from a recent edition of Ask The AV Club. I think the answer to that question is: no, the whole world is not hungering to see some has-been from 20 years ago talk about a new project on Letterman. But, someone in the world is. As my friend Kevin Donovan would say, there is a limitless amount of digital storage space and because the long tail exists, it can be productive and profitable.
I know I’d enjoy seeing clips of George Carlin in the early 1980s, of Barenaked Ladies’s first Letterman performance, and of the first joke about the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Leave your favorite office euphemism in the comments. (If you can’t think of a workplace-related one, leave your favorite euphemism in general.)
I just finished a 65-hour work week. I am exhausted, stressed out, and I miss spending time with my friends and family.
It really gives me an appreciation for the folks who work 65-, 75-, even 100-hour weeks to feed their families. I really don’t know how they keep going with the amount of help they get (or, more accurately, don’t get).
from Sarah Reckhow’s guest column in The Eduwonkette. Teach For America had her stationed at Douglass, a struggling school in Baltimore. Her column makes the argument that the focus needs to be on what schools are doing right (certain after-school programs) rather than on what they are doing wrong (poor retention of already generally low-quality teachers).
I think it would be wise to focus on recruitment and training of new teachers: if they want kids to stay after school, they are going to need an assertive, high-quality teacher that serves as a role model and instigator of change in students’ lives. The heartwarming front-page-gracing success stories may come from unique after-school programs, but the vast majority of the real grunt work happens in classrooms with dedicated, qualified, and influential teachers.
I just clicked on an advertisement in my Facebook NewsFeed (for the new The Hold Steady album) and it opened iTunes. Not only is that obnoxious, but it also frightens me to think of what else they and others could open via unmarked links without my consent.
I am consistently amazed with Facebook’s inability to squash bad ideas like this in their meetings and planning sessions. People bash Google for things I usually don’t even consider “being evil,” but nobody even holds Facebook to that high “don’t be evil” standard.
It’s like we expect Facebook to suck. We expect them to share our private information, leave sections of their site unchanged for years, abuse our somehow-easily-earned trust, and think of users only as sources of money and data.
I, for one, could potentially use Facebook (and Google) for my entire life. With such a lock on me and millions of other people, these companies should make it their business to think not only about their five-year plans, but about what they can do to ensure we’re there in five years.
Is a car’s decal more for the car company or the car owner?
Similarly, is the “Abercrombie” text on one’s shirt more for the seller or buyer? The LV on a handbag? The Bose on a speaker?
Another thought on customers and the seller-buyer relationship: I think one major indicator of a company’s future success and appeal is whether or not there is a demand for t-shirts with their logo on them. Chipotle sells tons of t-shirts. So does The Salty Dog Cafe.
I was there.
from Peter Meehan’s New York Times article about ballpark food across the country.
Part of my job with Hinsdale Little League Baseball is entering in a ton of game scores. The home team is always listed below the visiting team in the game tables, which has become mind-cripplingly annoying for me.
Why?
Let’s say I’m entering in Game 807 between the visiting Mets and the home team, the Blue Jays (see image). If the Mets win the game, I have no problem entering in the score. However, if the Blue Jays win, my mind refuses to let me put a lower score in before a higher winning score. I always have to enter in the winning team first, and then reverse-tab to enter the losing team’s score.
Somewhat related, this next situation is equally as idiosyncratically annoying to me.
If the Blue Jays beat the Mets 8-5, what was the Mets’s losing score? Did they lose 5-8? No! They lost 8-5. They won 5-8, and the Blue Jays lost 5-8. Only one of those makes good sense to say (the one where the winning team beats the losing team by a score of 8-5). However, it is correct to say that someone who won 8-5 also lost 5-8.
Why?
Because the word “lost” is assigned a value of -1 and the word “won” is assigned a value of +1. So, “losing 5-8” mathematically equals the following: (-1)[5-8]. Which, of course, resolves to winning 8-5.
But who really cares about the Mets or the Blue Jays anyway? Go Cubs!
