March 2010
60 posts
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Marina Abramović's Day-Long Doppelganger at MoMA
Via the Awl and Via Vulture
Anya Liftig wore a long blue robe and a side-braid, just like Abramović, and sat opposite her for an entire day.
Also: A really interesting interview with Anya, a Brooklyn based performance artist.
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WatchCollege Humor + Star Wars + Jay Z = Galactic Empire State of Mind.
And the lyrics are beyond nerdy. Click here for the lyrics written out.
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(Margaret) Atwood in the Twittersphere
“Oops! I shouldn’t have said that. Which is typical of “social media”: you’re always saying things you shouldn’t have said. But it’s like the days of Hammurabi, and those of the patriarch Isaac in the book of Genesis, come to think of it: once decrees and blessings have made it out of the mouth—or, now, in the 21st century, out of the ends of the fingers and past the Send button—you...
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THE REAL BRIGHTON BEACH →
““We want to, in some way, create a microcosm of the former Soviet Union in the house,” Miller said the other day at Tatiana, a Russian restaurant on the Brighton Beach boardwalk…weight lifting will remain important themes in ‘Brighton Beach.’”
Via The New Yorker
It’s going to be a guido gulag.
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“When I was growing up, I was the most pretentious person I have ever met. I only...”
– Moby, via the NYT
Moby, pretentious? never.
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“If social tools were creating real economic gains, we’d expect to see a...”
– The Social Media Bubble by Umair Haque
Via The Harvard Business Review
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Two Pieces of Ridiculous Chicago Related News:
Yelp! Chicago Business Joins Class-Action Lawsuit, Debate Continues Over Review Site (POLL)
“Chicago’s Bleeding Heart Bakery joined 9 plaintiffs from across the nation in a class-action lawsuit against consumer review site Yelp. The bakery’s decision to join the suit sparked a debate between Yelp lovers and haters throughout the city, and not only over the “extortion...
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"Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google"
“Students do not know how to find or evaluate the information they need on the Internet.In a recent study of fifth grade students in the Netherlands, most never questioned the credibility of a Web site, even though they had just completed a course on information literacy. When my company asked 300 school students how they searched, nearly half answered: “I type a question.” When...
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Afghanistan's 'First Rock Band'
According to the BBC, Kabul Dreams is Afghanistan’s first rock band. Clearly the BBC forgot Burka Band, whose EP dropped a few years ago. I guess it’s only ‘rock’ when men make it. Sarcasm aside, Kabul Dreams is actually pretty good. They sort of remind me of Tokyo Police Club with Brian Molko of Placebo on vocals. Maybe Liam Gallagher too?
And how can...
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Farmville: Making Craploads of Money; Making... →
“That’s because when economists try to model behavior in the real world, they’re always dealing with imperfect information. “The data is always limited, and once you get hold of it there are tons of reasons to mistrust it,” Segerstrale says. In virtual worlds, on the other hand, “the data set is perfect. You know every data point with absolute certainty. In...
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Google, Yahoo Object to Australia’s Plan for... →
“The Australian government has been putting its censorship plans in place for more than a year now. And it plans to introduce legislation this year that will require that ISPs use filters to block content such as child sex abuse, bestiality, detailed instruction in crime or anything advocating terrorism, according to Australia’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital...
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Social Media Marketing At Its Worst: "Can You...
“Andrey Ternovskiy, founder of one of the world’s hottest startups, has a problem. If you can help him, we’ll give him your resume…The problem is that Chatroulette is also very obscene. According to one recent study, a full 13% of Chatroulette users are “perverts.” For the sake of decorum, let’s say that “perverts” are naked people...
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Infographic: Twitter Hits Peak, Still Irrelevant
Finally, a pretty graph that illustrates the irrelevance of Twitter.
Via Next Generation Online
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Will 'Vooks' be the Kindle Killer? →
A vook (rhymes with “book”) is an enhanced digital book that blends text with audio, full-color video and links to the Internet and social media that complement the written word and add context. Vooks can be accessed through the Web or with an application download for the iPhone and iTouch, and soon the iPad.
Leave it to Apple to tell you that movies are the new books.
Via Digg
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SXSW Hates Your Blog
[An Austin bar says good-bye and good riddance to South by Southwest, the indie tech/rock/movie festival that ended today. Pic: ekai’s Flickr via cmd]
Via Gawker.
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Nurse Jackie, Twitterized.
