Myersnews

"Today’s webby world is one unconflicted about commercialization and remarkably unsqueamish about..."

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:34:39 -0500

“Today’s webby world is one unconflicted about commercialization and remarkably unsqueamish about blunt salesmanship—a place where authors blithely tweet their favorable reviews, and acerbic ironists and stand-up comics turn unflinchingly to self-promotion. The closest to “underground” that the new web gets may be Kickstarter, whose funding projects have raked in a collective $354 million since 2009 (all without the taint of crass commercialism). If you draw in thousands of dollars on Kickstarter, you’re an artist with supporters; if you had tried doing the same by contacting your friends directly, just a few years ago, you’d be a mooch and creep. This is the age of privatized sociality—a moment when social life is actually shaped by one’s own market interests.”

- When Did the Internet Get So Nice? — New York Magazine

"In the drive to flatten the production of media, to make everyone a publisher, we’ve ended up..."

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 01:22:35 -0500

“In the drive to flatten the production of media, to make everyone a publisher, we’ve ended up destabilizing the system we have for surfacing bits of truth. All pictures are the same on Facebook (or other social networks). Fake photo from 2004. Stock photo from 2009. AP photo from last night. Your mom’s friend’s cousin’s flight attendant sister’s friend’s photo. They’re all in the stream, just as likeable. And if one turns out to be fake, well, no one’s career is on the line. No one is responsible for amplifying bad information, and more often than not, it’s impossible to figure out who the original source of it was.”

- If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Subvert ‘em: Countering Misinformation on the Viral Web - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic

"In our mostly correct and psychologically satisfying desire to criticize the mainstream..."

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 01:20:28 -0500

“In our mostly correct and psychologically satisfying desire to criticize the mainstream media’s flaws, we sometimes forget how many techniques and procedures they developed over the 20th century that were good.”

- If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Subvert ‘em: Countering Misinformation on the Viral Web - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic

"I have a vision for what happens to us when we carve out the hard human parts of our stories’..."

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 14:11:27 -0400

“I have a vision for what happens to us when we carve out the hard human parts of our stories’ subjects. Attached to our scalpel is a bar that connects to a smaller scalpel poised against our own flesh. Like one of Kafka’s machines, every time we slice someone, it slices us in the same place but not quite as deep and so quickly you hardly feel it. This may just be the nature of the journalism mechanism, but I worry most of us don’t even know when we’re bleeding.”

- Alexis Madrigal, about Jonah Lehrer. Actually, Alexis Madrigal, about us.

"To make meaning, especially in literature, requires a bit of rub between the elements. No rub, no..."

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 18:49:00 -0400

“To make meaning, especially in literature, requires a bit of rub between the elements. No rub, no friction. No friction, no heat. No heat, no light. No light, no illumination, no seeing, no understanding, no meaning.”

- Can we figure out a ‘unified theory of writing’?, Roy Peter Clark

"It’s hard to find anything to say about life without immersing yourself in the world, but it’s also..."

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 16:24:59 -0400

“It’s hard to find anything to say about life without immersing yourself in the world, but it’s also just about impossible to figure out what it might be, or how best to say it, without getting the hell out of it again.”

- The busy trap, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/

"By one definition, innovation is an important new product or process, deployed on a large scale and..."

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:46:45 -0500

“

By one definition, innovation is an important new product or process, deployed on a large scale and having a significant impact on society and the economy, that can do a job (as Mr. Kelly once put it) “better, or cheaper, or both.” Regrettably, we now use the term to describe almost anything. It can describe a smartphone app or a social media tool; or it can describe the transistor or the blueprint for a cellphone system. The differences are immense. One type of innovation creates a handful of jobs and modest revenues; another, the type Mr. Kelly and his colleagues at Bell Labs repeatedly sought, creates millions of jobs and a long-lasting platform for society’s wealth and well-being.

The conflation of these different kinds of innovations seems to be leading us toward a belief that small groups of profit-seeking entrepreneurs turning out innovative consumer products are as effective as our innovative forebears. History does not support this belief.

”

- Innovation and the Bell Labs Miracle - NYTimes.com

"I’d argue there’s real opportunity in our affinity for nostalgia. Think of Instagram: I’d argue it’s..."

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:35:17 -0500

“I’d argue there’s real opportunity in our affinity for nostalgia. Think of Instagram: I’d argue it’s taken off partly because its filters lend an artificial veneer of nostalgia to those in-the-moment digital photos; they instantly make a moment seem more distant or unrecoverable.”

- 5 provocative ideas sparked by women in media | Poynter.

"It is obvious from our test so far, which spanned a 48-hour period, that there may be an unintended..."

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:35:39 -0500

“It is obvious from our test so far, which spanned a 48-hour period, that there may be an unintended phenomenon of the infusion of social signals into all Google searches: the reduction in visibility in search results of the original article that generated all the discussion in the first place. This may have a counter-balancing effect on the popularity of any article, if in fact it can be demonstrated that the effect is not peculiar to Jon’s situation.”

