PonyPonyShow

The Tyranny Of E-mail

neilperkin:

‘In 2009, the average office worker will spend forty-one per cent of her day reading and responding to e-mails. Freeman makes a persuasive case that e-mail has at once corroded epistolary communication and strangled workplace productivity. He returns several times to the fact that “the average office worker sends and receives two-hundred e-mails a day,” making us a “workforce of reactors” rather than performers.’

John Freeman: ‘The Tyranny Of E-mail’, via The New Yorker (HT Daria)

I’ve never understood this line of thinking. Do people not know that anyone involved in business 20 years ago was on the phone most of the day and a land line at that? I get a tremendous amount of productive work done via e-mail everyday (and am not nailed to a desk like others in past decades) and never do I feel that I’m “strangling workplace productivity”. It’s the exact opposite.

Reblogged from WE ARE THE DIGITAL KIDS.

peterandwendy:

Name: Brian
Tumblr Name: peterandwendy
Nicknames: “Peter”, “You! With the headphones!”
Birthday: September 15th
Age: Twenty
Location: New York, NY
Current school/job: Student at “The” City College of New York
Sexual orientation: Straight
Status: Three crushes, but basically single
Random fact about yourself: I can move my ears up and down on their own.
Hobbies/Interests: Studying medicine and English, comics, baseball, t-shirts, other stuff
Do you smoke/drink: No and No.
Favorite Tumblr blogs?: I forget people, so I’ll just say “I love all of you”.
Why Tumblr?: Because what the fuck do I know about using actual blogs?

Hey, TumblrStaff! This would be a cool format for one of your Tumblr Tuesday profiles each week.

Reblogged from peter and wendy

Hot surf girls. This is BonerParty, ADamnGoodShot, and Newsweek all rolled up into one.

“

I think it’s gradually coming out now that they’re more malevolent than even I imagined. Mike Rinder – I had no idea that he was being subjected to brutal beatings. Rinder, Marty Rathbun, and others have talked about how they were routinely beaten by [Scientology World Head] David Miscavige. This was part of what they endured in order to be top staff in Scientology. I had no idea of the pain that was going on behind the scenes.

— Cult buster Rick Ross (not the rapper) (via vicemag)

Reblogged from Vice Magazine | Viceland | VBS

An Afternoon At the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum

vicemag:

In the ass-end of nowhere, Calgary, is a little dark room filled with taxidermic gophers. Seventy one to be exact, snuffed and stuffed, then dressed up and posed in 44 little scenarios. A Pennywise-esque clown with a red nose and neck ruffle clutches a bunch of balloons in its furry paws. A Sandra D, complete with poodle skirt, stares into the cold, unblinking eyes of her Danny under a full moon. A haughty Lutheran reverend steps up to the podium while his choirboy sleeps and a rodenty angel circles above his head. This is the “World Famous” Torrington Gopher Hole Museum, and I’ve been wanting to go for ages.

Click here for’a to read.

Reblogged from Vice Magazine | Viceland | VBS

“

Let’s say Safeway Food stores offers Kellogg’s an exclusive deal to sell Corn Flakes. The cereal will be removed from the shelves at Giant. Now in order to get them I either have to switch to the Safeway across town for my general shopping, or continue to shop at Giant but make a special trip just to buy Cornflakes.

Which of those things am I going to do?

Neither.

Here’s why: When I go to the grocery store and see that the Corn Flakes are missing, I’ll be disappointed. But hey, look, that spot on the shelf where the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes used to be isn’t empty—something else has taken its place: AnotherCompany brand corn flakes. The box looks different, but they are corn flakes, and they’re less expensive. Turns out they’ve been selling them for years, but I never noticed before. What the heck, I’ll try a box. Beats making a special trip across town to Safeway.

And here’s what I’ll discover: AnotherCompany brand corn flakes are pretty much the same as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. Maybe the flakes themselves are shaped a little differently, and they taste just a little different, but after a few bowls I really can’t remember what that difference is. And these new corn flakes taste great with strawberries too!

The next time I’m at Giant, I buy another box of the new cornflakes. I am happy, and go on with my life. If I’m at a hotel and they serve Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, I have a bowl. Yep, they’re good, but not good enough to rearrange my life for.

See where we’re going with this? News on the web is beyond plentiful, and most of it is similar. Make it less convenient for me to find your Web site, and I’ll switch to one of the many, many others that are just waiting for the opportunity to win my loyalty. It might not be exactly the same as yours, but after a short adjustment period I’m going to be just as happy. The sad truth is, you’re really not that special.

That would seem like a pretty basic lesson in economics that any executive—especially one as astute as Murdoch—would instinctively get. But he doesn’t. And neither do many of his cohorts.

— Wes Kosova, on why Murdoch won’t win this (via newsweek)

Reblogged from Newsweek

Robert Richardson on shooting 'Inglourious Basterds'

adamngoodshot:

Lots of great technical info and information related to the thought process of how each chapter would be shot, including the original intent of shooting all of the 2nd chapter, the “french new wave” part of the film, in black and white, and why that plan failed. Also is this, on QT’s desire to avoid touching the film digitally:

“Quentin’s intention was to do a strictly chemical film,” explains Richardson. “No digital intermediate. This approach was crucial to his perspective on the filmmaking process, little to no reliance upon new technology. Four-perf, dailies, edit on flatbed, cut negative, IP/IN, release prints. In camera was his preference and order, from photography and processing to final print, as well as to how the various departments, whether visual effects (helmed by John Dykstra) or special effects were required to view their work.

“Even the final explosion in the theatre was to be real. No CG images at all. The various scalping or gun wounds were all to be done in camera. That’s the charm and one reason for the success of style that Quentin employed with this film.”

Reblogged from A Damn Good Shot

adamngoodshot:

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Dir: Quentin Tarantino / DP: Robert Richardson

War paint.

Can Quentin write more films so we can see more female characters who are rad and not dealing with “woman’s issues”?

Reblogged from A Damn Good Shot

ericmortensen:

brooklynmutt:

Halperin (Time) Crosses the Line

Today, Media Matters for America denounced Time magazine and editor-at-large Mark Halperin for altering a picture of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) on his Time.com website, The Page, to resemble a sexually suggestive reference to the movie, There’s Something About Mary.

“Halperin’s experiment with Photoshop is no better than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh calling Sen. Landrieu a prostitute,” said Eric Burns, president of Media Matters. “While it is certainly commendable that Time took this sexist image down from its website, Halperin’s actions demand an immediate apology.”

continue reading… Media Matters

Time Mag? I feel like you’re trying to get into Newsweek’s shorts. Are you going to be on Tumblr next??

Reblogged from worship the glitch

datainsightsideas:

My friend, Doug Petkanics, is a true startup hero. In less than two weeks, he released Snapm - a marketplace for amateur photographers to post interesting work and for consumers to discover/hire their services. Take a look around, explore and offer feedback.

v1.0 underway! Kudos Doug.

Reblogged from data.insights.ideas

(1/556) next »