Boredom and Necessity

Tumblr Staff: News!

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:40:54 -0500

Everyone, I’m elated to tell you that Tumblr will be joining Yahoo.

Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to…

And for my part, I’m sorely disappointed. I’ll miss Tumblr when Yahoo’s ground it into dust through mismanagement.

UPDATE: Serious First World Problems

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:55:11 -0500

In the course of debating whether or not to quit Tumblr, I have discovered a crucial factor. You can use any RSS reader (I prefer Netvibes) to follow any Tumblr account by tacking /rss to the end of the URL for any account you follow. Badda-bing, it’s that simple.

In the Minus column: you can’t ♥ the posts you like. The people you follow not only lose a follower, they don’t know which posts you like best. Now what? Well, with enough people like me following posts but never sharing love, regular contributors will starve to death. This is my war of attrition against Yahoo, and if attritive wars weren’t so freakin’ effective, I wouldn’t rely on them.

Report: Yahoo Board Approves Tumblr Acquisition [BREAKING]

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:17:53 -0500

Report: Yahoo Board Approves Tumblr Acquisition [BREAKING]:

Yahoo’s board approved an acquisition of Tumblr for $1.1 billion on Sunday, according to ‘The Wall Street Journal’.

Well, this thoroughly sucks. I mean, great for Tumblr because they get more money, but Yahoo is a tone-deaf, poorly run organization. I get the feeling they’re the stereotypical boardroom of tech-clueless patriarchs barking out brand names and Web phrases while insisting on their old model of doing business.

But what this means is that I have to decide whether I’m going to stay on Tumblr. I really, really hate Yahoo, they’ve posed nothing but problems for me, from all the spammers that followed me when they bought Geocities (and drove it into the ground) to all the tech support questions that went unanswered and unresolved. Now they think assimilating Tumblr will solve their problems.

I have several things to consider. This is a free service which costs me nothing (but when a service is free, you are the product). I have to look around at the accounts I’ve been following to see whether it’s impossible to follow them through other channels. But I just post stuff here for my amusement and few people are aware I’m here and doing anything. Very few. And quitting Tumblr would buy me a few more minutes each day, not that I’d do anything useful with those minutes.

So I have to think about this, but my reflex, my instinct is to present the middle finger to anything Yahoo says or does.

Biking around Art Crawl, checking at the breweries.

Sat, 18 May 2013 19:02:35 -0500

Biking around Art Crawl, checking at the breweries.

A couple fitness trainers have developed a “scientifically...

Sun, 12 May 2013 23:11:41 -0500

A couple fitness trainers have developed a “scientifically perfect” interval training routine. You work out for 30 seconds, with 10-second breaks, going through exercises in a specific order, working out as hard as you can and using only a chair and a wall.

I assembled a cheap little MP3 of twelve song clips to work out with, so during the breaks I can refer to the chart (in the article I linked to). As long as the song’s playing, you just work out as hard as you can.

Travel typewriter, out of its protective case. I think I saved...

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:31:00 -0500

Travel typewriter, out of its protective case. I think I saved it from an ignoble demise, snapping it up before it went to a garage sale. Don’t know where to get it tuned up/repaired, though.

Trying my hand at freehand sketches. I have poor discipline, but...

Sat, 11 May 2013 10:49:01 -0500

Trying my hand at freehand sketches. I have poor discipline, but once in a while I get the urge to practice drawing. There are many things I wish I could render in illustration (mainly because they are too perverse to ask anyone else to do for me), but I don’t feel the restless urge to spend hours at this task, even though that’s the only way to improve.

Still, I have fun with sketches.

What everyone wants to do when Trump opens his mouth

Tue, 07 May 2013 21:45:01 -0500

nmatv:

From: Celebrity Fights: Jon Stewart vs. Donald Trump

Photo

Tue, 07 May 2013 21:43:43 -0500

It seems I wrote up my manifesto as a small child. My mom saved...

Sat, 04 May 2013 01:56:52 -0500

It seems I wrote up my manifesto as a small child. My mom saved this document and recently returned it to me. I’m struck by how prescient this was, when for most of my formative years I thought I’d be an artist. But I didn’t stick with that, and I’ve always been writing.

It came! It arrived! Just in time for… well, her...

