basically who you might expect). Also, just recently launched a Brazilian version to go along with UK and Hispanic. Finally, I ran some numbers and the average age of brand tags users (self reported of course) is 34.4 years old. Interesting stuff.
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Tags: brandtags, marketing, me
<rant>
Today I got some Facebook spam. It's the first time it's happened, it came from a friend and it ended up on my wall. After Twittering about it, Ray pointed me towards these posts on the Facebook blog. So it looks like the problem lies in people giving their username/passwords out to random sites with promises of apps (or something). These sites then take control of a user's account and send out a barrage of spam.
Okay, now for the rant. The reason this is happening in part is Facebook's own fault (as well as a lot of other parties). Part of the way these sites have expanded at the speed they have is by asking people to enter their email username/password and then crawling their contact list and showing users/sending out invites appropriately. By encouraging this kind of behavior, Facebook makes it seem okay to give a site (even one you trust) your username and password, which it shouldn't be. Ever. Period.
OAuth attempts to solve this problem by bouncing you over to the other site for approval, rather than asking for the login info. Google has implemented a version of this, but it's still not being used by many sites (the only integration I've seen is Dopplr).
Now Facebook isn't alone in this one. Every social site has a feature like this where they ask for email usernames and passwords. This is bad for business.
</rant>
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Tags: facebook, security, socialnetworking
Whoa, this is awesome: Telegraph presents 5 best iPhone tricks. My two favorites are screenshots (hold down home key and press the sleep button ... goes straight into your photos) and additional domain name endings (just hold down the .com in Safari and it will pop up .edu and .org).
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Tags: iphone, tips
I just posted this on Facebookand figured I'd post it here as well. Anyhow, me and some of my Barbarian brethren are doing a drinks thing tonight. As always, feel free to invite others, the more the merrier.
Where: House of Shields, 39 New Montgomery, San Francisco, CA (Google Maps)
When: Tonight (8/18/08), 8:30pm - Whenever
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Tags: events
After watching this awesome sketch on why predictive text blocks swearing (via Daring Fireball) I was inspired to figure out how to get my iPhone to stop sending emails with the word "duck." A quick Google search landed me on a Twitter that suggested if you type swears out and then just press the x when the phone tries to correct it, eventually it will learn the word. Not only did it work, but it will start to predict you're trying to swear even when you spell it wrong.
Anyway, I decided to set up a little site/email called duckingiphone.com where I figure I'll collect people's swearmail. So send your swear training to duckyou@duckingiphone.com
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Tags: iphone
It's late, I'm tired, here's lots of links.
Okay, so being out of town for a while has left me lots of time for reading. Hence I've got another one of those link posts. But first, a question: Does anyone like these things? I find them to be a useful way to throw together a bunch of interesting stuff, but if everyone thinks they suck I can stop. Also, would it be better if I just blogged these at the time I read them as quickies? Do you care? Seriously, if you have any preference or thought at all, please let me know in the comments or an email.
Now for some stuff ...
- I may be doing a little drinks thing Monday night in SF. I will post here, but if you'd like an email with details let me know (comments or email is fine).
- The science of spice: Chili's are hot because the chemical that makes it so acts as a fungicide. Interesting. Also from the article, "It turns out that capsaicin - this plant protectant - binds to a special class of vanilloid receptor inside our mouth called VR1 receptors. After binding capsaicin, the neuron is depolarized, and it signals the presence of spicy stimuli ... But here's the strange part: VR1 receptors weren't designed to detect capsaicin. They bind spicy food by accident. The real purpose of VR1 receptors is the detection of heat. They are supposed to prevent us from consuming food that is too hot, in the thermal sense. (That's why our VR1 receptors are clustered in our tongue, mouth and skin.)"
- New York Times on how much different the dress code/culture of advertising is now compared to Mad Men. There are simply too many quotes worthy of poking fun at to choose one.
- Georgia's war with Russia is the first time in history that two nations with a McDonald's have fought. (via rc3.org)
- Marginal Revolution sums up something I've been noticing quite a lot: Obama insecurity.
- Airborne has settled a case with the FTC that will require them to give back $30 million to consumers because of false claims. If you bought Airborne over the last few years and want your money back, there's a handy website to help you.
