Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Photo Elisabeth Moss in the Broadway revival of “The Heidi Chronicles,” which is set to close on May 3. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Twenty-five years after “The Heidi Chronicles” closed on Broadway, believers in the work of Wendy Wasserstein seized an opening. In the era of “Lean In” and “Girls,” and a paucity…
This article originally appeared on AlterNet. If you think the widening chasm between the rich and the rest spells trouble for American democracy, have a look at the growing gulf between the information-rich and-poor. Earlier this year, a Harvard economist’s jaw-dropping study of American’s beliefs about the distribution of American wealth became a viral video. Now…
Julie Zeveloff/Business InsiderNew York’s hottest, most exclusive neighborhood is Rikers Island. The most expensive neighborhood in New York City isn’t TriBeCa or the West Village. It’s Rikers Island. The city spent an average of $167,000 per inmate on its jail system in 2012, according to a new report from the city’s Independent Budget Office. That’s nearly…
Photo In Brooklyn, signs for demonstrators seeking higher wages are stored along Flatbush Avenue. Credit Lucas Jackson/Reuters Some 15 years ago, searching for a consistent way to compare wages of equivalent workers across the world, Orley Ashenfelter, an economics professor at Princeton University, came upon McDonald’s. The uniform, highly scripted production methods used throughout the…
The Seattle Police have hired the programmer who inundated the department with requests for footage from the city’s police body camera program last year, and then later, requested nearly every email Washington State government ever sent. If you can’t beat ‘em, hire ‘em. Yep, The Stranger reports that Seattle Police will hire 24-year-old programmer Tim…
Social Sharing Toolkit v2.2 If you are anything like me — and you are — you watched Galaxy Quest at least four times this weekend. You already know that it is commonly referred to as “the greatest Star Trek film of all time,” that Takei loved it despite initial misgivings, that Tony Shaloub’s stoner subplot was imperfectly…
Galaxy Quest, the Star Trek parody that turned out better than some official Trek movies, is getting a TV reboot. The cult sci-fi satire followed a cast of washed-up actors who starred in the fictional Galaxy Quest series, affectionately poking fun at sci-fi fandom in such a shrewd way that Star Trek star George Takei jokingly called it “a powerful piece…
Bonding over nothing is still bonding. This is something that people need to remember when they turn their noses up at the popularity of the Reddit Button. In the three weeks since it has appeared, it has been described as an evil April Fool’s joke, a social experiment, and a total waste of time. The…
In 1998, Carnegie Mellon researchers warned that the internet could make us into hermits. They released a study monitoring the social behavior of 169 people making their first forays online. The web-surfers started talking less with family and friends, and grew more isolated and depressed. “We were surprised to find that what is a social…
The last few years have been an unmitigated disaster for American law schools, which is excellent news for anyone with even the vaguest interest in getting a legal education. Sure, the job market for new lawyers hasn’t exactly been peachy. Yes, the U.S. has too many law schools, given how uninterested Americans are in law school. And…