Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Fun with Cognitive Dissonance

From io9, on Monday, explaining why the site has pulled theFan Fiction Friday column after two posts:

When io9 makes fun of Damon Lindelof or the latest episode of Beauty and the Beast, we are picking on targets who are our own size or bigger… Our goal as satirists is to mock targets our size or bigger — or, alternatively, to criticize ideas rather than individuals.

From io9 on Tuesday:

Admittedly, it’s not what it seems – the headline/pic is misleading, because (a) that’s not the “worst Star Wars fan in the entire world” in that pic, and (b) the post is actually complaining about a quote from an anonymous fan from Deadline Hollywood, and is actually a pro-fandom piece in spirit – but still: That the latter headline/pic combo made it onto the site the day after the “We only go after bigger targets” post is one of those “How did that get through?!?” moments.

Posted on

Platforms Are Important

What the findings suggest, Holton said, is that the news platforms a person is using can play a bigger role in making them feel overwhelmed than the sheer number of news sources being consumed. So even if you read The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, The New York Times, and ESPN in a day, you may not feel as inundated with news if you read on your phone instead of on your desktop (with 40 tabs open, no doubt). The more contained, or even constrained, a platform feels, the more it can contribute to people feeling less overwhelmed, Holton said. A news app or mobile site, for instance, is an isolated experience that emphasizes reading with minimal links or other distractions. Compared with reading on the web at your computer, your options seem smaller.

“There was no connection between the number of news outlets people were using, so it made us think it was the device,” Holton told me. “You see less of a statistically significance between outlets and more between platforms.”

From here.

Hmmm.

Posted on

Regrets He’s Unable To Lunch Today, Madame

For those who are curious: Yes, I am relatively silent right now. It’s the traditional crush of the holidays, where the time available to work on things shortens, but the amount of stuff to work on doesn’t… Not helped by the fact that, thanks to terrible timing by the fates, it’s the week of the month that I have to write catalog copy for Comix Experience as well as Thanksgiving. Every spare moment is being spent creating content and trying not to go mad in the process… but, on the plus side, I’m hoping that I can just take Thursday off almost entirely if not completely so that I can actually have a holiday for once. We live in hope…

Posted on

Random Thought

One of those ideas that comes to you when you’re half-asleep, and then by the time you’re awake, you realize you have neither the time nor the financial wherewithal to make it happen: I imagined a pop-culture digital magazine (As in, Kindle single or Apple Bookstore thing, or both) anthology called It Can’t Be…! But It Is! that I would curate, with each issue featuring, say, five longform essays by writers I love centered around one particular subject.

File Under: One Day, Maybe.

Posted on

The Hidden Reason Why I Was So Silent Yesterday

I’m not entirely sure whether it was a weekend that was fuller of stuff – Not even necessarily interesting stuff, but stuff nonetheless – than I’d intended or what, but yesterday was one of those days where my brain just wouldn’t work. I worked the entire day, but just wasn’t productive in the way that I wanted/needed to be (In the end, I finished work somewhere around 10pm, because deadlines are deadlines and don’t wait around for inspiration; I started closer to 7am, though, and only took off around three hours in between), and just the idea of actually concentrating on what needed to be done seemed exhausting in and of itself.

These days happen, sometimes; the days when you’re just done, through no fault of your own. You’re out of juice, and all you really want to do is stop, sit back and relax, maybe read some more of that Gene Wilder autobiography that you’ve surprised yourself by getting into. It’s normally a sign that overwork has taken its toll and a vacation is needed, which might be the first time that’s actually happened in a timely manner, considering that Thanksgiving is around the corner. The first hint should’ve been the disruption in sleep pattern last week, now that I think about it…

Posted on

“Truth Prevailed”

Every four years, the race for the White House ends in accusations of deceit. Each side says the other spent millions of dollars to lie and skew the outcome. This year’s post-election accounts of backstage calculations and fateful turning points continue that tradition. But if you read these accounts carefully, you’ll find a happy surprise beneath the spin and recriminations: Lies failed. Truth prevailed.

From here.

Something that I’m becoming surprised by, in the inevitable post-game analysis of the Republican’s losses in Tuesday’s elections, is the quickly apparent sense that not only were the Republicans lying to us, but that they were apparently lying to themselves, too. There’s a CBS piece that puts it into perspective, somewhat, but the short version is, the Republicans appear to have entirely bought into their own narrative wholeheartedly, to the point where any contradictory information was immediately dismissed as biased and false. Let’s be honest, here; that’s kind of terrifying, because it sounds like something that would make you really worried about a friend, if they started doing it. It sounds paranoid and, yes, kind of insane, or at least dangerously delusional.

The question is, I guess, whether the Republican Party en masse can move back to reality in the wake of the loss, or stay in their persecuted alternate world, plotting and scheming to “take back America” by any means necessary. I hope for the former, but fear for the latter.

This seems appropriate, at this point:

Posted on

No Big Deal

I know, I know; I’ve been more silent here than usual since yesterday, but it’s just down to work and – for once! – seeing friends and talking instead of writing here. Nothing worse than that, for a change. Which doesn’t change the fact that I have to catch up on things here again, but still.

(The image is from Low Life by Rob Williams and D’Israeli as it appears in 2000AD Prog 1808, by the way; a comic strip that manages to mix comedy and something close to horror in a surprisingly good, somewhat deceptive way.)