Snappy Patter

News maker

2009-10-29T12:46:00.001-07:00

"Motherboard.TV reports, 'In Monrovia, Liberia, there’s a guy taking the matter of a lopsided, state-run media and reshaping it into a free-of-charge, independent news-aggregator—all accomplished with dry-erase board and couple markers. (Sorry, internet!) Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up and heads down to his bulletin board to post the day’s news, culling together a slate of stories his countrymen might otherwise never see [....]”

Finally, a heartwarming story.

Biblical knowing

2009-10-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

I suppose, given the choice between thinking of the original Eve as either a dupe or a brave seeker of knowledge [NSFW], I’d probably go with the latter, as well. But I can’t help agreeing with Douglas Adams on this one:

[God] puts an apple tree in the middle of [the Garden of Eden] and says, do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting "Gotcha." It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it...Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end.

Why do people like the “Saw” movies?

2009-10-23T10:22:00.001-07:00

The Awl explains:

The beauty of these movies is that they’re blank slates to assuage our guilt—the scenarios are so ambiguous (random people plucked from ordinary assholery) and the characters so bland, they allow every one of us to imagine we’re the guilty douche in the torture chamber/poisoned house/corpse-sprinkled public bathroom. And they let us feel better, by presenting someone worse than us (drug dealers, wife beaters), and creating some sort of internal justice system. “Sure, I wrote a few misogynistic blog comments and scowled at a homeless man, but THAT guy killed a kid with his car! He’s worse than me! He deserves to have his extremities slowly twisted off by a giant Medieval crucifix!”

Hmm. And I thought they were popular because we are a nation of filthy fucking sadists whose constant exposure to violence has desensitized us to all but the most graphically nauseating depictions of human suffering.

But maybe I’m wrong. Actually, I hope like hell that I’m completely fucking wrong.

Hulu.com to reduce its own traffic

2009-10-22T21:02:00.001-07:00

From Gizmodo:

It doesn't get any less premium than broadcast content, which is exactly what Carey says we'll soon be paying for—sometime in 2010, he supposes. (Though to be fair, there's a scrap of reassurance later in the same article: "not all content on Hulu would be behind a pay wall." Cool?) This is extra-extra-foreboding next to last week's statements about a paid Hulu from Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, highlighted by TVBizwire: "That's not an if," he said "that's a when." It was fun while it lasted, I guess.

Good luck, major networks.

Update: Well, maybe everything's fine, then.

The reason

2009-10-22T11:20:00.001-07:00

See, this is why I don’t give a shit about the Expanded Universe.

If you’ve got time to kill

2009-10-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

We’re a bit late on this one, but if you’ve ever wondered what the 13 funniest SNL digital shorts of all time are, the Huffington Post sorted it all out last month. Basically, their list turns out to be all the ones you remember, minus Laser Cats.

Prosecutorial vengeance

2009-10-22T08:55:00.001-07:00

What happens when a bunch of university students are able to dig up enough evidence to force authorities to revisit a murder investigation, even after someone’s been sent to jail for it? Well, if you’re a prosecutor, you go on a fishing expedition—through the students’ lives:

However, state's attorneys in Illinois are now subpoenaing all sorts of excess information on the students themselves, including their grades, the grading criteria, student evaluations, and private notes and and off-the-record interviews that were used in gathering the information necessary for the case. While the state's attorney Anita Alvarez is defending this overreaching subpoena effort, it has many concerned that this is really just an attempt to intimidate the students and create a serious chilling effect on this type of investigative research. It's difficult to see how the student's grades make any difference at all in whether or not McKinney is innocent or guilty.

Brilliant.

Gossip, OK

2009-10-21T11:10:00.001-07:00

Bronson Pinchot: Closer to Kathy Griffin than Balki. From the AV Club:

BP: Yes, because Bette Midler was such a bitch to him. While he was directing, she would be rolling her eyes, pantomiming with her favorite actors, and she made it very difficult. And he was at his wit’s end. He was actually a very nice man, but she was very unkind to him on that movie. Am I not supposed to say these things?

Everybody’s seen this already, but feh—whatever.

