Cool Things The Internet Did

tracieeganmorrissey: Everything about this.

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:50:08 -0400

Everything about this.

pusheen: editorial: Editorial concept test! A series of...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:45:32 -0500

editorial:

Editorial concept test! A series of animated GIFs bringing signature meme-ish characters to life. Here we have an experiment with Live Pusheen, featuring allegedly real humans imitating Pusheen’s signature cute pulsing in their own unique ways. The players: Mackenzie, Ben, Steve, Megan, Topher, Chris, Sean, Jessica & Sky.

This is exactly why I love Tumblr so much.

MTV answers why don’t play music videos anymore....

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 20:15:46 -0500

MTV answers why don’t play music videos anymore. Essentially, the music industry changed.

yeezytaughtme:

notazulu:

MTV answers why they dont play music videos anymore.

yaaaaas

thedailywhat: Will Arnett’s Boys Minute of the Day: Will Arnett...

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:13:40 -0400

thedailywhat:

Will Arnett’s Boys Minute of the Day: Will Arnett wasn’t about to let Amy Poehler’s new advice series go unmatched.

[smartgirls]

What an awesome couple.

dumbledoreisabamf: Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from Parks and...

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 12:56:36 -0400

dumbledoreisabamf:

Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec) was in an episode of Gilmore Girls in 2003. He plays Jackson’s brother, Bo.

Season 4, Episode 7 - The Festival of Living Art

"Two hundred channels and nothing but cats."

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:00:45 -0400

“Two hundred channels and nothing but cats.”

- Sylvia Plath

theatlantic: This Cease-and-Desist Letter Should Be the Model...

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 10:23:13 -0400

theatlantic:

This Cease-and-Desist Letter Should Be the Model for Every Cease-and-Desist Letter

Clients From Hell: I did a redesign of my client’s website and then started a Search...

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:53:54 -0400

Clients From Hell: I did a redesign of my client’s website and then started a Search...:

clientsfromhell:

I did a redesign of my client’s website and then started a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign. After one week of SEO work, I get call from my client:

Client: Hey, I just checked my site - you didn’t do nothing since the last week. Why?

Me: The design part of the contract is done. SEO…

Automatic -face palm-

theatlantic: A History of the Internet Told Through Retro Movie...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:45:48 -0400

theatlantic:

A History of the Internet Told Through Retro Movie Sites

Unlike most Internet destinations, official movie websites are useful for a brief moment in time—making them a perfect capsule of a specific moment in Internet history. Like all promotional material, movie sites lose value not long after a film’s release. Yet, unlike a Times Square billboard, these sites (at least sometimes) neither get revamped nor get taken down because space out here is seemingly infinite and comparatively cheap. When faced with a choice to take down or continue hosting a site, movie studios probably figure, why bother removing them at all?

Thus we get these neglected pieces of Internet floating around the Web, like this untouched You’ve Got Mail site, which came to our attention through Twitter following writer-director Nora Ephron’s death Tuesday. With its 1998 release date, the website gives us a frozen-in-amber look at the what 1998 Internet looked like. (And this site is oh-so 1998.) Though many movie websites get taken down or have expired domains, we’ve found a handful of relics still out there, through which we can learn all about our Internet past.

Read more at the Atlantic Wire.

badtvblog: Olivia Wilde and Stephen Colbert have a good old...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:29:43 -0400

badtvblog:

Olivia Wilde and Stephen Colbert have a good old fashioned act-off.

theatlantic: Music to Our Ears: How Headphones Changed Our...

Thu, 31 May 2012 14:01:01 -0400

theatlantic:

Music to Our Ears: How Headphones Changed Our World

If you are reading this on a computer, there is a 50% chance that you are wearing, or are within arm’s reach of, a pair of headphones or earbuds.

To visit a modern office place is to walk into a room with a dozen songs playing simultaneously but to hear none of them. Up to half of workers listen to music on their headphones, and the vast majority thinks it makes us better at our jobs. In survey after survey, we report with confidence that music makes us happier, better at concentrating, and more productive.

Science says we’re full of it. Listening to music hurts our ability to recall other stimuli, and any pop song — loud or soft — reduces overall performance for both extraverts and introverts. A Taiwanese study linked music with lyrics to lower scores on concentration tests for college students, and other research have shown music with words scrambles our brains’ verbal-processing skills. “As silence had the best overall performance it would still be advisable that people work in silence,” one report dryly concluded.

If headphones are so bad for productivity, why do so many people at work have headphones? And why are our bosses letting us drive ourselves to distraction?

Read more.

When a producer says they will be in touch

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:23:08 -0400

99problemsbutapitchaintone:

theatlantic: Why Civics Class Should Be Sexy In most...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:43:55 -0400

theatlantic:

Why Civics Class Should Be Sexy

In most classrooms where civics is still being taught today, something central is missing. Students get facts and explanations of process. Sometimes they get a real encounter with an issue like poverty or sustainability. What they almost never get is this: a systematic understanding of how to get what they want.

I propose to revive civics by making it squarely about the thing people are too often afraid to talk about in schools: power, and the ways it is won and wielded in a democracy.

Imagine a curriculum that taught students how to be powerful — not only to feel empowered but to be fluent in the language of power and facile in its exercise.

