Josh Auerbach -- the weblog of one Joshua Auerbach

Verizon doesn’t kid around when they promise you a...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:02:54 -0500

Verizon doesn’t kid around when they promise you a 35 Mbps symmetric connection. Nice!

The Lions Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world....

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:10:56 -0500

The Lions Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world. They have been swimming in arctic waters since before the dinosaurs (over 650 million years ago) and are among some of the oldest surviving species in the world.

The largest can come in at about 6 meters and has tentacles over 50 meters long. Pretty amazing when you think these things have been swimming around for so long.

They have hundreds of poisonous tentacles that it used to catch passing by fish. it then slowly drags in it’s prey and eats it.

That is terrifying.

Holy crap.

The Work Pyramid (via workpyramid | These Fries Are Good)

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:06:38 -0500

The Work Pyramid

(via workpyramid | These Fries Are Good)

(via WESLEYAN MAGAZINE) Why, what a handsome collection of...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:11:14 -0500

(via WESLEYAN MAGAZINE)

Why, what a handsome collection of betaworkers that is!

Getting the News — Zach Seward

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:10:27 -0500

newsme:

(This post is part of News.me’s ongoing series, “Getting the News.” In our efforts to understand everything about social news, we’re reaching out to writers and thinkers we like to ask them how they get their daily news. Read the first post here. See all of the posts, from writers and thinkers like Anil Dash, Khoi Vinh, and Megan Garber, here.)

This week we reached out to Zach Seward, editor of outreach and social media for the Wall Street Journal. In addition to his writing and editing at the Journal, Zach teaches a class on digital media at NYU. He’s working at the intersection of social media and news every day. Zach warned us that his responses to the questions would be “a little obsessive” — this is one of our longest interviews, featuring Zach’s observations on his own rapacious appetite for news and the digital media landscape. But it’s so good that we wanted to publish all of it. This might be the first and last time we publish the phrase “news blow,” but we could hardly pass up on the opportunity.

1. Describe how you get news throughout the day. What’s the first thing you check when you wake up?

My alarm clock sounds like one of those bright-red bells that might ring in a firehouse to signal an emergency, aptly setting the tone of my morning, which is a bleary scramble to answer: What did I miss?

Lurching out of bed and casting aside the iPad I fell asleep reading, I grab my phone to see what has piled up in my inboxes — work email first, then personal. I’m lucky to be part of a global news organization, so if something has exploded overnight in Kabul, if Asian markets are tanking, if protestors have been evicted from Zuccotti Park, that news will be waiting for me, often as raw dispatches from our staff overseas. My first notice of last year’s earthquake in Japan, for instance, was an inbox full of increasingly alarming emails.

I suppose this kind of news consumption is driven by an unhealthy fear, as though going to sleep were a risk rather than reward. And there’s often little to distinguish a can’t-miss story from a quarterly earnings report: that red LED blinks at the same pace no matter what news has just arrived. Ping. Ping. Ping.

Still, on a good day, email is my best informant. Friends send over links, sources chime in with tips, and strangers reach out to say something unexpected. My inboxes are messy streams not unlike the Twitter timeline or Facebook newsfeed — except that every message is addressed to me.

I also subscribe to scores of newsletters and other automated emails, most of which I delete without reading, which is a cathartic morning ritual. There are only two such emails that I open without exception:

News.me’s digest of what my friends are reading and sharing, which is also on the Web. Many services compete in this space, and I’ve tried them all, but News.me is the only one that reliably surfaces links I want to click on. (I’m not just flattering you; it’s true!)

Timehop’s diary of my Foursquare check-ins and tweets from a year ago. Sure, that’s not really news so much as nostalgia, but I see it as an improvement on that old newspaper fixture, “This Day in History.”

Before setting my phone back down on my dresser, I also check topheadlin.es, which is a mobile web app that my colleague Jeremy Singer-Vine built. It scans dozens of news sites for the single most-prominent headline on each and displays them in a clean list. If a big story has broken overnight, I will get a quick view of how everyone is playing it. On a lighter morning, topheadlin.es is an efficient glance at the news judgment of news organizations from Al Jazeera to ESPN.

Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson gave an awesome talk last year on designing news for “media moments.” Waiting in line at the supermarket, commuting to work, and seeking a diversion to avoid an awkward conversation in the elevator are all media moments into which news might fit. And I think right-when-you-wake-up may be the ultimate media moment, combining urgency, routine, and a voracious audience, at least after they’ve had some caffeine.

The Internet made me a morning person, I guess.

