Monkey Disaster but on Tumblr

Patient with depression denied coverage...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:50:45 -0600

after Facebook photos show her appearing to have fun at a party.

There are many ways to be disturbed by this article.

1. A person on disability for 18 months with depression.

2. A health insurance company with such a sucky understanding of what depression is that they’ll make a determination based on photos.

Or my favorite

3. That insurance companies are sifting through Facebook photos at all.

Wait a second.

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:05:57 -0500

Windows 7 installation went fine but it wanted you to uninstall iTunes and Google Toolbar?

Walkman outsells iPod

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:29:47 -0500

And not just in a strange upside down universe but in Japan too. It’s the digital Walkman, not the cassette player.

You erased Michael Anthony from history like some out-of-favor...

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:39:22 -0500

You erased Michael Anthony from history like some out-of-favor Bolshevik? Sucks.

Instead you expect people to be okay with Wolfgang “Craft Services Table” Van Halen on a ride through history? Sucks.

Though I’m no fan of Sammy, I guess that whole era didn’t really happen? Sucks.

I’ve seen better character rendering in, well, I’m thinking, something in 1993…’s butt. Sucks.

The fact that this game isn’t called Eddie’s Delusion That He Is God And Control History And People’s Minds With His Strappy Guitar? SUCKS!

This game sucks.

Ilja Laurs

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:30:52 -0500

Check back on that name in 10 years. He will be seen as either a brilliant visionary or something akin to the guy who predicted cities would be redesigned around the Segway.

Laurs recently predicted that apps for smart phones will, as a business, be as big or bigger than the internet in a decade. By the same token, Laurs predicts the development of new apps to level off as the leaders emerge and smaller developers can’t compete. I guess it’s kind of like when there were tons of American car companies in the twenties and barely three today.

It’s really easy to scoff at this idea of apps becoming that huge a business because apps are so new in our collective consciousness so they seem like a fad. I’ve got some thoughts on hype vs. cynicism and I’ll try to get them into a written form by later today.

Barack Obama helps in the creation of Robobama.

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:01:50 -0500

Barack Obama helps in the creation of Robobama.

David Hockney has an iPhone

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:00:03 -0500

And he knows how to use it. For painting.

He’s using Brushes, the same app used to create a recent New Yorker cover.

To me, this is really interesting not because of how advanced it makes the iPhone or how accepted it now is. I’m interested in this because of how refreshingly banal it really actually is as a piece of news. The iPhone and the apps attendant to it are tools, they are mechanisms for people to create things. What’s incredible about these Hockney paintings are the paintings themselves and the reflection of Hockney as an artist. What’s exciting about technology is the way it lets humans be humans in new ways.

Want to see a MINDBLOWING zoomable picture of an ant?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:51:11 -0500

Here’s one!

I will not comment on the news that...

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:16:39 -0500

Sega is now making a robot girlfriend for lonely single men. I won’t comment on the fact that it/she/huh is 15 inches tall and has big, well, bulges. Oh never mind. Don’t click here.

My friend Martin’s video from the NBA Draft. He’s...

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:39:57 -0500

My friend Martin’s video from the NBA Draft. He’s been doing these for years. This year, I was honored to get a credit. Humbled even. On the YouTube page I saw some comments that Martin was a white guy trying to sound like a black guy. Back on earth, Martin is a black guy trying to sound like a sock puppet version of Stephen A. Smith.

“We don’t have to change at all.” (via...

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:15:30 -0500

“We don’t have to change at all.”

(via boingboing)

As I write this, The Stephen A. Smith Heckling Society of...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:52:37 -0500

As I write this, The Stephen A. Smith Heckling Society of Gentlemen does NOT have a ticket to the NBA Draft. This means that this year’s draft may NOT produce a video like the one above from 2006.

Or this one from 2007.

OR this one from 2008.

And if this tradition dies, well, I don’t think I exaggerate when I say AMERICA DIES TOO.

Now granted, the actual broadcaster Stephen A. Smith will not HIMSELF be at the draft either, as he’s been fired by ESPN. But still. Someone get Martin Bell, er, that is, The Society a ticket!

Facebook's plan for world domination...

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:16:32 -0500

or at least Google domination, spelled out in this excellent Wired article. Apparently CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s central theory is that people will want an interconnected “friend”-based approach to finding information online as opposed to the mountain of dry impersonal data delivered by Google.

But while, the anti-Google swagger will get the most notice in this article, I was really struck by what it said on page 3 about Facebook’s plan to mobilize all the resources given to it by users:

The drumbeat of controversy surrounding Facebook illustrates the catch-22 the social network faces: It has a massive storehouse of user data, but every time it tries to capitalize on that information, its members freak out. This isn’t an academic problem; the company’s future depends on its ability to master the art of behavioral targeting—selling customized advertising based on user profiles.