Appropriate

2009-10-21T09:05:00.001-07:00

The Awl has an excerpt from a review by Sam Sifton:

"The very first item on the menu at Marea is ricci, a piece of warm toast slathered with sea urchin roe, blanketed in a thin sheet of lardo, and dotted with sea salt. It offers exactly the sensation as kissing an extremely attractive person for the first time — a bolt of surprise and pleasure combined.”

Hmm... a description of a food I’ll never eat that compares it to a sensation I’ll never feel, at a restaurant in a city I’ll never see again. Seems fine to me.

Infantile rock

2009-10-20T11:27:00.001-07:00

From the Monitor Mix Blog:

The folks over at Rockabye Baby! -- who turn everything from Queen to Aerosmith into child-friendly lullabies -- are aiming to infantilize Guns N' Roses next. Hard-rocking, balls-to-the-wall, guitar-laden tracks such as "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Welcome to the Jungle" will soon be reinterpreted with harps, bells and xylophones.

As far as I'm concerned, these efforts to expose children to reggae-less versions of Bob Marley and cocaine-free versions of The Eagles has much more to do with the parents than with the kids themselves. I mean, do The Beatles and The Beach Boys really need to be more kid-friendly than they already are? Perhaps it's the adults who want things quieter and softer, who need the guitar turned down and the harp turned up, who need to be soothed after a long day of work and would rather stay home and watch Parks and Recreation than go to a rock show. And now, thanks to Rockabye, they can listen to benign, enervated versions of their old favorites and claim it was their kids who made them do it.

I’ve nothing to add.

Notes on the new Confederacy

2009-10-20T07:49:00.001-07:00

From BeyondChron:

Politically, despite big media’s fantasy of a leftwing fringe offsetting the right, there’s no comparable sedition, treason, or rejection of American ideals among progressives. On his worst day, Michael Moore is no Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, or Palin. Where are any shrill leftwing demagogues stalking America like the predatory right? Where are “progressive” birthers, truthers, tenthers, tea party screamers, or armed militants who dishonor rallies? What liberal voice corrupts like FOX propaganda? None, none, and none, period.

Mmmm, muckraking.

RIP: Captain Lou Albano

2009-10-14T13:45:00.001-07:00

It is with sadness we note the passing of Captain Lou Albano. As a childhood fan of both professional wrestling and Nintendo, I was something of a fan of his.

Future uncertain

2009-10-14T11:19:00.001-07:00

I’ve been rather ill, recently; so I haven’t been able to post any updates. Since my head still feels like it’s full of cement, I’m not sure how soon any of this will change. Could be tomorrow, could be next week.

Let’s just call it a week

2009-10-09T13:11:00.001-07:00

I got off to a good start on Monday, but wow things have gotten busy since then. Yes, I think I’m done, for now. Pretty much. See you all later.

Eureka!

2009-10-08T22:04:00.001-07:00

At last, I figured it out! The reason they put Jay Leno on TV at 10PM is to guarantee that people will be asleep before Conan comes on! It’s brilliantly evil!

Are they INSANE?!

2009-10-08T14:05:00.001-07:00

From the article:

A new internet game is about to be launched which allows 'super snooper' players to plug into the [UK’s] CCTV cameras and report on members of the public committing crimes.

The 'Internet Eyes' service involves players scouring thousands of CCTV cameras installed in shops, businesses and town centres across Britain looking for law-breakers.

Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash prizes up to £1,000.

I can’t beli—oh, wait. It’s a Daily Mail article. *Phew*

But it was linked-to by Slashdot, though.

Candyland is a bad neighborhood

2009-10-08T12:55:00.001-07:00

From Slashdot:

A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34. The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself.

I’m happy AND angry!

The death of aspiration

2009-10-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Over at the Bookslut blog, Jessa Crispin mourns Gourmet Magazine.

And while the literary, intelligent, elegant Gourmet goes under, its much dumber cousin Bon Appetit remains. Gourmet might be the wealthy Paris-dweller you simultaneously want to be and also stab to death, but Bon Appetit is the bored suburban housewife trying to spice things up with a little curry sauce.