- What was most interesting about the Times' piece on YouTube ads was the technology behind it: "YouTube introduced a technology last fall called Video ID which allowed copyright owners to compare the digital fingerprints of their videos with material on YouTube, then flag infringing material for removal." This gives media companies (or any content creator) the opportunity to track all content and eventually claim it as their own. That includes content created by consumers. Check out what EA is doing: "Electronic Arts, the video game publisher, has taken Video ID a step further, using it to encourage user submissions. In a promotion for the coming video game Spore, E.A. encouraged gamers to upload original Spore creatures they created using a software program. There were more than 100,000 submissions, and some attracted hundreds of thousands of views. E.A. used Video ID to claim the most popular user videos and share in the ad revenue on them." Opens up some interesting possibilities (and questions).
- A select number of libraries have started to lend physical objects in addition to books: "Tool Lending Library offers thousands of tools free to Berkeley residents and people who own property in Berkeley. First time borrowers must present photo ID, a Berkeley Public Library card, and a recently received utility bill their name. Berkeley property owners who do not live in Berkeley must present their property tax bill. These policies are strictly enforced."
- Diaroogle.com: Locate a public toilet in NYC. (via Alan via Josh)
- Blogjects (or spimes) in the wild: "Baacode gives each item of clothing a unique tracking number, which when entered into Icebreaker's website allows you to find out exactly where your clothing was made, even allowing you to take a virtual tour of the New Zealand ranch on which "your" sheep was raised."
That's it for now. Have a great week.
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Peter Hossli has an incredibly strange article about a place called Wannado City. It's a strange pseudo-amusement park for kids located in the Sawgrass Mills mall in Florida. Parents pay for their kids to spend time there and the kids are given the opportunity to try their hand at any number of real-world jobs, which they eventually get paid for in the city's special currency. As Luis Laresgoiti is quoted as explaining in the article, "This city for kids should be as close to reality as possible ... Money is the most important fuel in every city and every country – also in Wannado City.”
Shudder ... It all leaves me feeling a bit disgusted. Sure I think it must be a thrill for these kids, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but the focus on the park is clearly to help kids understand the realities of the world as early as possible, especially when it comes to money. I don't even really know what to say.
On the marketing tip, "12 sponsors and their logos give the children’s work the stamp of reality. The newspaper that the little reporters research for is called the Miami Herald, Florida’s largest newspaper. Working as a cashier you are employed at Publix, a supermarket chain with over 850 stores in America’s south. On its shelves you can find ketchup from Heinz and pasta from Barilla. The money that the kidizens (junior citizens) accrue is managed at the State Farm Bank, an American financial firm that offers insurance and bank services. ‘Watch how your Wongas grow,’ exclaims the bank slogan."
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Tags: culture, economics, youth
Lots of links I've been saving for a rainy day.
I've had like a million quickie entries and other stuff I've been meaning to write, but just haven't had the time. So I figured I might as well compile them all in one of those posts full of random stuff.
So, without further ado ...
- I'm out in SF. Drop a line if you're around. Will be hitting up likemind sf this Friday.
- Benjamin passed this on to me this morning and it's too good not to share: Back in 2002 a waitress at hooters in Florida sued the restaurant for giving her a "toy yoda" as a prize instead of a "Toyota". You can't make this stuff up.
- In the "you can't make this stuff up" (YCMTSU) camp, McCain is being accused of plagerizing a speech from Wikipedia. Furthering the YCMTSU, The Onion was the mainstream news outlet that broke the story.
- Totally awesome pictures of appliances taken apart (via swissmiss)
- I was having a debate over Facebook comments about Obama's decision to (and subsequent promotion of) announcing his running mate via text message. The argument was whether it was too sensationalist and made the very important process of choosing a VP seem as trivial as choosing a winner on American idol. I was on the side of no: Why shouldn't his supporters be the first to know? The New York Times picked up the story and explained his likely rationale for this: "A study conducted during the 2006 elections showed that text-message reminders helped increase turnout among new voters by four percentage points, at a cost of only $1.56 per vote — much cheaper than the $20 or $30 per vote that the offline work of door-to-door canvassing or phone banking costs." Overall it's an interesting decision, obviously the mainstream press will pick up whatever his decision is (likely prior to the official announcement), but he's decided that getting all those phone numbers is more valuable that whatever incremental coverage he might have gotten (which likely isn't any, since it will be followed with a big press event I'd imagine).
- My friend Naveen announced a new side project called Novels in 3 lines (link is to the Twitter feed). "Novels in Three Lines is a collection of more than a thousand anonymously-published blurbs that appeared in the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906. They were all penned by Félix Fénéon who worked as a clerk in the French War Department." You can also buy the book if that's more your style.
