Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The brands were out in full force during Sunday’s Superbowl, reaching the eyeballs of millions of consumers with millions of dollars. Mountain Dew took a novel tact, attempting to create the most grotesque, unsettling, and plain awful character of all (worse, even, than Norm MacDonald’s Colonel Sanders): PuppyMonkeyBaby. The character is exactly what is sounds…
Last September, we wrote about the profoundly fucked-up legal battles that Kesha has been trapped in with her producer Dr. Luke, who she alleges abused, drugged, and raped her. Kesha filed a lawsuit against Dr. Luke in October 2014, at which point he responded with his own suit claiming that the singer fabricated accusations to get…
Indian students gather for a protest against Free Basics in Hyderabad, on Dec. 29.Image: Mahesh Kumar A/Associated Press In a significant move, India’s telecom regulator has banned the differential pricing for different kinds of data according to the principles of net neutrality. This implies that zero-rating initiatives like Facebook’s Free Basics platform, which offers a…
Share. Fly to Gotham City and Metropolis. By Jim Vejvoda Turkish Airlines called upon Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice characters Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor to tout their respective hometowns in two new ads dropped on Super Bowl Sunday. The commercials seen below feature Ben Affleck and Jesse Eisenberg as their characters to sell…
“Hillary Clinton Is Again Put on the Defensive Over Perceived Ties to Wall Street,” the New York Times frets today. Whatever could be going on here? What is the deal, Democratic voters? Dozens of prominent economists and academic experts have endorsed her plans to regulate the financial sector. Her policies would “try to prevent the…
Taco Bell’s Quesalupa features a crispy, flaky Chalupa-like shell but with a melted pepper jack cheese core. It comes filled like your standard Chalupa Supreme with seasoned beef, reduced fat sour cream, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and shredded 3-cheese blend. These aren’t out until tomorrow but I picked up a couple at $2.99 a piece…
Facebook is one of the most downloaded apps on iOS but it has long been cited as a cause of fast-draining iPhone batteries. Last year it was accused of using background tricks to stay active even when it wasn’t being used. Facebook admitted bugs existed, and fixed them, but questions of the app’s impact on…
You may notice that a lot of things happen to do with sexism on the internet. Sometimes someone has done a sexist thing and people are talking about it. Sometimes someone has written an article about the time they experienced sexism and other people are having feelings about it. Sometimes a particular woman or women…
I’ve had a possibly contentious statement stuck in my head today, and the more I turn it over and over, the more true I think it is. And the more true I think it is, the more hesitant I am to share it due to the very nature of why it’s true. Yet, I know…
The problem with Twitter, and especially the reason why it has so many dormant users, is that using Twitter for long periods of time is a fundamentally unpleasant experience. The product is not a joy to use. When users have an unpleasant time with a product, they don’t always complain loudly, they just sort of stop… using… it… The…