How Facebook is killing comedy (and other indie content creators)

Facebook has monetized access to online content. The mobile apps make it difficult for you to actually leave Facebook to follow a link, which means Facebook is increasingly showing other people’s content, bypassing the creator’s own ads (and their “subscribe” and “comment” and “contact us” and “archive” buttons). As Internet comedy writer Matt Klinman puts…

A rare win for Dad.

  Similar:My brother, in town to see The Nutcracker, starts a chess game with my sonPersonalMedia Bias Chart (Ad Fontes, v. 9)Objective news reporting is an ideal. Wh…CultureFaces the girl makes during her Luisa monologue. (Four more chances to see The Fantasticks…AestheticsBattle of Agincourt — 600 Year Anniversary of Henry V's "St. Crispin's Day Speech"Sure, Marty…

How Star Wars was saved in the edit

I learned a lot while watching this video. I didn’t realize how much of this movie was driven by off-screen narration. The whole “The Death Star will be in range in five minutes” sequence was added in post. Similar:Paramount Erases Archives of MTV Website, Wipes Music, Culture History After 30 Plus YearsI was never really…

Fie upon your multi-page, ad-stuffed crapfest of shame. (Don’t click!)

What I wrote is not actually a list, just a narrative rant against clickbait listicles. Similar:Dear Jacksonfish.com: Please contact me to discuss your plans for compensating me for this…Here’s a comment I left on the jacksonfi…BusinessHow Humans Respond to RobotsThe play that coined the word “robot,” K…Aesthetics"We Need to Be More Vigilant With What We…

Apology of Socrates, By Plato

Aristotle classified Plato’s work, representing Socrates’s defense against charges that he corrupted the youth of Athens, as a fiction. But what words! What a defense! (“Greatest mind of history / Solving life’s sweet mystery.” —Schwartz) For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your…

Is your child texting about recursive acronym palindromes?

Is your child texting about recursive acronym palindromes? lol = linguists overinterpret lol gtg = gtg tokenizes gatekeeping mcm = man-crush-monday connotes mania wcw = whoever created woman-crush-wednesday brb = befoggedly redefine brb   Similar:Working Towards a ResolutionLooks like all the content has been remo…BusinessTimed Essays: Top 5 Tips for Writing Academic Essays Under PressureWe…

If I am not a pedagogical god, at least my marking app has no ungraded submissions.

  Similar:Had a blast watching all the amazing entries in Pittsburgh's 48 Hour Film Festival, b…PersonalReally enjoyed Prime Stage Theater’s video presentation of Mockingbird.Obviously I would have preferred to see …AestheticsAdded a pilot and cockpit details to my flyby of a #steampunk scout ship. Costume is a pr…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyvR90jm…AestheticsDean Jones Dead: Disney Actor Was 84″The Love…

Certainty vs. uncertainty: “In which are we more likely to be deceived, and in which has rhetoric the greater power?”

I’ve taught Plato’s Phaedrus before, but in the past I have mostly focused on brief passages in which the characters discuss writing, which is really just a side issue. The purpose of today is mostly just to accustom my “History and Future of the Book” students to oral classical culture, in the hopes they’ll get…