My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Batman in the Real World or: Vigilantes, Superheroes, and the American Way of Justice
A fun essay on why Batman is a better embodiment of the “ideal American” hero than other superheroes. The gems from this are the traits that make up an American hero:
Trait #1: Americans Rebel Against Authority
Trait #2: Americans Have Our Own Way of Doing Things
Trait #3: The American Way of Doing Things Is Often Violent
Trait #4: Americans Believe in the Power of the Individual
Trait #5: Americans Believe We Are Always Right
The essay expands on these traits, and also relates them back to Batman and George W Bush. A good look into American culture.
social objects for beginners | gapingvoid
The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that “node” in the social network, is what we call the Social Object.
I guess most of us know what “social objects” are without knowing of the term “social object.” But:
The thing to remember is, Human beings do not socialize in a completely random way. There’s a tangible reason for us being together, that ties us together. Again, that reason is called the Social Object. Social Networks form around Social Objects, not the other way around.
Via @brynn
Los Angeles is built on a large oilfield. What’s fascinating is that these oilfields are still producing without anyone people noticing.
Olivier Gregoire: Music Sample:
Interesting: how would you package one single mp3?
We Were Factory Workers: 11 Young Designers Reflect on their Experience in Guyana - Core77
We have set out to rework the formula of an industry whose main objective has been to find the fabricator that will produce the product at the least possible cost; we are now interested in a more sustainable working model. Just as high school math teachers demanded that we “show our work” or our answers wouldn’t count, we feel that the final product no longer counts unless we are able to take full responsibility for the path to production, in addition to the end result
Love the math analog.
Ariana Huffington on content sharing via @frogdesign
Filing this one away for future reference.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-28)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
So excited for another Unique Los Angeles event!
Business Advice From Van Halen
On detecting problems before they occur:
Google executives realized in November 2008 that flu outbreaks could be detected early by monitoring the number of times people searched for terms such as “flu” and “influenza.” Because the searches are logged instantly, epidemiologists can spot flu outbreaks a full one to two weeks faster than they could have before.
Leading to how Van Halen’s David Lee Roth would safeguard against technical errors:
Van Halen buried a special clause in the middle of the contract. It was called Article 126. It read, “There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he’d walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he’d demand a line check of the entire production. “Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error,” he wrote. “They didn’t read the contract…. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show.”
Interesting.
