Neven Mrgan’s tumbl: What it’s like to share an article from one of these iPad magazines
Hey Dan, I was just reading an interesting piece in that new iPad magazine. I think you’d really dig it.
Isn’t it amazing how it’s 2011 and we can just share these things quickly? Remember when you first used email and you were like, whoa dude, did you just send a letter to a possibly hot…
What Lucky People Do Different
Great read.
I’m tired of hearing reactionary attacks on public broadcasting. Here’s a quote from the overrated extreme conservative and not-a-chance-in-hell presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urging Republicans to cut a deal on the budget in The New York Times today:
Nobody’s more pro-life than me. Nobody. But as much as I want to see Planned Parenthood defunded, as much as I want to see NPR lose their funding, the reality is the president and the Senate are never going to go along with that. So win the deal you can win and live to fight another day.
It’s not clear to me what NPR funding has to do with the current impasse at all, but okay buddy, take your shot.
I’m even more frustrated that those attacks seems to go unanswered. Fans of public broadcasting should consider themselves to be on notice. Conservatives are gunning for NPR, just like they were gunning for ACORN. It took years, but conservatives were persistent in their attacks of an organization devoted to defending poor and working class people. Liberals remained on the defensive, and eventually conservatives won. The hidden camera tricks that have recently embarrassed some NPR executives are reminiscent of the tactics used to attack ACORN. Conservatives are like the Terminator. They’re single-minded in their purpose, and they will not stop until they’ve achieved their mission.
Why defend public broadcasting? Because it offers the kind of serious, calm, and intelligent programming that private TV and radio so utterly fail to deliver.
Here’s a sampling of public broadcasting from just the past few weeks.
I challenge anyone to find privately funded programming that can compare to any one of these shows, much less a network that airs all of it.
And all this programming is available for free online. This at a time when content owners are stifling innovation by suing cable operators over allowing paying customers to access the service they’re paying for on their iPad.
Public broadcasting informs the public, helps to civilize a political culture that badly needs it, and elevates the discourse. It is worth defending, and vigorously.
President Obama, speaking to Republicans last year:
“I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.”
Android Gripes: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?
When I use an iPhone and an Android phone at the same time, I often find that apps from the same company look a lot different on these two platforms – the ones on Android usually look much worse.
Here is a couple of examples.
This is what Meebo IM looks on Android, the contact list screen and…
But was Beck actually canceled by Fox News for his plummeting ratings that have dropped more than 40 percent in the cable news demo this year and advertisers boycotting the show? I’m just asking questions…
Glenn Beck’s show leaving Fox News
How crazy is too crazy for Fox News? This crazy:
One of the great virtues of the article is its rundown of the behind-the-scenes considerations involved in getting a Hollywood movie made, from the purely numbers-driven (e.g., Faris is less popular with international audiences than is Reese Witherspoon, which is why studios are inclined to meet her higher pay rate) to the politico-social: what Tad calls “the almighty Laws of Date Night,” which include such terms as “Men rule,” “Women don’t have to be funny,” and “Also, women aren’t funny.” Tad speaks with Nicholas Stoller, who directed “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek,” who says, “There’s a misogyny in audiences, a much higher bar of required likability for women stars.”