“Nevertheless, Nurse Jackie is taking the bold step of not only referencing Twitter in its upcoming second season, but also incorporating it into the world of the show. Beginning in the second episode, Dr. Cooper (played by Peter Facinelli, a Twitter addict himself with over 1.5 million followers) will be shown tweeting, at which point the character’s posts will show up real-time on a...
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“It has the cinematic scope of Lawrence of Arabia.”
– Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City 2
Words fail me.
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Artist Marina Abramović: 'I have to be like a... →
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“The downside is that you have infinite access to the private lives of your...”
– “Facebook: why we can’t live without it”, The Guardian.
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“It is the physicists who have been thrown most violently off stride, who have...”
– “As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush. The Atlantic.
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Gawker's Poll: What Should We Call Hipsters? →
Gawker wants a new word for hipster. And here are some offerings from Gawker’s witty and smart readership.
Some choice suggestions include:
Doucheoisie (“Schwazzies,” for short), Pabstsmears and Ironoclasts.
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Na’vi Of Hometree Wisconsin On Chat Roulette
So nerdy that I had to pass it on. It is, however, pretty funny in its own right.
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5 Social Media Articles Worth Reading
1. Our Biggest Brands Can No Longer Be Managed By Nerds Via Advertising Age
Key Takeaway: Replacing suit-wearing nerds with nerds in chuck taylors who tweet.
2. What Social Media Users Want [STATS] Via Mashable
Key Takeaway: Folks on Twitter, Digg and Facebook want news from those platforms. Myspace still sucks if you’re not a musician.
3. Analysis without Analysts Via...
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Chart: Pervert Rate on Chatroulette
And European cultural dominance continues.
Via Techcrunch.
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Benjamin on Book Collecting or, Why I Won't Ever...
One of my favorite essays by Walter Benjamin is a somewhat obscure essay that appears in Illuminations, “Unpacking My Library”. This essay is, in short, why I won’t ever buy an ebook reader. Here’s my favorite passage from “Unpacking My Library”:
“I have made my most memorable purchases on trips, as a transient. Property and possession belong to the...
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Fending Off Digital Decay, Bit by Bit
“‘If you’re interested in primary materials, you’re interested in the context as well as the content, the authentic artifact,” Ms. Farr said. “Fifty years from now, people may be researching how the impact of word processing affected literary output.’
It may even be possible in the future to examine literary influences by matching which Web sites a writer visited on a...
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2009 Year In the News | PEW Research Project →
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“As information travels faster in the modern age, in the modern age
As our days...”
– DCFC, “Information Travels Faster.”
Old Death Cab. This song reminds me of many nights writing papers at the Rocket Star cafe.
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Lessig on "Internet is Freedom"
“The Internet: the thing that the Internet is is a thing that enables; just like the market enables, the printing press enables, the Internet enables. What it is is an architecture to enable unplanned and unforeseen innovation, innovation that others call freedom.”
- From Lawrence Lessig’s speech “Internet is Freedom” delivered to the Italian Parliament.
The video...
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Danah Boyd on Privacy, Facebook and Mark...
“Privacy isn’t a technological binary that you turn off and on. Privacy is about having control of a situation. It’s about controlling what information flows where and adjusting measures of trust when things flow in unexpected ways. It’s about creating certainty so that we can act appropriately. People still care about privacy because they care about control. Sure, many teens repeatedly tell...
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The Internet Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
“The Internet’s nomination has been championed by the Italian version of Wired magazine for helping advance “dialogue, debate and consensus”.
Via BBC’s “Internet ‘in running’ for Nobel Peace Prize”
Why wasn’t the wheel nominated this year?
My money is on Al Gore requesting to accept the award.
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Banksy on Art and Advertising
“The thing I hate most about advertising is that it attracts all the young, bright, creative people, leaving us with only the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”
Can’t say I completely disagree with him.
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Monitor: The Net Generation, Unplugged
Great think piece about ‘digital natives’ and the dangers of over generalizing their social, political and technical skills. Will definitely have a follow up to this article.
“The Net Generation, Unplugged.” Via The Economist
Excerpt:
“What about politics, and the idea that, thanks to the internet, digital natives will grow up to be more responsible citizens, using...
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Cat and Mouse, A little Tech Humor
Meet Jeff. He likes my mini computer mouse.
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Data Underload: The Anatomy of an Infographic
This is so accurate it hurts.
Via A Day in the Life Of
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“But then somebody sent me the other day, Isaiah 49:16, and you need to go home...”
– Sarah Palin on writing her core beliefs on her hand. Hat tip to Anna.
One thing: God has hands? That’s news to A LOT of people, haha. 