January 2011
23 posts
The extinction of the American superhero
With the announcement that 27-year-old English actor Henry Cavill has been chosen to play Superman, the leading men of all three major superhero franchises are now Brits.
Christian Bale (Welsh) is Batman; Andrew Garfield (English) is Spiderman.
Americans still have Ironman and, uh, Green Lantern, I guess?
HOW TO BE A PROFESSIONAL WRITER
Whatever happened to standing out by doing great work?
First off, a pro is necessarily getting paid to do what he does, and that’s a tough trick these days all on its own. But a pro is also defined by the scope and practice of his operation. A pro has sources. A pro knows how to spot a lie. A pro does the work. A pro gets it right. A pro knows how to hustle the corner, but he also knows his way...
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It's better to be considered ugly than cute
At least, if you want to get messaged on OK Cupid.
This shit is pretty fascinating.
OK Cupid look at measures of attractiveness versus messages received on their site, apply some game theory, and generally will blow your mind with a counterintuitive conclusion that actually does make a ton of sense when you think about it. Score one for weird-looking girls.
Why "Freelance Whales"?
Does any other band out there right now exhibit a greater quality-of-music to stupidity-of-name differential than Freelance Whales?
The lead singer explains where the name comes from:
The name Freelance Whales is a sound collage, I guess, that is not meant to be thought of literally in any way. Hopefully it doesn’t conjure images of whales lining up for job interviews or something like that.
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"The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in...
Stephen Fry, preachin’:
I haven’t met anybody who’s truly shocked at swearing… really. They’re only shocked on behalf of other people. Well, you know, that’s preposterous. Or they say, “It’s not necessary,” as if that should stop one doing it. It’s not necessary to have coloured socks, it’s not necessary for this cushion to be here, but is anyone going to write in and say, “I was shocked...
Cost is no object
derasso:
I want to create an online fundraising service, like Kickstarter, that would allow you to raise money to prevent other people from unleashing their spectacularly awful artistic abortions on the world. (And to also crush your enemies.)
Shitcanner?
"This should be a cardinal rule for every...
A MySpace employee talks about the company’s demise:
It’s indicative of what happens when the public makes decisions about how their products are designed: 9 times out of 10 what the public collectively wants is just plain awful.
The sad thing is, the people who made all those gaudy, flashy, obnoxious myspace sites liked them, but then they all went to Facebook because Facebook let...
How to be a better tweeter
Advice from pantheon-level tweeter @badbanana (known in “real life” as Tim Siedell):
1. Don’t be yourself. Be a more interesting version of you.
2. Think small. Don’t try to please everyone, but add value to someone.
3. Stop worrying about it. Be consistently interesting and your audience will find you. Eventually. … If you’re not sure if something is interesting, post it.
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You can not protect yourself from sadness without...