- Awesome post over at The Barbarian Group blog by Nick about his recent experience with data security at a doctor's office (it wasn't good).
- Really interesting New York Times article about trolls on the web.
- Why Microsoft and Intel Tried to Kill the XO $100 laptop: A good in-depth piece about One Laptop Per Child.
- No link here, but has anyone else tried to watch video of the olympics on NBC's site? Beyond having to download Silverlight, I found the experience awful. Things weren't buffering right and I had to keep pausing the video. Eventually I went to YouTube and watched camcorder video of people recording their TVs. Quality sucked, but at least it played with jumping around. (I even watched one video that someone had recorded off the NBC site ... which was funny.) Anyway, why couldn't they get this right? Has anyone else had this experience?
- Turns out the iPhone has a kill switch that allows Apple to disable an application. Jobs explained, "Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull." It's been quite interesting to watch this whole app thing play out. Kottke wrote an interesting piece about Apple's decision to pull the $1000 I Am Rich app that I totally agree with. Jason wrote "App Store shoppers should get to make the choice of whether or not to buy an iPhone app, not Apple, particularly since the App Store is the only way to legitimately purchase consumer iPhone apps." Basically, Apple's decision to pull the app was an editorial one, not a technical one. The app worked fine, but they just didn't agree with what it did. If I were a developer and thinking about developing for the iPhone this would scare the shit out of me. Are there guidelines for how Apple is going to make these decisions moving forward or are will it just happen randomly? As Kottke wrote, "Imagine if Apple chose which music they stocked in the iTunes store based on the company's taste. No Kanye because Jay-Z is better. No Dylan because it's too whiney. Of course they don't do that; they stock a crapload of different music and let the buyer decide. We should deride Apple for that type of behavior, not cheer them on."
- While we're on the Apple tip, have you seen the new iPhone commercial that's all about speed? No? Well, basically it paints a totally ridiculous picture of how fast the device connects to the internet. Check out this side-by-side comparison. Speaking of iPhone, someone should do one of those homemade commercials about the battery life. Yesterday I had to stop in an Apple store for like 20 minutes to charge the damn thing. WTF?
- Kenji helped me rediscover this awesome McSweeney's piece: E-mail Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone. Highlights include "One1TheFirstJustTheNumberTheSecondSpelledOut@hotmail.com".
- Nike stock does really well during the olympics: "the world's biggest maker of athletic shoes rose in New York Stock Exchange trading during each of the six Summer Games going back to 1984, gaining an average of 8.7 percent in the two-week period from the opening to the closing ceremonies."
- The always enjoyable year in logo trends.
- An interesting take on the message sent by the architecture and spectacle of the olympics in China: "The opening ceremony is sending the same message, then, as the Games architecture: cultural and technological leapfrog. The Water Cube and the Birds Nest don't simply display China's modernity, they claim a jump into a digital, sustainable, mega-scaled future."
Phew, that was a lot to say. Anyway, I'll try to keep on top of this stuff a little better so a post with this many links isn't necessary.
PS - don't forget about likemind this Friday.
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Okay, maybe the title's a bit much. But we're moving to a world where in many ways location means less than it ever has.
Clearly one of the themes of the 21st century is the changing meaning of location. Whether you call it the flattening of the globe or something else, the point that we're living in a more global society than ever before can't really be ignored. As someone who makes stuff on the internet this comes up quite often. Since launching brand tags, for instance, almost exactly half my traffic has come from the US and the other half has come from everywhere else, despite the site is clearly for a US audience (the brands are mostly US-centric). And I'm not alone on this one, according to this iMedia article:
Research from comScore indicates that 63 percent of the visitors to Ticketmaster come from outside of the United States, as do 64 percent of the visitors to New York Times Digital, 68 percent of the visitors to Disney Online and Expedia. More than 80 percent of the visitors to CNET Networks and Apple Computer, Inc. come from outside of the United States as well.
But it's not actually marketing I'm interested in talking about at the moment (imagine that!). Rather, I want to talk about a few interesting quotes I've run across recently that I think fit together.
First off, it's the one that inspired this entry. It comes from a 2005 Rolling Stone article about the Rendon Group titled "The Man Who Sold the War" (thanks for the tip Colin). The article is amazing, and I seriously suggest reading it. It's all about how propaganda shapes thinking and world events (specifically the war in Iraq). But it's this quote that really jumped out at me:
By law, the Bush administration is expressly prohibited from disseminating government propaganda at home. But in an age of global communications, there is nothing to stop it from planting a phony pro-war story overseas -- knowing with certainty that it will reach American citizens almost instantly.
