Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Peter Thiel, Nearly a decade ago, after you had opened up to friends and colleagues, a gay writer for Gawker shared an item with the readers of Valleywag, a section for news and gossip about the rich and powerful of Silicon Valley. “Peter Thiel, the smartest VC in the world, is gay,” wrote Owen Thomas….
SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley likes to keep the media on a tight leash. Tech executives expect obedience, if not reverence, from reporters. They dole out information as grudgingly as possible. Sometimes they simply buy a chunk of a publication, a time-honored method of influencing what is deemed fit to write about. Valleywag declined to play…
Funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker? That’s not cool. Actively going out to find potential plaintiffs who might have cases against Gawker and then giving them the money to bring those cases? Even that’s not cool. You know what’s cool? Reinventing the concept of philanthropy so as to include weapons-grade attacks on America’s free press,…
WASHINGTON — A technology investment company has offered to put up the $10 million for charity that Donald Trump said on Thursday would be needed to hold a debate with Bernie Sanders. [Update at 4:38 p.m.: Shortly after the publication of this report, Trump’s campaign released a statement that he would not be participating in…
So, some years ago, Gawker outed Peter Thiel as gay. To the best of my knowledge, there was no public interest case to be made: Thiel was not funding anti-gay initiatives or some such. They also published Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and did various other scummy things. Thiel, being a billionaire, decided to take them…
Kevin Drum May. 26, 2016 7:03 PM Shaun King says he’s giving up on the Democratic Party. He can’t abide Hillary Clinton’s establishment views and thinks the Democratic Party is fundamentally corrupt and in thrall to moneyed interests. Fair enough. This isn’t my position, but I understand it. But there are times when I wonder…
It’s supposed to matter when Superman dies. This time, it totally doesn’t. DC Comics has killed Kal-El again. Most devoted comic-book readers aren’t surprised by this, since the publisher announced months ago that the latest version of Superman wouldn’t be part of the post-Rebirth universe. And since he’s the first-ever superhero character, this isn’t the…
Hell naw. Yo, Fuck This Commercial. Source: Yo, Fuck This Commercial
If you’re gonna try to roast the Spelling Bee for being soft, the worst sin you can commit is bringing that weak shit (noun: substandard effort or soft response, e.g. “Kevin liked the Warriors, but they lost because they brought that weak shit.”). Uh oh, good thing the Spelling Bee account was too busy tweeting…
In our Pho Issue, we published this excerpt from Andrea Nguyen’s The Pho Cookbook, coming in 2017 from Ten Speed Press. Subscribe today for more great stuff like this. Pho is so elemental to Vietnamese culture that people talk about it in terms of romantic relationships. Rice is the dutiful wife you can rely on, we…