Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
THE scene in Disney’s “Inside Out” might not have meant much to the kids in the movie audience, but for me, it was priceless: While riding on the Train of Thought, a character, Joy, tips over two cargo boxes, one labeled “facts,” the other “opinion.” The spilled pieces mingle, and she suggests that trying to…
From Gawker to Ashley Madison, moralizers are punishing private people in public for adultery. Since when does the Internet care so much about monogamy? On Friday, Gawker published a post alleging that a Condé Nast executive tried to arrange an evening with a gay escort. Now, a hacker or group of hackers calling themselves The…
Retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark on Friday called for World War II-style internment camps to be revived for “disloyal Americans.” In an interview with MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts in the wake of the mass shooting in Chatanooga, Tennessee, Clark said that during World War II, “if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense…
by Frederic Filloux News sites use trackers more indiscriminately than ever. A random sample of twenty digital properties yields stunning results. Last week, we looked at how long web sites take to load, today, we see how messy their user data collection is. When landing on Politico’s home page, your browser loads about 100 pieces…
Huge database hacks are now so common that there is a secondary industry of credit and identity-fraud protection services. It’s almost a form of theater by now. The typical sequence is: A massive company fails to secure your data, and a hacking group copies that data without permission; The breach is discovered either by internal…
Spotify quietly changed the tone of its green last month and it drove people insane, wondering if they were imagining it or if something was wrong with their phones. The company’s lead designer, Tobias van Schneider, wrote in his personal email newsletter today what happened when the company changed the color and how it didn’t realize…
Tommy Craggs, the executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, the editor-in-chief of Gawker.com, are resigning from the company. In letters sent today, Craggs and Read informed staff members that the managing partnership’s vote to remove a controversial post about the CFO of Condé Nast—a unprecedented act endorsed by zero editorial employees—represented an indefensible…
Students stand outside a building to find an Internet signal for their phones in Havana last year. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File) It’s finally happened. The North American organization responsible for handing out new IP addresses says its banks have run dry. That’s right: ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, has had to turn down a request for the…
Can movement tell a story? Sure, if you’re as gifted as Akira Kurosawa. More than any other filmmaker, he had an innate understanding of movement and how to capture it onscreen. Join me today in studying the master, possibly the greatest composer of motion in film history. For educational purposes only. You can donate to…
If you want to make video essays, there’s no better film to study than Orson Welles’ 1973 masterpiece, F for Fake. There are a million lessons to take away from it, but today, let’s see what it has to teach us about structure. NO SPOILERS. For educational purposes only. You can donate to support the…