It would teach them that civic power — the capacity to effect desired outcomes in common life - can derive from ideas, wealth, status, charisma, collective voice, and control of violence. It would show how power throughout our country’s history has been exercised and justified, for good and for ill.

Read more. [Image: Reuters]

This is nothing short of fantastic. Thank you,...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:00:06 -0400

This is nothing short of fantastic. Thank you, Internet.

squintyoureyes:

cleolinda:

(via Neil deGrasse Tyson admits it was creepy to discover he was a meme)

But he eventually came around to it, deciding it was flattering rather than mocking. He also reiterates the origin of the much copy-and-pasted gesture, which sprang from a video he did about Isaac Newton, who was, in fairness, a badass.

Of course, in talking about the gesture, Tyson repeated it a couple of times, thus once again ensuring his immortality in animated gif form.

Oh Neil. Let’s have lunch.

toptumbles: Elephant plays with a Galaxy Note

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:06:14 -0400

toptumbles:

Elephant plays with a Galaxy Note

celinakyle: sealegslegssea: magnolius: highly controversial...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:00:05 -0400

celinakyle:

sealegslegssea:

magnolius:

highly controversial photo series by Canadian photographer Jonathan Hobin titled “in the playroom” which consists of children reenacting major current events such as 9/11, The Abu Ghraib Torture Case, Hurricane Katrina, the North Korean Missiles, and the Jonbenét Ramsey trials. You can check out the full series HERE

Gender Neutral Bathroom Challenge

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:00:05 -0400

Gender Neutral Bathroom Challenge :

This is an amazing initiative. At Bishop’s, it took nearly two years to have all single stall bathrooms designated as gender neutral.

I believe that I am going to participate in this challenge, or attempt to do so as much as I can. Thankfully, at work and at my internship there are gender neutral washrooms. At the Centre for Creative Communications, I suppose I would have to use the wheelchair accessible washroom on the first floor but I will only be on-campus until Friday.

Just in thinking where I can find gender neutral washrooms at restaurants and bars becomes difficult. It would be a challenge for a month but decidedly worth it if it raises just a small piece of awareness or increases my compassion and understanding.

Join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/209510742488108/

mmmajestic:

The challenge: Don’t use any gendered bathrooms or change rooms for the month of April. (click on the link to read more/join the event!)

What are “gendered bathrooms”? Gendered bathrooms are designated for “men” or “women” by a sign. This challenge includes ALL multi-stall and single-stall washrooms, and the bathrooms at work, schools, libraries, bars/restaurants, and everywhere, really.

There are multiple purposes for this challenge:
1) To give people who don’t find going to gendered bathrooms a difficult/unsafe experience a small idea of what it is like for trans and gender variant people to navigate this world. Hopefully, with some real life experience, you will have a broader understanding of how gendered this world really is. But,

DOING THIS DOES NOT GIVE YOU AUTHORITY TO SAY WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE TRANS OR GENDER VARIANT.

2) To inspire people to fight for more gender neutral bathrooms.

Tips:
- Don’t drink a lot of liquid if you are leaving the house for long periods of time
- Try to figure out where some gender neutral bathrooms are in your town/city, and plan your day around using a gender neutral bathroom.
- Remember, you can use gendered bathrooms again in May. Some people can’t.

And, even if you really have to go to the bathroom, try to not see gendered bathrooms as a possible place to go.

If you are interested, feel free to write your experiences down and send them to gnbchallenge (at) gmail (.com). With your permission, they will be included in a zine on the topic of gendered bathrooms.
We also recommend fighting for gender neutral bathrooms in one (or more) public space(s). Often the fight for this aspect of bathroom accessibility is only fought for by trans and gender variant people; It would be nice if other people fought for it too.

SIGNAL BOOSTIN!

Spread the word yall + participate. I pretty much only use gender neutral washrooms now, and it’s really shitty sometimes since they can be hard to find. I would love more solidarity on this issue and understanding and support when I feel scared or need a buddy when using gendered washrooms.

newyorker: Cartoon of the day. Don’t forget to enter this...

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:33:04 -0400

newyorker:

Cartoon of the day. Don’t forget to enter this week’s caption contest: http://nyr.kr/r46had

"GM has also retained MTV Scratch, a consulting group owned by media conglomerate Viacom dedicated to..."

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:15:38 -0400

“GM has also retained MTV Scratch, a consulting group owned by media conglomerate Viacom dedicated to teaching brands how to appeal to today’s youth. As the Times put it, ‘The strategy is to infuse General Motors with the same insights that made MTV reality shows like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom breakout hits.’”

- Jordan Weissmann, on why young Americans don’t buy cars. (via theatlantic)

I’m 23 and own a laptop and a cat. npr: This...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:57:49 -0500

I’m 23 and own a laptop and a cat.

npr:

This 14-Year-Old Girl Just Bought A House In Florida

When a 14-year old can afford to buy a home, does that mean home prices have hit bottom? Willow Tufano is a child of the housing collapse. Her real estate agent mom scrapes together a living in Florida by selling foreclosed properties. Willow found her own niche scavenging abandoned washes, dryers and furniture from her mother’s properties and selling them on Craigslist. In just six months, Willow saved enough money to buy a two-bedroom fixer upper for $12,000. -Chana Joffe-Walt (Photo by Chana Joffe-Walt/NPR)