Read More

liad: Un-fucking-believable video from British Transport...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:17:28 -0500

liad:

Un-fucking-believable video from British Transport Police.

Alcohol + Trains = DANGEROUS

"I will say this for Lowe’s, however (and any other advertisers who may join them in the pullout): I..."

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:17:41 -0500

““I will say this for Lowe’s, however (and any other advertisers who may join them in the pullout): I don’t believe they’re bigots. They’re cowards. They’re the kind of penny-ante self-interested cravens who, throughout history, have passively made the work of blatant, active bigots possible.””

- Time’s James Poniewozik. Read the whole thing, pretty please. (via kevinerb)

Longreads: Slate's Dan Kois: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:55:14 -0500

Longreads: Slate's Dan Kois: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011:

longreads:

Dan Kois is a senior editor at Slate and a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. (See his Longreads page here.)

***

First of all, I am not even going to bother listing John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Disney World piece because it was obviously the best thing anywhere…

Fact: My marriage thrives even though I’m a 6 or 7 and my...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:55:47 -0500

Fact: My marriage thrives even though I’m a 6 or 7 and my wife is probably a 3.5.

(via Spaces of Banana Control)

(via What children’s drawings would look like if it were painted...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:10:34 -0500

(via What children’s drawings would look like if it were painted realistically)

"Here is what the committee’s failure is expected to mean: The Navy is likely to mothball 60 ships,..."

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:46:14 -0500

“Here is what the committee’s failure is expected to mean: The Navy is likely to mothball 60 ships, including two carrier battle groups — a possibility that led Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, to testify that the cuts could “impact the fleet for 20 to 50 years.” The Air Force might have to give up one-third of its fighters and a quarter of its long-range bombers, calling into question our nuclear deterrent. The Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, testified that the Air Force “may not be able to overcome dire consequences.” And the Army is likely to have to give up nearly a third of its Army Maneuver Battalions — which is why the Army chief of staff, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, has warned that the cuts would leave us with “an unacceptable level of strategic and operational risk.” The cuts would also decimate the Marine Corps, leaving it “below the end strength level that’s necessary to support even one major contingency,” the service’s commandant, Gen. James F. Amos, has warned.”

- Republicans Are Endangering National Security - NYTimes.com

"One of the most unbelievable shifts for Gingrich is his favorability rating among New Hampshire..."

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:56:48 -0500

“One of the most unbelievable shifts for Gingrich is his favorability rating among New Hampshire Republicans. In August, Magellan’s polling showed that Gingrich was one of the most disliked candidates among the party faithful, with only 29 percent having a favorable view of him versus 60 percent with a negative one. That perception has completely flipped three months later. The former Speaker is now liked by 59 percent of the New Hampshire GOPers polled, versus only 31 percent who retain the negative perspective.”

- Watch Out Mitt — Gingrich Running Even In Romney Stronghold Of New Hampshire | TPM2012

If I spoke Spanish and understood statistics, it’s...

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:57:42 -0500

If I spoke Spanish and understood statistics, it’s possible that I actually might have said something like this.

adulting: Just print this out and refer to it whenever you are...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:12:35 -0500

adulting:

Just print this out and refer to it whenever you are the head of a massively powerful institution that is maybe looking the other way while people get raped.

azizisbored: Wow. How lame do emails seem after seeing...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:54:58 -0500

azizisbored:

Wow. How lame do emails seem after seeing this.

awesomepeoplehangingouttogether:

Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol corresponding

automaticallyoutstanding: Nuclear explosion one millisecond...

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:11:15 -0400

automaticallyoutstanding:

Nuclear explosion one millisecond after detonation

News.me: Looking for #7

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:46:59 -0400

News.me: Looking for #7:

newsme:

News.me is only a few months old as a standalone company. When we spun out of bitly in September and started building out the team, we had some hard decisions to make around hiring philosophy. We looked around at products that we admire - from startups like Instagram and Foursquare all the…

ericstromberg: I’ve never seen this before - You can enter...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:43:39 -0400

ericstromberg:

I’ve never seen this before - You can enter your email address directly into the paid ad on the search results page.

liad: SJ - Blanket Twitter feed coverage.

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:55:09 -0400

liad:

SJ - Blanket Twitter feed coverage.

life: It was fifty years ago today that Bob Dylan had his first...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:00:14 -0400

life:

It was fifty years ago today that Bob Dylan had his first recording session at Columbia Records. Dylan was backup harmonica for folk singer Caroline Hester — It was shortly after that Dylan was offered his own deal with Columbia.

see more — Bob Dylan: The Early Days