"An age of global communications" is a nice way to think about it. There's no delay in information anymore. Yesterday I was talking to a colleague about the idea of asymmetrical information (the economic idea that markets behave inefficiently when one side has different information than another) and the fact that it's coming closer to being extinct. The car industry is a great place to look at this: Who walks into a showroom anymore without complete knowledge of the pricing of the car and its components (well, probably lots of people, but still). Seriously, though, this is a big deal and a big change, when everyone knows the same stuff all of a sudden markets start behaving in new ways (or actually, they start behaving in "normal" ways which just so happen to be new to us). When you play this out on a global stage what you get is a world where information is digested almost instantly no matter where it occurs. Which, of course, leads us to situations like the one the Olympics and NBC are facing right now.
By choosing to delay the opening ceremonies, NBC set itself up for a fight against technology and communication. As the New York Times article explains, "NBC’s decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies by 12 hours sent people across the country to their computers to poke holes in NBC’s technological wall — by finding newsfeeds on foreign broadcasters’ Web sites and by watching clips of the ceremonies on YouTube and other sites." Global communications doesn't do delays, it just doesn't make any sense. Which leaves a company like NBC trying to hold onto a relic: The control of a once-local communications medium.
But again, nothing I've said is particularly new. These are all things that have been bubbling for up for at least the last five years and probably even longer. What I think is interesting is where it all goes. A few months ago Shelly Palmer wrote a really interesting article about Antigua's copyright threat to the US (in short Antigua threatened and actually distributed copyrighted US materials in retaliation to the US shutting down offshore internet betting). In the article Palmer quotes Phillip Rosedale, CEO of Second Life, saying, "in a few years telling someone you're from China will have about as much meaning as telling them your astrological sign." Palmer goes on to explain that "While even Philip agreed that that might be hyperbole, he was pretty sure that where you live in the physical world is starting to have less meaning with respect to your ability to function online."
So what does a post-nationality world look like? Not surprisingly I don't really have any idea. I mean, I think we're seeing lots of paralells in other parts of life that point in the same direction. The move from demographics to psychographics as a way to define groups seems to be a nice analog for the situation. Simply put, we are moving to a time where we need different criteria to define our universe. Play that out further and you get questions like: What happens when they find a way to help people live forever? (Or until they get bored of it at least.)
Essentially I think much of it boils down to something Faris wrote about the other day: Post-scarcity economics. Much of this discussion revolves around abundant availability (in this case specifically around content and communication) and more specifically, around the business world trying to find some semblance of balance as the ground shifts beneath them.
Pause.
Basically I don't know where else to go with this. So I'm stopping. Going to keep reading and see what I come up with, but figured I'd leave it open to everyone else as well. In my search for a conclusion I landed on the Wikipedia page for "post scarcity", which led me searching for a guy named Anthony Giddens and eventually to an excellent lecture he gave on globalization which included this:
Instantaneous electronic communication isn't just a way in which news or information is conveyed more quickly. Its existence alters the very texture of our lives, rich and poor alike. When the image of Nelson Mandela maybe is more familiar to us than the face of our next door neighbour, something has changed in the nature of our everyday experience.
So I'll leave you all with that. Thoughts, as always, are greatly appreciated. Maybe someone else can tell me what I'm talking about at this point, since I seem to have forgotten. Good night.
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Nice map that overlays the United States on Europe to help get a sense of scale. It's a pretty amazing thing to see. From the looks of it, the Mediterranean is about half the size of the US.
The site, radicalcartography is actually full of totally awesome maps: Manhattan building maps, currency pegs, time zones (an animation that cycles through all of them), errant Manhattan (size comparisons of Manhattan to other cities) and North American subways. Seriously, I could have listed just about every project on the site, just go click around, it's amazing.
As an aside, I've also cataloged it at a tumblr I may or may not keep up with called, appropriately, nice chart.
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Tags: design, geography, visualization
This is less insightful and interesting as it is a great resource for just about anyone that works in the marketing industry at the moment. The fine folks at Mashable were kind enough to round up 35+ examples of "corporate social media in action". Some of my personal favorites: Blendtec's Will It Blend ... Actually, that's kind of the only one I really like on the list (though I like where the New York Times is headed with TimesPeople and think Zappos on Twitter is kind of cool).
