October 2009
Dear Critical Mass,
I generally like you. I really do.
Buy could you hold off when the city’s already crippled by the closure of the Bay Bridge? You know, the most used commuting bridge in the country?
Thanks jerks.
Drew
“He was so vain. He had not one, but two painted portraits of himself as a...”
– An ex-girlfriend of Alex Rodriguez (Via Daily Intel)
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“I’m not trying to be alarmist, but anyone who thinks (food-related) print...”
– Anthony Bourdain.
Bourdain knows this because he knows bloggers. He’s part of the Michael Rulhman scene and witnesses first hand the participation and community that has evolved around food blogging. I’d venture that food blogging is the best niche case of the potential of digital...
Bloomberg Terminals are a Social Network →
I just saw someone casually borrow a stranger’s cellphone and make a call on BART. How odd.
“The real culprit behind the lack of Android apps isn’t lack of developer...”
– MobileCrunch
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“Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and...”
– John Dvorak’s review of the first Macintosh, in 1984.
One of the biggest mistakes one can make in media is relying on the “focus group of one.” That is, basing mass market media decisions on opinions held by yourself.
Working at a media company in San Francisco, I have to...
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iTunes LP is a Format in Search of a Medium and a...
Playing with an iTunes LP inspires, but doesn’t deliver. You’re left thinking about what else you’d use the format for, rather than actually enjoying the content.
Oh, and there’s no way they developed this for music. Not a chance. LP is for comics, magazines, cookbooks, travel guides, and news. Engaging, active, multimedia content. But it’s not for music.
If you...
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Excerpts From The Book The NBA Doesn't Want You To... →
Samples of defrocked referee Tim Donaghy’s book. A great read.
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Microsoft Stores Printing PC Games on Location →
Epic. Printing physical media in retail spaces makes your stockroom infinite and obliterates the need to quickly move content off the shelf.
This is how Netflix should answer RedBox (though they don’t really need to..). Kiosks that print content.
Good luck getting the studios to agree, though if they keep prices above RedBox, studios might deal for the lesser evil. (Via Joystiq)
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Why are tech sites reporting on a new feature for a site that’s still in private beta?
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NASA Declares Successful Ares Launch 'Friggin'... →
(Via Fast Company)
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“Nearly universal literacy is a defining characteristic of today’s modern...”
– Great read. (Via SEEDMAGAZINE.COM)
“If ever there were the perfect Hollywood crime, this is it. Not perfect in terms...”
– If there is a story for our times, this might be it. (Via Gawker)
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“I took heart from a talk this week by Slate editor David Plotz, who suggested a...”
– Well said. (Via Knight Digital Media Center)
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My husband has a virtual girlfriend →
“Yeah.. the girl also talks a lot. You hear her voice at every part of the game. A lot of dating sims are mostly text, but this one has a real humanistic side to it. I think this comes down to the fact that men are simple. This is obviously a computer program, but this makes us really feel like there’s a girl inside the DS. It feels dangerous, like I might get sucked into this world....
Rapidshare and Megaupload cause more traffic than... →
According to Sandvine’s study. (Via P2P Blog)
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“The tumble dryer is the second largest energy-consuming appliance and the...”
– From an interesting debate regarding tumble drying clothes. Something you don’t normally think about… (Via NYTimes.com)
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“But lately Facebook has been turning into a bar too—specifically, a bar the...”
– Luke Mazur speaks the truth. (Via The Awl)
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It’s a cookbook, or something: 14 types of... →
8. It was Earth all along. (Or “Oh, I get it, they’re astronauts!”) Serling was so jazzed by the idea of depicting Earth as an alien planet that The Twilight Zone actually aired back-to-back episodes in season one with that very twist. In “Third From The Sun” (adapted by Serling from a Matheson story), scientists flee a doomed planet that viewers are led to believe is Earth, when in fact the...
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Lucy Danziger, Self Editor, Trades Town Car for... →
What a world we live in! When an editor of a fitness magazine, whose publisher is drastically cutting costs, foregoes a town car and rides her bike to work she gets a NY Times article!
Meanwhile, Graydon Carter still takes jets.
Q:
dailyquestion:
What or who would you build a monument to?
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The Unemployment Rate for Young Americans is 53.4% →
And worse, without a clear economic recovery plan aimed at creating entry-level jobs, the odds of many of these young adults — aged 16 to 24, excluding students — getting a job and moving out of their parents’ houses are long. Young workers have been among the hardest hit during the current recession — in which a total of 6.9 million jobs have been lost.
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“I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge...”
– Did Bill Keller just out the Apple Slate? The fact that he said “slate” and not “tablet” gives this a bit of credence. (Via Gawker)
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Why the ‘Saw’ Movies Are the Most Important Films... →
They’re crap, but their primary function is to assuage the guilt that comes with our materialistic society. (Via The Awl)
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“If I were using Twitter, I would just say I’m sitting on a couch in front of a...”
– Expect guru backlash in 5, 4…
*That “promote” comment is hilarious. (Via VentureBeat)
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