As Seen on TV - a tribute to doing it wrong:
Whenever a TV product commercial plays I bust a gut during the parts where they show us what we’re doing wrong and why we need the product.
This is my tribute to the hilarious work the actors in these infomercials do.
Asheville has a way of calling people back. You leave, but somehow you always want to come back.
—Jake Dann, front house manager for 12 Bones Barbecue in my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, referring to President Obama choosing to spend a little vacation time in town.
Kevin Weil’s slideshares are great if you’re interested in big data
Kevin works at Twitter where he helps solve problems like how do you store seven terabytes of data a day. His talk was a great overview of why you might want to look at Hadoop.
The near-giddy response to Apple’s misstep may point to a broader shift in the public attitude toward the company and its covert tactics.
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NY Times Bits blogger Jenna Wortham asks if Apple’s spell is wearing off. The evidence for this fallen “spell” (that Apple is one of the only companies in the world that gets described in such psuedo-religious terms strikes me as a symptom of lazy tech writers) is a bunch of moronic commenters on Gizmodo and the web’s paragon of critical thinking, Facebook.
If the shine is dulling, you certainly wouldn’t notice from today’s quarterly financials, which detailed Apple’s best non-holiday quarter in the history of the company. Sling those arrows of wit, ye mighty Gizmodo commenters, I’m certain Apple will somehow find comfort amongst its giant piles of money.
The World Bank is releasing a massive amount of free data
Really incredible trove of data on everything from global finance to education. A lot of this used to be subscription only.
Put This On is one of my favorite projects out there, period, and I’m lucky enough to call those chaps friends. I’d happily promote their work even if I weren’t a producer who stands to make millions when they finally sell out.
That’s the deal, right, guys? Millions?
Google has a new local business tool called Places
Looks like Google is taking on Yelp, but with QR codes!
“You ever think about how in, like, a Tom Hanks movie, everyone lives in a reality in which there’s no such person as Tom Hanks? Because otherwise, people would be mistaking the main character for Tom Hanks all the time? So either Tom Hanks doesn’t exist in the world the movie takes place in, or he does exist but he looks like someone else? I mean, you could have a character break the fourth wall and go ‘Aren’t you the guy from Cast Away? Hey, sign my volleyball!’ or whatever but you can’t really do that in a serious screenplay, so you’re pretty much stuck with that bare minimum level of willing-suspension-of-disbelief before you even get started, unless it’s a period drama or something. And the funny thing is the more famous your star is, the bigger the leap of faith you’re asking the viewer to take when no one in your narrative universe recognizes him, so in a way, paradoxically, great actors undermine their own credibility by their very presence—hey, are you even listening to me? What are you—oh, that’s just Bob. He’s made of bubbles.”
Dan? Yeah, he nailed this one.
Kelsey Grammer, you know him better as the latte sipping Frasier Crane, is starting a right-wing TV network.
You don’t need me to tell you to check out the Big Picture’s coverage of Eyjafjallajokull but I will anyway