Filter

• Ray Bradbury Once Hawked Prunes

  The masterful science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (who would fit nicely in the future-narrative section of the blog) once did a TV commercial for prunes. Check out this bizarre (and either brilliant or heart-wrenching) advertisement.
  
  
  
  Thanks, Atley!
  go to article

  • Date: Aug 18 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• Mr. Know-It-All

  Check out W magazine's feature on Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Beyond the insightful observation that he "isn’t your usual swoonworthy celebrity sighting... hardly George Clooney or Tom Cruise," [gasp], it provides an informative backdrop to the Web's ubiquitous information headquarters. It's also a great complement to his own Wikipedia profile, in which he is accused by a Wikipedia co-founder as "attempting to rewrite his own history." What a totally fitting scandal for the founder of a user-written encyclopedia.
  go to article

  • Date: Aug 13 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• Chinese Internet Is Actually InterNOT

  Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, told the international press two weeks ago that, "For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet." And the international press was like, "OK, cool. Way to not be jerks about the internet, China. High-five." But now, logging on at the Olympics press centers, they're all like, "well, what the eff," because despite promise for this totally-unfettered-by-political-bias internet connection, there's not a single goshdarn googleable thing about controversy in Tibet, Taiwanese independence, the violence that ensued after the protests in Tiananmen Square, there's no Amnesty International, no BBC Chinese-language news, no Radio Free Asia, and several Hong Kong newspapers are also missing. That's a liiiittle fishy. But certainly China wouldn't lie about obstructing incriminating information from journalists. Maybe all those pages are just down right now. You know, press corps, just click refresh.
  go to article

  • Date: Jul 31 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• Politics In Gotham

  Vanity Fair snarkily contradicts everyone yet again. Like their spoof New Yorker Obama cover, where they turned the joke on John McCain, they're now opposing the somewhat popular opinion that the Dark Knight is actually George W. Bush reigning over post-9/11 Gotham in metaphorical disguise. This time, W's the Joker. Not as heady and political a parallel, true. But the art is aptly creepy. Via vanityfair.com
  go to article

  • Date: Jul 30 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• No Lights! No Cameras! Radiohead!

  Radiohead’s new video for “House of Cards” is infinitely more inspiring than those NBA Playoff's Half & Half spots that used the song. The video's creators crafted the unstable, ultrasound-scan landscape using two technologies for capturing 3-D imagery (the tech-speaky Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR), completely bypassing lights and cameras in the process.
  
  
  The mind-blowing technology services the song's haunting melody and Thom Yorke’s echoing croon is the perfect accompaniment as this digital, rainbow-colored world disintegrates in a samsaric wind.
  
  Via Boing Boing.
  go to article

  • Date: Jul 15 2008
  • Posted by Jason Jude Chan

• PSFK Conference San Francisco

  After some awesome 2007 conferences in London, Los Angeles, and New York, the trends and innovation company PSFK is heading to the City by the Bay for another all-day bonanza. The lineup of speakers includes folks from Apple, Starbucks, Virgin America, Current TV, NASA, Microsoft, and a little company called GOOD. Yes, our very own publisher and founding editor, Max Schorr, will be on hand to share insights from our early days (we're in our mid-early days now, FYI). After the 8-6 festivities, networking continues at the We Like You Party, hosted by PSFK and our friends over at Behance.
  
  More info and registration for PSFK SF Conference here.
  
  You can RSVP for the We Like You Party here.
  go to article

  • Date: Jul 10 2008
  • Posted by Jason Jude Chan

• Media-ting The World

  In GOOD 003, we offered our Media Mogul All-Star trading cards. In a similar vein, Reclaim the Media now offers Media Heroes Trading Cards, each one offering a pocket-sized synopsis of the journo's contribution to the idea of media as a democratic space. Among those honored: DeeDee Halleck, co-founder of the legendary alt-news program Paper Tiger TV; Lew Hill, who launched the country's first listener-support radio station in 1949; and the for-all-time abolitionist and statesmen, Frederick Douglass. The organizations and collaborations commemorated include Media Justice and the Children's Television Workshop, which created everyone's favorite educational program, Sesame Street.
  go to article

  • Date: Jul 09 2008
  • Posted by Jason Jude Chan

• Fox News Somehow Gets Less Credible, Furthers Quest To Destroy Irony For Everyone Forever

  We all make mistakes. From time to time, even the most venerable people and institutions will, in a moment of weakness, say or do something regrettable. Even Fox News, the fair and balanced beacon of truth, experiences the occasional ethical hiccup. For example, take a look at the following Media Matters video clip. There's a summary of Fox's tiny indiscretion below it.
  
  
  
  It's bizarrely coincidental that Fox's accidental snafu happened during a segment on "attack journalism." That's so...something.
  
  Thanks, Nate.
  go to article

  • Date: Jul 02 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• Don't Ask, Don't Deli

  For the record, the following Deli Mayo advertisement is not offensive. It's clever. It's charming. It even makes us consider purchasing some new condiments. But Heinz yanked it out of the airwaves after an innocuous man-man peck on the lips offended some very, very stupid people.
  
  
  
  This knee-jerk homophobia sure takes us back. Just after the release of GOOD 002, we caught surprising amounts of flak—and at least two subscription cancellations—for running a certain Marc Jacobs ad (above). Our guess is that no one would have complained if they were fighting.
  go to article

  • Date: Jun 24 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• It's Time For Cheap Smear Campaigns, And How!

  It still feels weird to have a Tuesday without a primary, so here's some mud for all of us to sling. This great video from Slate focuses on a new (and vaguely terrifying) world of low cost political advertising. It's all made possible by Spot Runner. Look out, world.
  
  
  go to article

  • Date: Jun 17 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James