Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
For nearly its entire existence, Twitter has not just tolerated abuse and hate speech, it’s virtually been optimized to accommodate it. With public backlash at an all-time high and growth stagnating, what is the platform that declared itself “the free speech wing of the free speech party” to do? BuzzFeed News talks to the people…
As Gawker founder Nick Denton navigates his company’s looming sale, both his and his firm’s assets are protected from Hulk Hogan’s reach by bankruptcy. Now, Hogan is looking to collect the more than $140 million he was awarded in his invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker earlier this year, and only one man is left…
Carl Icahn, a billionaire who supports Donald Trump (and recently declined a position on his economic policy team), said this week that it was “mistake” to antagonize the Khan family. Asked on Thursday whether he agreed that he had made a mistake, Trump said, “You’ll have to define what ‘a mistake’ means.” Trump requested the…
Athletes (not featured in the Daily Beast article) at the Olympics.Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images On Thursday morning, the Daily Beast published an exceedingly gross and bizarre article by a straight, married male writer who lured in gay Olympians through hookup apps for no particular purpose. The entire piece is an astoundingly creepy exercise in Grindr-baiting,…
Image credit: Warner Brothers Here’s something twisted that will absolutely blow your goddamn mind: Suicide Squad, a very bad movie, set an August box office record on its opening weekend, raking in a hot $135.1 million in North American ticket sales, which is more than Guardians of the Galaxy, an actually good movie, brought in…
The importance of China’s role in the international box office has grown larger and larger—it helps record-breaking movies become even more overwhelmingly successful, and it even has the potential to save domestic flops from certain doom. But regardless of how well Suicide Squad performs now that it’s been released today, China will likely not be…
Ghostbusters has been out for a bit now, and a new story from The Hollywood Reporter says that the movie is going to lose millions. As a result, a sequel has been put on the back burner—but Ghostbusters isn’t quite dead yet. According to the story, Ghostbusters has to make $300 million to break even….
I don’t normally post about politics (I’m not particularly savvy about polling, which is where data science has had the largest impact on politics). But this weekend I saw a hypothesis about Donald Trump’s twitter account that simply begged to be investigated with data: Every non-hyperbolic tweet is from iPhone (his staff). Every hyperbolic tweet…
A lot of good and decent people like seltzer water. My friends like seltzer water, people I love dearly enjoy gulping down the fizzy drink that is sometimes flavored. I am here to deliver a devastating truth. Seltzer water is very bad. In fact, I would go as far as to say that seltzer water…
Walt Mossberg is a legend. I mean it—he’s someone I’ve tried to emulate for most of my professional career. He’s made a great living testing gadgets, hanging out with influential technologists, and giving everyday people advice on how to better use their consumer electronics. But lately, it seems like Mossberg’s love affair with tech is…