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Tags: marketing, socialmedia
Very interesting Salon article about the 2001 anthrax attacks and the media's role in making a connection between Iraq and terrorism, when none was there.
The article makes some fascinating points about a time I hardly remember at this point (sure, I remember the anthrax scare, but the details were new to me). This comes on the back of the suicide of Bruce Ivins, the government anthrax researcher who was accused for the attacks. As the author, Greenwald, explains, "The 2001 anthrax attacks remain one of the great mysteries of the post-9/11 era. After 9/11 itself, the anthrax attacks were probably the most consequential event of the Bush presidency."
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Tags: politics, terrorism
Just a bunch of links and assorted thoughts.
Nothing substantial to write, but here's a bit of linkage that didn't make it into the sidenotes for your enjoyment.
- One of the things that drove me crazy in high school and college was the when teachers/professors put a value on printed content over web content, as if being bound and sitting on a library shelf makes something more meaningful or true than something published online ... Anyway, I think that's only moderately related to this letter from a librarian to a patron who was complaining about a children's book that includes gay marriage. Ultimately, the librarian rightly refuses to remove the book from the children's section, arguing that it is in fact a children's book. However, it was his explanation of the role of libraries that I found especially fascinating: "But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won't agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don't imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life." (via kottke.org)
- Other than making it look prettier and getting rid of the dots, what's new about delicious? I was expecting some awesome recommendations or something (which they had for a short time a few years ago but got rid of because of the resources it hogged. As as side note, I just read this really interesting and approachable paper on TiVo's collaborative filtering approaches. It's a great primer for how all that stuff works and why gives some insight into why it hogs resources in the way it does.
This Times story on the testing of female Olympic athletes to ensure their femaleness was fascinating. Turns out it's been happening since the 1960s and "At first, women were asked to parade nude before a panel of doctors to verify their sex. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, officials switched to a chromosomal test." What's crazy about the new test is that a few times it has turned out chromosomal defects like woman (or people who had spent their lives believing they were women) finding out they were born with a Y chromosome. If you're interested, I found this detailed account of how this works (a woman with an X and a Y) that's specifically about an olympic athlete, Maria Patino, who failed this test in the 80s.
- I just found out about TripIt from Rick which led me to two important questions: A) Why didn't I know about this service? (You forward your airline confirmation emails and it keeps all your flights and confirmation numbers in one easy to access place) and B) Why doesn't Dopplr do this yet? (That was actually Rick's question ... but I'm stealing it.)
- How about a 42kb zip file that when fully unpacked contains 4.5 petabytes of data? ("The file contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped, which again contains 16 zipped files, which contain 1 file, with the size of 4.3GB.") If anyone has a spare 4.5 petabytes and tries this out, let me know how it goes.
- I like Andy's idea for the "worst iPhone app ever: "It’d be dead simple to build, and I’d call it “iPhone Discus”. Basically it would use the phone’s built in GPS to see how far you could throw your iPhone. Enter a location, throw, record location. That’s it."
- Since this is a post full of random stuff, it seems appropriate to link to someone else's post about the value of random posts in blogs: "Think of a blog as competing with both Google and Wikipedia, among other aggregators. If you knew you wanted to read about 'the minimum wage,' you could bypass Tyler and Alex and Google to the best entries (some of which might include us, of course). But with Google and Wikipedia you must choose the topic. A good blog writer can randomize the topic for you, much like a good DJ controls the sequence of the music." I really believe this is the secret to why editorial driven content will remain relevant in the long run (yes, that includes newspapers): The best stuff is always the stuff you weren't expecting to read. I think this is what makes the New Yorker so great, actually. I don't think there's ever been an article I've opened up and said, "I've got to read that." But then you get like 3000 words in and you say, "I'm so glad I started this thing." (Once again via Kottke)
- This high school commencement speech from Patton Oswalt includes one of the more insightful things I've read recently. He quotes Bob Hope as saying, "When I was twenty, I worried what everything thought of me. When I turned forty, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. And then I made it to sixty, and I realized no one was ever thinking of me."
- When Super Mario Bros characters fight back. (via the excellent new Team Tiger Awesome Variant Tumblr Edition)
That's it for now I think. I'm exhausted and head back to New York tomorrow (am in San Diego at the moment). Good night.
Oh, actually, one more thing. Am on a little video podcast kick (enjoying them as a way to kill time at the gym). Anyone have any recommendations?
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Hi, I'm 