Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
According to a concerning trend piece on the current ‘dating apocalypse’ of twentysomethings, hookup culture has hit a critical mass of excess and indulgence, and the kids are not alright—they are, in fact, all fucked out with nobody to love. RIP going steady. The piece comes courtesy of Vanity Fair via journo Nancy Jo Sales,…
There will tweets. There will be liveblogs. There will be thinkpieces. It’s the GOP debate tonight—and everyone on the Internet will have a whole lot to say. One more way to weigh in: The Washington Post is inviting anyone on the Internet to annotate the numbers, the zingers, the truths, and the lies that make their…
Lucy Dikeou, a 21-year-old senior at Stanford University, has long used English and the pictorial images known as emoji to text on her iPhone. A few months ago, she started messaging in a third language: GIFs. When Ms. Dikeou recently wanted a friend to stop sending her pictures of food, she responded with a GIF…
If you use Uber, you’ve seen the map that comes up when you want a ride. The map shows little car graphics hovering adorably around your location and the wait time for a pickup. Once you request a ride, you can watch a little car creep closer to your destination as you wait. It’s a…
Last week New York City backed down from a plan to cap the explosive growth of Uber’s vehicle fleet. The mayor’s office declared the deal it reached to be a win-win for both sides, and warned Uber that an eventual cap is still a possibility if it doesn’t comply. But that threat seemed hollow given…
New York Mayor Bill De Blasio has lost round one against Uber. After locking horns with Uber, De Blasio has backed down from his plan to cap Uber’s growth in New York. Under a new agreement, the city will conduct a four month study on the environmental effects of on-demand car services rather than limiting the number of…
Selfies are, by name, if not in practice, a relatively new phenomenon. In the few short years since selfies became “a thing,” they’ve gone on to spawn (and facilitate) countless memes, jokes, and even a lucrative peripherals industry. They are a bona-fide sensation, albeit one that’s been derisively linked to narcissism and even psychopathy. But now, as selfies settle into part of the…
Anybody who spends time in a car or bus in Manhattan knows that traffic congestion isn’t getting better and, indeed, may be getting worse. The average daytime speed of cars in Manhattan’s business districts has fallen to just under 8 miles per hour this year, from about 9.15 miles per hour in 2009. City officials…
Spotify quietly changed the tone of its green last month and it drove people insane, wondering if they were imagining it or if something was wrong with their phones. The company’s lead designer, Tobias van Schneider, wrote in his personal email newsletter today what happened when the company changed the color and how it didn’t realize…
On a sunny day last week, Shaun McBride (known on Snapchat as Shonduras) went to the supermarket. His hundreds of thousands of followers were alerted to the expedition through a Snapchat showing McBride holding a hastily drawn watermelon and a box of Cap’n Crunch. “What’s up, Snapchatters? Welcome to grocery shopping with Shonduras!” he said…