Tom McCarthy, a man for our season

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:59:09 -0500

mrgan:

Oh, hi. Meet Tom McCarthy, professional badass dude. What’s that? All you see is a painfully average white guy? He kind of reminds you of your buddy Derek, the one who works in a bookstore?

Let me clarify. Tom wrote and directed The Station Agent (2003), one of the more grown-up and damn humane movies of the decade; you know, a story with a dwarf character who’s not a moronic joke. Oh, he also auteured The Visitor (2007), a similarly respectful story which has Richard Jenkins in perhaps the best role of his life, learning how to kick it in a drum circle. Seriously. Did I mention Tom also played the weasely reporter Scott Templeton, a crucial character in the fifth season of the greatest TV show of all time, The Wire?

And did you know that he co-wrote one of the best Pixar movies - i.e. one of the best movies period - a heartbreaking, old-man-celebrating, cliff-jumping wonder called Up? I mean, Tom McCarthy’s score in life is like a solid 97% at this point. I love you all but if I could pick one person to sit and chat with today, Tom is it.

Huh. Good to know. The Station Agent is one of the most important movies of my life, seeing it as I did not long after my daughter was born with dwarfism. The Visitor is a movie my wife saw and won’t stop talking about. The Wire is the best TV show ever. And Up? Damn. So Tom McCarthy = better than me. Good to know.

I used to work at KUOW. It was an exciting place sometimes.

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:42:07 -0500

I used to work at KUOW. It was an exciting place sometimes.

Finally, someone has the courage to stand up to Stevie Nicks,...

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:51:56 -0500

Finally, someone has the courage to stand up to Stevie Nicks, Berlin, Kenny Loggins, and Michael J. Fox.

Stupid Internet

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:25:00 -0500

It has this way of saving everything you ever wrote and making you look dumb just for saying in 2007 that Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone. And then jerks like John Moe laugh at you.

(found on Daring Fireball)

Video

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:39:48 -0500

I am inspired

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:09:00 -0500

by Anil Dash’s cancellation of the term FAIL:

Because it marks a lack of human empathy, and signifies an absence of intellectual curiosity, it is an unacceptable response to creative efforts in our culture. “Fail!” is the cry of someone who doesn’t create, doesn’t ship, doesn’t launch, who doesn’t make things. And because these people don’t make things, they don’t understand the context of those who do.

Years ago, I worked at a summer camp in the San Juan Islands. I actually met the wonderful person who would become my wife there. And a summer camp, at its best, is this amazing volcano of creativity: you have the energy of hundreds of young campers, counselors who are still young themselves, you have music, you have nature, you have recreation and physical activity, you DON’T have electronic media. It’s perfect, really. But there was this one person who, whenever something truly creatively odd would be presented (be it a song or a skit or just a joke) would make a yucky face and say, “Random!” She even made a song for people to sing with the lyrics, “Random, random, that was so random.” A song is a creative act, sure, but she just borrowed an existing camp melody and put in her cynical patronizing words.

And, like, go to hell, you know? It’s not random, it’s a creative act inspired by the environment we’re all sharing and that’s a beautiful thing that sets us apart from the goddamn insects. I bet she uses FAIL all the time.

Vince Young

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:20:00 -0500

He’s a quarterback for the Tennessee Titans of the NFL. Last season, after losing his starting job, getting booed, and getting injured, he left his house without his phone but with a pistol, this after mentioning suicide several times over the course of the day. An APB was sent out and he was finally tracked down.

I haven’t heard much on the story since then but recently saw a short interview with Young on ESPN. In the interview, an excerpt of a longer version to air later this summer, Young says that he wasn’t considering suicide, that he just needed to clear his head and that he went to his uncle’s house.

You can’t know someone’s mind from watching a few minutes of tape but, how to phrase this, something seems wrong here. It’s just my gut but I don’t think he’s telling the truth. Young has every reason in the world to say that he had no thoughts of hurting himself, millions of dollars of reasons, in fact. He can’t make a living if someone thinks/knows he’s clinically depressed. So he can’t get help, really. As a star athlete for most of his life, he’s also existed in a world where toughness and exhibited strength are highly valued and mental illness is treated very differently from a torn ACL.

The topic of NFL players and suicide didn’t start with Young. Star receiver Terrell Owens attempted suicide in 2006 but he too claimed it was all a big misunderstanding. I hope someone in the NFL offices is taking mental health seriously although I doubt they are. After Owens denied that he attempted suicide, his publicist, demonstrating a real deft understanding of mental health, had this to say: “Terrell has 25 million reasons,” she said, “why he should be alive.” Or at least make people think he wants to be.