Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Added by PressForward
Those gigantic jackpots set people dreaming. I’m not immune to lottery fever. I hadn’t bought a lottery ticket of any kind for years, until last January, when the Powerball jackpot amounted to nearly $1.6 billion. That was one awesome number. We began talking about it at work. Two colleagues and I split a few tickets….
Billionaire Peter Thiel published a passionate op-ed in the New York Times today, mere hours before the deadline for bids to purchase Gawker, the media company that Thiel helped to bankrupt in response to a blog post that publicly exposed his sexual orientation. In the editorial, Thiel positions himself as a defender of online privacy…
When China’s favorite swimmer Fu Yuanhui openly mentioned her menstrual cycle on Sunday (Aug. 14) at the Rio Olympics, it was the first time many Chinese people realized it is possible to swim while being on your period. China placed 4th in the final of the women’s 4×100-meter medley relay Sunday, a race won by…
One person calls the other dumb. The second guy responds by calling the first an “asshole” and a “dumbass with his head up his ass.” The first guy fires back again, accusing his “thin-skinned” antagonist of throwing a “tantrum.” Is this a middle school playground argument? Two drunks yelling at a bar? A YouTube comments…
Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui defied a major sports taboo, and won legions of internet fans, for doing something pretty simple: actually admitting that she was on her period, and that it was affecting her physically. Fu, who is already a viral favorite in China for her animated facial expressions and candid sense of humor, was…
Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel speaks at the 2016 Republican National Convention last month in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.) Peter Thiel proudly acknowledged (again) on Monday his funding of an invasion of privacy lawsuit that brought Gawker Media to its knees, ahead of the company’s scheduled bankruptcy auction later today. In a prominent op-ed in…
Recently, the Harvard University Republican Club (of kids) got widespread news coverage for refusing to endorse Donald Trump. Now the Yale Republicans are in a public battle over Trump as well. Hey—fuck off!!! Should we care what a bunch of 20-year-old college Republicans, who are some of the world’s most insufferable pricks, think or do?…
Here’s a tiny, tiny wrinkle in the ongoing Gawker Media auction: LittleThings, a digital publisher that specializes in Facebook-friendly content, says it wants to buy Jezebel, one of the sites owned by Gawker Media. The problem is, Jezebel isn’t for sale: Gawker Media, which is in bankruptcy, wants to sell all seven of its sites…
Welcome to Well, Actually where I surface the opinions you’re probably not reading about a news event that’s filling your social media feeds. This week, the candidacy of Donald Trump. — To begin this exercise I need you, dear reader, to reach deep inside and pull out your reserve empathy supplies. For the next 10…
The 2012 Olympics never came to New York, but they changed its course forever.View Full Caption Mario Tama/Getty Images Almost 5,000 miles away from the site of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games there lies a city forever changed by its own bid to host the games. New York City was one of five finalists when the International…