things you should read on the internet.

UrbanOutfitters.com > The New York Times Scoop TeeUm, this...

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:35:01 -0400

UrbanOutfitters.com > The New York Times Scoop Tee
Um, this exists?

"My appreciation for Lady Gaga’s act is simple: I like her insistent awkwardness. She is an ugly..."

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:29:51 -0400

“My appreciation for Lady Gaga’s act is simple: I like her insistent awkwardness. She is an ugly duckling with great spook appeal, in a long tradition of such women (for the best of them, consult Cecil Beaton’s “Glass of Fashion”).”

- Lady Gaga Doesn’t Preach, Exactly - On the Runway Blog - NYTimes.com

Cathy Horyn sort of defends Lady Gaga.

What your email address says about your computer skills - The...

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:47:54 -0400

What your email address says about your computer skills - The Oatmeal

Too true.

Unpackman | Studio Psyho - it’s a bottle opener and...

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:46:50 -0400

Unpackman | Studio Psyho - it’s a bottle opener and keychain, with the retro throwback!

Does the Internet Make You Smarter? - WSJ.com An editorial by...

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:29:40 -0400

Does the Internet Make You Smarter? - WSJ.com
An editorial by Clay Shirky, one of the smartest guys when its comes to academia/the Internet.

Ten of the greatest maps that changed the world | Mail Online

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:27:24 -0400

Ten of the greatest maps that changed the world | Mail Online

The creatively conceived, less creatively named Bottleformball,...

Sun, 30 May 2010 23:47:55 -0400

The creatively conceived, less creatively named Bottleformball, a chandelier made out of recycled water bottles, debuted this week at the Milan Furniture Fair. I like to think of it as the beautiful moment all recycling spontaneously burst into being. - The Big Recycling Bang

Redrawing the European map, courtesy of The Economist

Tue, 11 May 2010 01:41:26 -0400

Redrawing the European map, courtesy of The Economist

Koons made a car, or something

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:33:33 -0400

Koons made a car, or something

shaneguiter: As Lost Ends, Creators Explain How They Did It,...

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:28:33 -0400

shaneguiter:

As Lost Ends, Creators Explain How They Did It, What’s Going On | Magazine | Wired.com

I don’t watch LOST. This is for everyone who does.

Have my babies, plz?

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:54:09 -0400

Since I know who this is: <3.

Kickstarter - Decentralize the web with Diaspora

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:58:14 -0400

Kickstarter - Decentralize the web with Diaspora:

A couple of my friends are making this really cool alternative to, well, every social network ever. It’s an aggregator for every social network, but it also allows YOU to own your data unlike Facebook; definitely worth a look!

3. Does the BCB have the right to special exemption from the provisions of CPA 2009 as a result of their traditional practices? In addition, how does the location of the caves as “adjacent” to the reservation, and not on tribal lands, affect the tribal rights to exploitation of them?

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:15:54 -0400

To whomever asked this — I’m working on it. The second part, anyway.

Facebook Further Reduces Your Control Over Personal Information | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:22:24 -0400

Facebook Further Reduces Your Control Over Personal Information | Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Apologies for being on a seeming Facebook kick, but this is a perfect complement to the article just posted. While Facebook is growing up, it’s privacy options give you less and less control over what kind of privacy you have. I’m happy to know, though, that there are alternatives being built (joindiaspora.com!).

Facebook Grows Up: Can It Stay Relevant? - Newsweek.com

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:18:29 -0400

Facebook Grows Up: Can It Stay Relevant? - Newsweek.com:

Steven Levy, always a wonderful writer, shows us the landscape of Facebook today. He brings up some of the issues that people have with Facebook and how Facebook attempts to navigate this. Even as a fan of long form articles, this article is a little long for my taste, but anyone who’s interested in social media and Facebook’s direction should take a peek at this.

Mango or Pineapple?

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:02:29 -0400

Mango! Duh.

"Talk about defining deviancy down. What beige days we live in, when mentioning Rilke, Warhol, and..."

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:01:16 -0400

“Talk about defining deviancy down. What beige days we live in, when mentioning Rilke, Warhol, and David Bowie are proof positive of edgy intelligence. Rilke isn’t exactly obscure, and Warhol and Bowie are two of the best-known brands in pop history. Gaga isn’t all that weird, despite her revisionist accounts of growing up feeling “like a freak,” as she told Barbara Walters. Can we get some context, here? Performance artist Leigh Bowery giving himself an enema, onstage, and hosing the front rows at one of his performances with an anal geyser is weird. Painter and curiosa collector Joe Coleman adopting a pickled anencephalic fetus as his son and naming it Junior is weird. Faking your own hanging at the Video Music Awards because you “feel that if I can show my demise artistically to the public, I can somehow cure my own legend” isn’t weird; it’s a time-tested career strategy, straight out of the shock-rock playbook.”

- As someone who took class with both Joe and Nicole, and had Dery has a professor, everything above and below is worth reading.

Cultural critic (and my former professor) Mark Dery showed up late for the Lady Gaga debate and ended up shouting to an empty room (but I hear True/Slant has no editors), long after the crowd dispersed, like some deranged End of Days homeless veteran of the Culture Wars. He’s not wrong.

I’ll go ahead and say this is the best Gaga takedown yet, and all he’s really doing is calling her boring. He heads off claims of rockism and anything-phobia and somethousand words later, he’s just saying we deserve more. More weirder.

If you can get through the breathless prose and endless intellectual namedrops (a Dery cocktail is an acquired taste), you will learn something, guaranteed. It was fun getting cut off every time I developed the inklings of a counter-argument.

All I’m left with: Gaga for the hedonists, Gaga for the Lady Antebellum fans, Gaga for those who don’t give a flying fuck about semiotics, or at least not when they’re drunk. Gaga for the real thinkers won’t last, or at least doesn’t hold up, but she’s still the weirdest platinum artist and worldwide brand in decades, leaving Dery’s ending reference to her potential the real takeaway here. Let’s just not agree that everyone is whatever they claim to be, evidence or substance be damned, Dery seems to be saying. This piece feels late to the conversation, but it’s possible that if things go really right (or really wrong), it will end up being on the early side. Prescient, even.

(via joecoscarelli)

(via nicolele)

Oh my god I love Kadinsky.

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:03:31 -0400

Oh my god I love Kadinsky.

(via fuckyeahthomyorke)

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:44:52 -0400

(via fuckyeahthomyorke)

Copyright turns 300 - Boing Boing

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:50:23 -0400

Cory Doctorow’s short essay on copyright’s 300th birthday. Totally awesome.