March 2008
41 posts
For SuperDeluxe, the folks at Fark.com are the nexus of Jarvis’s GSI (Google Sucks Index) and the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory. The creativity employed for the sake of vitriol is quite entertaining. My favorite, from this thread: (Link for dashboarders.) Narrow-minded hatred is dangerous, but when applied to trivial things over the Internet, it is occasionally hilarious.
"The Medium is the Metaphor"
Got Postman on the brain this week. The primary message of his book (per the title of this post) is that medium inevitably shapes discourse. E.g., political debates featured on television can never be as literary or in-depth as the famous (live) Lincoln/Douglas debates, not due to any failure of the individual parties involved, but because of the constraints of the medium. When I switched to...
Black hole machine may kill us all. True story. →
(via joshruben) This story is taking the nation by storm. Can’t imagine why. “Hey, we’re science! We’re all about coulda, not shoulda.” - Patton Oswalt
“Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance… In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. ”...
Watchpaulscheer: Jeff Zucker, The President of NBC, shot this really funny piece for “My Name is Earl”. It really made me laugh outloud. This guy should get his own TV Show. I have a mild fixation w/ the man.
I call this one In Which A Joke Bombs And I Hear My Father Die A Little Inside Over 400 Miles of Telephone Wire: Jay Joseph: I hope you’re careful. I read 25% of teenage girls are infected with an STD. Ben Joseph: Well, it’s a good thing I don’t sleep with teenage girls anymore.
this is not breaking the fourth wall. this is just... →
When you view Dinosaur Comics through an RSS feed, you get a bonus caption. Sometimes, I enjoy them even more than the comic.
WSJ.com on Cracked.com →
The Wall Street Journal’s “Buzzwatch” quotes me for a post on Cracked.com. Yeehaw!
Vote for the new NBC Page uniform →
That’s my friend Janelle in the Grey Plaid and good ol’ Jason Shebiro in the Grey Herringbone. Video here.
It's Not You, It's Your Uncontrollable Telekinesis →
A twofer today, via McSweeneys.
Ten Ways NOT To Cheat On Your Taxes →
Businesss humor? Sure, why not. If you like, Digg it!
NYTimes Covers Rickrolling →
I know it was only a matter of time, but I totally called this.
“Yo thats hits! Page it up one time. We’re gonna do so many bitties.” -George Wilson Sometimes, my friends from home don’t speak English.
YouTube co-founder says it’s more important that... →
Same old song and dance, via NewTeevee.Want to be the most popular bar in town? Don’t ID. Works great until someone shuts you down. The one thing that makes YouTube the choice of the masses is also its one obstacle to being a wholly legitimate business.
Airborne doesn’t work and it’s old news, but has anybody else read World War Z? There’s a whole sub-plot about a major pharmaceutical company that sells “Phalanx”, a preventitive measure for “African rabies”/zombie. They know it’s completely ineffective, but make billions with clever yet deceptive marketing. All I’m saying is I spend, on...
Is it silly to want my RSS feeds to appear on my Dashboard (or Facebook News Feed)? I want a site that combines my public Internet “identity” (blog/e-mail/social network profile) with my private content consumption (blogs/news, RSS feeds, video subscriptions) into an accesible, aesthetically pleasing format. Automatically. (Open source customization would be nice, too.) Winner gets to...
what I learned at work today
spiegelman: With the exception of Fargo, no movie that takes place entirely in a snowy venue or even has the word “snow” in the title has ever done well at the box office. I challenge the tumblr community to prove this statement wrong. Snow Dogs (2002, budget $33m) - $81m domestic, $33m overseas. Snow Day (2000, budget $13m) - $62m domestic, $2.4m overseas And, it’s a stretch, but…...
“I intend to challenge him to a cross-continental bathtub duel.”
– Sarah Benincasa’s elegant solution to the similarities between her Tub Talk and the recently launched Bathing With Craig Bierko (via The Apiary) (I had no direct input on either series.)
WatchHa ha! Your medium is dying.
Videos in the YouTube Video Awards Category “ADORABLE!” by view count: Otters Holding Hands - 10,469,464 Laughing Baby -10,187,188 “NORA: Practice Makes Purr-fect” - Check the sequel too. [sic] - 8,785,153 The two talking cats - 8,998,319 ２足立ち - 4,224,025 3 year old Kassie is going to kick the Monsters ass [sic] - 3,100,911 Cast your vote wisely,...
Over the Hill
The “baby smoothness” of my handshake has been the subject of at least two conversations as of late. I take this as further evidence that, on the bell curve of age vs. masculinity, I peaked around fifteen. In the year 2000, my “shower routine” consisted of one bar of soap. Between my two brothers, prolonged fraternal slugfests were common. I slept outside at least once a...
Chuck Jones once said something along the lines of “We all think we’re Bugs Bunny, but we’re actually Daffy Duck.” For a modern/geek twist, I like to say “We all think we’re Han, but we’re actually Luke.” My friend Wylie suggested “We all think we’re Rachel, but we’re actually Monica/Phoebe.” I’m sure there’s...
Mike Birbiglia Pilot Greenlit →
I anticipate this greatly.
“Here’s some free advice: Go to Google, enter any of your company’s brands...”
– On the tail (har) of the Chris Anderson quote below, a fun experiment in introspection from Jeff Jarvis.
I am obssessed with Dinosaur Comics, even moreso out of context:
I saw one of these on the subway today: I felt like the guy who just spotted Bigfoot. Jeff Bezos is a visionary and a billionaire, but when an iPhone is a camera/phone/Internet/map/media player, how did he decide there was a market for a device that displayed only text?
“For a generation of customers used to doing their buying research via search...”
– Chris Anderson, The Long Tail
I was on Hulu before it was cool. [NewTeevee] In typical vid start-up fashion, the search feature isn’t great/sucks, and there’s no real community component, but the content is top notch (30 Rock, Family Guy, The Office - television still gets it right occasionally) and is presented in a crisp and clean fashion. So Firebrand might have been a losing bet. I think these Hulu guys might...
Taxed!
Reviewing my checking account statements from the past twelve months is half nostalgia trip and half “Really? I spent $127.43 on that?” Financial Resolutions for 2008: Drink less. (At NYC Prices. At Hampton, VA prices, I can drink all I want.) Eat out less. Get back to the mentality that any meal over $10 is a “special occasion”. Book plane tickets farther in advance....
Behind the Curve Read of the Month →
By this point, the philosophy is so widespread I’ve gathered most of it by osmosis, but it’s great to finally fill in the blanks.
I finally found a tumblr theme I like better than my WP blog, so I’m trying it out. Links/portfolio to come shortly. Will it stick? Only time will tell.