We never read Gourmet, but from her description of it, we can help but feel sad to see it go without our ever getting acquainted. Still, trends being what they are, we expect that Bon Appetit will eventual fade away, only to be replaced by a new title, such as Come ‘n Git It, Y’all! Followed, of course, by You Want Burgers, Those Other Burgers, Those Other Other Burgers, or Tacos?

Your government at work

2009-10-05T19:13:00.001-07:00

What happens when you make it easier for people to access government documents, collectively owned by every citizen of the United States? You get investigated by the FBI:

When Aaron Swartz, a 22 year-old programmer, decided last fall to help an open government activist amass a public and free copy of millions of federal court records, he did not expect he’d end up with an FBI agent trying to surveil his house.

But that’s what happened, as Swartz found out this week when got his FBI file through a Freedom of Information Act request. A partially-redacted FBI report shows the feds mounted a serious investigation of Swartz for helping put public documents onto the public web.

Investigations like this aren’t cheap. But, congratulations—you paid for it, American taxpayer!

Grace Maxwell and Edwyn Collins are my heroes

2009-10-05T15:36:00.001-07:00

Techdirt has linked to a wonder essay by Edwyn Collins’ wife and manager, Grace Maxwell, explaining how a major label stopped them from uploading Collins’ own music, and, basically, accuses major labels of ripping him off:

A Girl Like You [Edwyn’s most famous song] is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him. Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done.

Really, worth reading. (Also, Techdirt—maybe include Edwyn Collins’ wife/manager’s name in the piece? It’s Grace Maxwell, by the way. Grace. Maxwell.)

Worth it?

2009-10-05T14:48:00.001-07:00

From the East Bay Express:

UC Berkeley has decided to pay a high-priced consultant $3 million to help the campus find ways to cut millions of dollars from its budget. But the hiring of Bain and Company has already sparked outrage among some state politicians and faculty.

I’ve often heard that you’ve got to “spend money to make money”; perhaps that should be revised to, “You’ve got to spend money to save money.” But in most cases, we prefer the older, “You’ve got to save money to save money.”

Talking to the FTC

2009-10-05T13:14:00.001-07:00

Specifically, Ed Champion interviews Richard Cleland of the FTC:

But why shouldn’t newspapers have to disclose about the many free books that it receives? According to Cleland, it was because a newspaper, as an institution, retains the ownership of a book. The newspaper then decides to assign the book to somebody on staff and therefore maintains the “ownership” of the book until the reviewer dispenses with it.

Must read.

Political humor gets fact-checked

2009-10-05T11:18:00.001-07:00

From PolitiFact:

A Saturday Night Live skit over the weekend showed President Barack Obama admitting what he's accomplished so far: "jack" and "squat."

[...]

Here at PolitiFact, however, we're tracking Obama's 515 promises with our Obameter, which rates them as Promise Kept, Promise Broken, Compromise, Stalled, In the Works and No Action.

Link via CJR.org

Hitting them where they live

2009-10-05T09:52:00.001-07:00

While we wish these protesters luck, we’re betting that they won’t make much difference in the long run (but we hope we’re wrong about that):

No one packed heat, no one screamed at a member of Congress, no one called anybody a Nazi, no fistfights broke out. So—no story.

All that happened was that on Thursday, Oct. 1, a moving van pulled up in front of the largest house in a Main Line neighborhood just outside Philadelphia—the home of H. Edward Hanway, CEO of CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies—and eight demonstrators from Health Care for America Now (HCAN) got out.

Let’s hope the media starts paying more attention to these protests, those sensationalist pricks. How do you know that Americans don’t want more informative news—have you ever tried showing any?

They should have seen it coming

2009-10-03T16:22:00.001-07:00

According to a new book, reviewed in the NY Times, oncoming financial crises are actually not that hard to spot. Hint: The first sign is deregulation:

These academics have found the same disturbing patterns in economic data from more than 66 countries: A nation’s political leaders loosen regulations governing the financial system. Banks use the new freedom to borrow money and earn juicy returns. Soon, these sovereign states are awash with money from foreign investors. But beware these torrents of outside wealth. They are accompanied by bubbles in stocks, commodities and real estate.

Oh well, I’m sure it’ll never happen again.