Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Two Silicon Valley billionaires with a history of bad blood are squaring off over Gawker. Pierre Omidyar, an eBay co-founder, is leading the charge to support Gawker in its appeal of a $140 million judgment awarded to Hulk Hogan, whose lawsuit was bankrolled by rival billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, The Post has learned….
On Monday evening, Forbes and the New York Times reported that Peter Thiel, the right-wing billionaire responsible for some of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies, has been secretly underwriting Hulk Hogan’s legal battle against Gawker Media. Last night, Thiel confirmed his involvement in the Hogan case—and others against Gawker—in an incredible interview with Times reporter…
It’s true: Kids Today are more dependent on their parents than Kids Yesterday. At least when it comes to housing. Nearly a third of Americans age 18 to 34 were living with their parents in 2014, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center. That’s the highest share since the Great Depression. It…
GIF Blizzard’s take on the class-based-shooter is so vibrant and full of personality, that each individual character has inspired its own army/fandom. And yet, some heroes are still better than others. Here is our definitive ranking of Overwatch heroes, ranked from worst to best. Soldier 76 Bastion Torbjorn Genji Hanzo Zenyatta Junkrat Roadhog Widowmaker McCree…
Peter Thiel offers a case study in the way America’s top tax rate is much, much too low. This week, we learned that Thiel — a Silicon Valley techno-libertarian billionaire who co-founded PayPal, sits on the board of Facebook and is estimated to be worth $2.7 billion — is trying to sue Gawker Media out…
I am not the first Jewish journalist to experience the onslaught. Julia Ioffe was served up on social media in concentration camp garb and worse after Trump supporters took umbrage with her profile of Melania Trump in GQ magazine. The would-be first lady later told an interviewer that Ms. Ioffe had provoked it. The anti-Semitic…
“It’s no coincidence that the targets are shaped like single people and not couples,” says a bow-tied trainer to a schlubby Colin Farrell, during a shooting drill that could only come from the sunless reaches of Yorgos Lanthimos’s imagination (think “Dogtooth,” in English, with fewer smashed molars). In his dystopian feature “The Lobster,” such casual…
Ben Shapiro, the 32-year-old former editor-at-large of Breitbart News, doesn’t come across as the sort of conservative who would be cannibalized by his ideological fellow travelers for being too soft. The titles of his books and e-books, for example, suggest solidly right-wing beliefs: Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future, Brainwashed: How…
From Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times DealBook: A billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur was outed as being gay by a media organization. His friends suffered at the hands of the same gossip site. Nearly a decade later, the entrepreneur secretly financed a lawsuit to try to put the media company out of business….
Even though I left the GOP 20 years ago — let’s just say I learned Republicans are less committed to individual liberty than they claim to be — I have continued to work for or with Republicans on health care reform. Now that some of the friends I have made along the way are endorsing…