- First Test Results: Is Google Unwiring the Web for Google+?

"The past several years have seen a gradual awakening on the part of the public that someone,..."

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:23:09 -0400

“The past several years have seen a gradual awakening on the part of the public that someone, somewhere is always watching them. The choice is to either submit to this control or abandon all forms of communications technology.”

- The Rise of Techno-Vigilantism | LulzSec and Public Opinion » Tim Libert Writing

"Ziplocs are the biggest misstep,” said Julie Corbett, a mother in Oakland, Calif., whose two girls..."

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:35:36 -0400

“

Ziplocs are the biggest misstep,” said Julie Corbett, a mother in Oakland, Calif., whose two girls attend a school with an eco-friendly lunch policy. In school years past, she said, many a morning came unhinged when the girls were sent to school with disposable sandwich bags.

“That’s when the kids have meltdowns, because they don’t want to be shamed at school,” Ms. Corbett said. “It’s a big deal.”

”

- “The Plastic Sandwich Bag Flunks,” New York Times.

1. Childhood faux pas are a key economic driver these days, apparently.

2. In the second-to-last paragraph, we learn that this woman has started an eco-friendly packaging company. I would have liked to have known that earlier in the story. So is this woman so concerned about the social taboo of Ziplocs because she doesn’t want her kids to be ostracized or because it’s her business?

"The drive takes maybe five minutes. The Gateway Arch looms large. But the big city feels far away,..."

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:00:58 -0400

“The drive takes maybe five minutes. The Gateway Arch looms large. But the big city feels far away, like a vast distance has passed, like the mighty river is a moat for keeping secrets at bay and filled with baptismal waters for washing reputations clean on the drive home.”

- Lt. Gov. Kinder’s stripper saga spotlights ‘Going Eastside’

Conversating on the 44 bus in San Fran

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:30:48 -0400

Young female Outside Lands festivalgoer: California is my favorite state. Well, except Hawaii.
Young male Outside Lands festivalgoer: Hawaii isn't really a state. It's an ... awesome bonus state.

"Mr. Johnson, a vegetarian, does his limited cooking on a hot plate. He uses no gas or oil. He does..."

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:19:26 -0400

“Mr. Johnson, a vegetarian, does his limited cooking on a hot plate. He uses no gas or oil. He does not have a water heater, but if he needs to take a sponge bath, he can warm up his water by running it through a rooftop convection system made of hundreds of old tuna cans that are heated by the sun.”

- Brooklyn Man Could Lose the Home He Uses as an Energy Lab - NYTimes.com

"Haast was a terrific showman who dressed in white as if he were a distinguished scientist. He was..."

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:45:54 -0400

“Haast was a terrific showman who dressed in white as if he were a distinguished scientist. He was actually a former carnival worker who had once roomed with a moonshiner at a speakeasy.”

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Florida’s snake man made living from deadly serpents

"Understanding who we are and how we came to be the way we are? That’s not Googlable now, and I hope..."

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:19:12 -0400

“Understanding who we are and how we came to be the way we are? That’s not Googlable now, and I hope it never will be.”

- Free Range: Google It : The New Yorker

"The youngest of seven children, Huguette Marcelle Clark was the daughter of a scoundrel."

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:50 -0400

“The youngest of seven children, Huguette Marcelle Clark was the daughter of a scoundrel.”

- Huguette Clark, Recluse Heiress, Dies at 104 - NYTimes.com

"It turned out that 95 percent of the credit card transactions for the spam-advertised drugs and..."

Fri, 20 May 2011 13:05:50 -0400

“

It turned out that 95 percent of the credit card transactions for the spam-advertised drugs and herbal remedies they bought were handled by just three financial companies …

If a handful of companies like these refused to authorize online credit card payments to the merchants, “you’d cut off the money that supports the entire spam enterprise.”

”

- Study Sees Way to Win Spam Fight

"My angle on every subject is that it’s more complicated than you think. The job is to get people to..."

Mon, 16 May 2011 18:44:04 -0400

“My angle on every subject is that it’s more complicated than you think. The job is to get people to look beyond the caricature and the stereotype and understand — or at least accept that there are other dimensions. Because that’s the beginning of when you start to understand things.”

- New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, speaking in an interview with photojournalists Joao Silva and Greg Marinovich.

"It snows up there in New York City, doesn’t it?” asked Mr. Melancon’s father-in-law, Floyd..."

Sun, 15 May 2011 13:00:17 -0400

““It snows up there in New York City, doesn’t it?” asked Mr. Melancon’s father-in-law, Floyd Harrington, 81. “How come all those people don’t move?””

- New York Times story on Cajuns facing flooding, which opens with the statement, “you do not really want to ask a Cajun why he lives in a swamp, especially when he is packing everything he owns because the very swamp he loves is about to swallow up his house.”