Thu, 02 May 2013 18:54:25 -0500

It came! It arrived! Just in time for… well, her birthday’s in two months, so let’s say that. The fine artist at Our Valued Customers was doing commissions, so I ordered one. Who’s this for?

My wife and I have a game: I ask her, “What is best in life?” and she gets the answer slightly wrong. It’s like playing movie trivia with a spambot: her response is mostly accurate but run through a thesaurus filter. Pictured is one of the best responses she’s provided.

I’m deeply grateful to Mr. Tim for his fine work. Rebecca is tickled beyond description and showing it off on Facebook. Cue: deep envy from across the nation.

"I’m a feminist, and God knows I’m loyal to my sex, and you must remember that from my very early..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 18:45:39 -0500

“I’m a feminist, and God knows I’m loyal to my sex, and you must remember that from my very early days, when this city was scarcely safe from buffaloes, I was in the struggle for equal rights for women. But when we paraded through the catcalls of men and when we chained ourselves to lampposts to try to get our equality — dear child, we didn’t foresee those female writers.”

- Dorothy Parker on “the women problem” of literature. (via explore-blog)

explore-blog: The inimitable Grant Snider strikes again, with...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:29:48 -0500

explore-blog:

The inimitable Grant Snider strikes again, with the day jobs of famous poets – including Jack Kerouac (railroad worker), Charles Bukowski (mailman), Emily Dickinson (cat-keeper), and T. S. Eliot (bank clerk.)

Very intense and evocative. It’s beautiful to listen to...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:06:40 -0500

Very intense and evocative. It’s beautiful to listen to the careful pronunciation and then the extra layer of stylistic performance. This is truly a unique piece.

We just stumbled upon these guys at the Raven Bar (Cork,...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:15:19 -0500

We just stumbled upon these guys at the Raven Bar (Cork, Ireland), had no idea they were famous. This is Rattlesnake County, or pieces thereof: it’s the tradition in which various musicians show up and jam together, something I’d kinda like to see in my own city.

My wife and I drove out to a stormy little peninsula on the west...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:56:00 -0500

My wife and I drove out to a stormy little peninsula on the west coast of Ireland and stayed at Renvyle House Inn, reputedly haunted by WB Yeats and others. It was only too easy to get photos of highly mobile orbs via flash photography (trans.: if you believe in this kind of thing, it’s haunted to the grills) in certain rooms—in others, not an orb to be seen at any time of day. Dust doesn’t reflect light like that, nor do small bugs; the orbs moved about, never in the same place even when taking multiple shots of a location, ruling out dust on my lens.

Observe the bright orb above the banister and the clear one below the table; sharp eyes will pick out a dozen more orbs in this room alone. They were friendly and we never felt a hostile presence at any time.

The people who work at the inn are understandably tired of amateur ghost-hunters showing up, as they are a many-storied in with an admirable history on their own merit, plus a stunning dinner menu. The only time I’ve eaten so well, perhaps, was at a wedding party for a sous chef in New Orleans.

Departing Minneapolis, heading to Chicago.

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:43:15 -0500

Departing Minneapolis, heading to Chicago.

It’s the middle of April, and we’re still getting...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:08:41 -0500

It’s the middle of April, and we’re still getting hit with snowstorms.

What's the Best Word for...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:57:20 -0500

There’s someone I know who’s scared of words. She relies on cliches and memes and slang, because she’s scared to commit to a solid statement. Even if it’s an obvious statement she can be confident everyone will agree with. She never says anything directly when allusions and metaphor will do.

This drives me nuts because my life is built on words. My career is founded on words. For fun and for work, I research words very intensively. Ever since childhood, I’ve been obsessed with being understood precisely. The paradox is, of course, the more precisely you speak, the greater the chance for misunderstanding because most people don’t know how the proper meaning or application of words. The majority of their vocabulary is half-understood and approximated.

So pursuing the purest, most accurate core of a word makes me as impenetrable as this girl who hides behind words-that-represent-other-words. She’s trying to hide, and I’m trying to reveal myself, and our paths run in diametrically opposite directions, yet we ended up at the same destination. It drives me insane.

Those aren’t orbs. Those are snowflakes. Second week of...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:16:25 -0500

Those aren’t orbs.

Those are snowflakes. Second week of April, we’re still getting fresh, new snowfall.