Going on KCBS right now to talk about the death of @ew.
Heh. I thought KCBS called me about the death of @ew because I was its founder. They didn't even know. So that was fun, talking about the birth and death of the idea -- and of the magazine as an institution at the center of American culture.
I'll soon be announcing a book on the institution of the magazine and its century, now fading. I'll tell the @ew story there.
Announcement of said book -- plus some other stuff (knock wood) -- coming soon.
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Long before Web3 was a zygote in a VC's wet dream I conceived of a framework for recording & rewarding creative contributions: Creditright. It would be perfect for the blockchain: Web3 as a solution to a problem rather than a solution hunting for one. 1/ medium.com/geeks-bearing-…
Many of the Web3 problems @pkafka catalogs are, well, branding: overpromising things that don't exist; overcomplicating how it's are done; association with bro's who aren't as cool as they wish; history. All this gives technology with promise cooties. 2/ vox.com/recode/2290707…
I can imagine many uses for the 'chain and creativity. I feel guilty buying used books out of print, wishing I could benefit the author. Digital contracts could do something like that. 3/
Here's a Cliffs Notes for irony-challenged university presidents and journalists. The now-suspended Prof. Mehler imparts many lessons in this video, including....
1. Calling words profane is itself a profane act in a university that should be devoted to freedom of expression and exploration. 2. Plagiarism is a sin. 3. Syllabi stuffed full of ass-covering boilerplate fool no students. 4. Deadwood was fucking great...
5. American capitalism robbed native Americans and spread disease--cancer from tobacco--around the world. 6. Grading is bullshit and just a game of fate. (Note that he does say how one can earn an A.) 7. American Calvinism systematizes inequality....
Watch the actual video. You will find a professor properly pissed about having to risk his life coming to class in a pandemic. You will find comment on boilerplate syllabi. The "profanity laden" part is a tribute to Deadwood, FFS.
Here, for your viewing convenience and pleasure, is the video.
Like teachers across America, its really aimed at an administration that is risking his life.
Students, unlike his literal-minded, ass-covering university administration, get the professor's jokes and his point. wzzm13.com/article/news/s…
From the hot take factory: Hot take on critical takes arguing critics should agree with the audience. No. When I started Entertainment Weekly I had to suffer that argument from Time Inc. editors who claimed critics not liking popular works were "wrong."🧵 newsletters.theatlantic.com/deep-shtetl/61…
It is *not* the job of the critic to predict or align with popular opinion as revealed in best-seller & box-office charts. The critic is not the predictor of mass market success. That is the job of producers. 2/
The critic, I always said when I was one, is simply the person who has the privilege of seeing/reading/hearing something before the public does and offer's one person's thoughtful view of it as a service to the public. 3/
I've been thinking about @photomatt's response to @brian_armstrong's response to @moxie's excellent post about Web 3. Some responses in return. tl;dr: I think @photomatt + WordPress provide much of the model @moxie seeks in the end. 1/
First, let me say I don't give a rat's rump what is Web 1, 2,or 3. They are all hubristic labels based on the ego of the present tense. This is web .000002. As I say often, it's 1475 in Gutenberg (Johannes, not WordPress) years. 2/ buzzmachine.com/2019/02/10/sco…
A key lesson I came to writing my book (still seeking publisher) on the (Johannes) Gutenberg Parenthesis is that it took a century and a half before groundbreaking innovation came *with* print: the newspaper, the modern novel, the essay (Montaigne), a market for printed plays. 3/
It's becoming clear to me and I think others that The Times now values total subs as its key metric and so it is acquiring a bunch of new subscribers to get it impressively close to its audacious goal of 10 million paying subs. Mazel. 2/
Thus I'm guessing that The Times will add more subscription products alongside sports, food, & puzzles. Sports seems obvious but The Times is not a sports paper a la @NYDNSports. So it needed to acquire something. Here comes The Athletic, in need of a home. Kismet. /3