August 2008
149 posts
people are reading magazines again?
rach:
So the “hipsters are the downfall of ALL OF WESTERN CIV” story has rapidly been making it’s way around the nets. This part: “In the end, hipsters are sold what they think they invent and are spoon-fed their pre-packaged cultural livelihood,” rings pretty true to me right now.
This relates to a great piece from a couple years back by Abe Burmeister in Abstract Dynamics:
The owners of...
July 2008
85 posts
Responsible italics
If you’re designing a site in which you’re using CSS to italicize blocks of user-generated text, make sure to reverse the process for any explicitly italicized text in that block (such as phrases in foreign languages — see an example at plugs without a socket).
It’s easy, it’s customary, and it really helps with readability.
<style type="text/css">
.italics...
“Culture is the meaning of an insufficiently meaningful world.”
– Guy Debord
After reading bittentongue’s observations on the Exxon story, I was reminded of Zizek’s review of Hardt & Negri’s Empire, which contains this relevant chestnut:
Marx located the elementary capitalist antagonism in the opposition between use-value and exchange value: in capitalism, the potentials of this opposition are fully realized, the domain of exchange-value acquires...
I’m following 112 of you now, and somehow there are still these dreadfully long spans of time when all I need is a fresh distraction — yet my dash remains silent. Come on. Scrabulous is gone, what else could you all possibly be doing on the internet?
It’s fairly often that one is interrogated by random strangers regarding the meaning and/or personal significance of a tattoo, but it’s a rare treat when this random stranger feels compelled to ask, “you do realize that’s permanent, right?”
New Tumblr themes
Check out our recent creations:
Aaron White
plugs without a socket
Surprise: Senate rankings are bullshit. →
TNR:
That reality, of course, won’t stop conservatives from trumpeting the “most liberal” label throughout the fall campaign. There’s one problem, though: The public already believes Obama is a liberal, and he’s winning nonetheless. According to a June Rasmussen poll, 67 percent of the public views Obama as liberal (Pew’s numbers, from May, were similar). By...
“YOU ARE PAWNS IN THE GAME, I’M GONNA HAVE YOUR JOB.”
– “stated in substance” by defendant who got body checked off his bike by the NYPD
Oh please.
Sayeth the Times:
Mr. Obama’s advisers say that a central message of his campaign — that he would represent a break from the way politics are conducted in Washington — would be tarnished by the simple act of linking himself to the family that has dominated Democratic politics since Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992.
That comes all of three paragraphs after it’s mentioned that...
Dear internet,
I would really appreciate it if you could arrange for some youthful & energetic & generally awesome startup or small business in the Boston area to see my resume on or before Sept. 1.
The Modernist Papers by Fredric Jameson →
Want:
Stéphane Mallarme is a central figure in Jameson’s narrative about Modernism. He functions much in the same way that Charles Baudelaire did for Walter Benjamin, as the avant-garde artist fiercely antagonistic to, and yet complicit with, an emerging bourgeois commodity culture. “Mallarme Materialist” is a dazzling essay, and Jameson’s talents as a close reader are...
Perfect →
ellebelle:
Can’t wait. I have a little extra time tonight between midnight and seven tomorrow. I think I might start on the underground burrow.
Sometimes people need to be gently reminded that “Red Dawn” was just a movie.
Daily Dead Puppy →
A perfect mixture of the adorable and the disturbing.
Stephen Malkmus - Vanessa from Queens
One of...
Note to self
Next time you plan on getting stuck in a summer thunderstorm while downtown and in the midst of countless pairs of judgmental eyes, try to avoid wearing anything below the waist that’s white and made of linen. OK. Good talk.
“Wall Street got drunk, and now it’s got a hangover.”
– Our President, ladies and gentlemen [NYP] (via peterwknox)
Not that I like defending George W, because I don’t. In fact, I didn’t think I ever would…but…if Obama had said this? Everyone would love it.
(via sneakyjane)
If Obama had said this, I’d still be embarrassed. To be fair, I’d probably be...
“The next generation of services will need to have an impact on the real world...”
– Now we’re talking. I’m all for producing channels for expression with the web, but I still cringe when I hear that “everyone is connected now — we truly live in a global world.” Where we stand right now that holds only in a very qualified sense. I can’t wait to...
Sexual Fables: The Age of Consent →
I ran across this sometime back and it seemed relevant to various Tumblr threads today. It’s a series of journal entries written by various biblical personae, and while a bit heavy handed at times, still intriguing. Like this, from Satan:
There are Heav’nly breasts everywhere and Lolitas have become the creative engines of Western culture. It’s not the gadget technocrats or those...
Online POKER marketing could spell the NAKED end... →
When can we finally usher in the semantic web? Because SEO is getting out of hand:
… according to the latest Private Eye, journalists writing articles for the Telegraph website are being actively encouraged to include oft-searched-for phrases in their copy. So an article about shoe sales among young women would open: “Young women - such as Britney Spears - are buying more shoes than...
When small towns get too small
I met a friend for drinks last night. There were probably a half-dozen other people that I knew at the bar, and knew well enough that they’d have my phone number handy to give out to random strangers.
At 3am I got a text from an unknown number: “Hey u looked sexy at bar tonight got yr number from you friend call me if u ever want to hang out.”
Gross.
“While some say that Marx is irrelevant today, I maintain that the time of...”
– Gregory Esteven, in The Monthly Review
shantihshantihshantih →
The status of poetry on the web has long infuriated me. Search for a poem in Google and you’re bound to click through to a page with pop-ups, hideous typography, animated gifs…
Poetry deserves better.
I’ve started a Tumblr group which anyone and everyone is encouraged to join. Post as little or as often as you like. Post the classics, post your favorites — but...
It occurs to me that:
Christopher Nolan : The Joker :: John Milton : The Devil
Keep in mind that the first and third magnitudes need not relate in any other way than as they compare in ratio to the second and fourth, respectively.
“Art must be unaesthetic in the extreme, useless and impossible to justify.”
– Francis Picabia
Silver Jews - Night Society
Greatest...
The Subway guy's not dead →
How did I miss this?
I was just in Subway today thinking how awful it was that they hadn’t updated their branding to reflect his death, right on down to the signage instructing patrons to “Text JARED to SUBWAY for a chance to be on TV with Jared,” which could have only resulted in some darkly comical remake of Weekend at Bernie’s.
Apparently the nearest IMAX theatre to D.C. showing Dark Knight is in Philadelphia.
Further evidence that one’s access to awesome is inversely proportional to one’s distance from New York.
My Bloody Valentine — I Only Said
...
lifechangingbox.com →
Noted without comment.
I came home tonight to find a possum in my bedroom. He gained access through my apartment’s back door, which I leave open as part of my effort to be a little less consumptive by not using air conditioning. So much for good intentions.
My first instinct, naturally, was to evacuate. And I followed it. So I sealed off the door to the bedroom and I’ll be camping out for the night in...
Something I’ve noticed after listening to the new Girl Talk album (and mash-ups in general) is just how disorienting it is to revisit one of the roughly 290 sampled tracks and listen to it again in its original state. It’s as if those tracks have received some kind of existential makeover in their layering and sampling, such that the facsimile retains a only a heavily qualified relation to...
Captain Yossarian:
… don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways. There’s nothing mysterious about it, He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a...
“Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I...”
– Plato, Republic V.
I was reminded of this passage just now after losing a few minutes of my life to watching the featured video on nonsociety.com. Funny that their motto should be “We hope we inspire you to live differently.” Oh you have, ladies. Differently from you.