hypertexty

• 2010-02-19

  

  Tumblr Reads

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  5 Steps to Give Your Ex a Nervous Breakdown

  1. Call him from your parent’s cell phone, and don’t leave a message.
  2. Don’t answer when he calls back and don’t respond to his “Everything okay?” text message.
  3. Call him again, from the parent’s cell phone: again, no message.
  4. When he calls back this time, answer. Explain that you didn’t die like he thought, you just broke the iPhone he gave you while you were together and you want him to magically fix it over the phone.
  5. Rinse and repeat.

• 2010-02-02

  Tumblr’s Next Post Format: ★★★★★

  Until recently, Tumblr has allowed its users to post text, photos (photosets), video, audio, quotes and conversations. Recently though, the Tumblr team added the ability to include questions and answers a la Formspring.

  I’m sure Marco and David, as well as the rest of the smart people over at Tumblr have talked about the these post formats at length and have considered some other logical containers into which Tumblr users could post and organize their data. In just fifteen minutes of brainstorming, I’ve come up with a few: documents, slide presentations, lists, and interviews/FAQ’s.

  One of my ideas stood out above the rest. What about reviews? People are constantly talking about the latest films, books, and consumer electronics on platforms like Twitter and Tumblr. I think Tumblr would benefit from a post type in which the author could assign a number from one star (★☆☆☆☆) to five stars (★★★★★) and post a review of anything that has a title and/or a link. The review type should have the title of the work being reviewed, an optional description and a clickthrough link if you specify one, or if you decide to review things using the bookmark. I love the way Kottke does his movie reviews, and I think some Tumblr themes could really take advantage of the new review type to generate a really nice table that linked to the reviews with descriptions.

  With sites like GoodReads, Readernaut, RottenTomatoes, and Flixter on the rise, the concept of reviews has never been more pertinent or more important for a personal publishing platform like Tumblr. While it would be easy to complicate this feature and ask for things like ISBN numbers or IMDB links, I think the simple extensibility of reviewing anything would work best with Tumblr’s philosophy and users. As long as you can name it, you can review it. Why not?

  Tumblr could also do some really interesting things, like finding the average review of everything with the same title and/or link to generate a picture of what the whole Tumblr community thinks of a given piece of media and clustering things on the Radar around certain media types. Don’t even get me started on the type of humor and memes this would spawn, but I think it is the most legitimate option for a new post type that the Tumblr community would truly embrace. As always, just an idea.

• 2010-01-29

  what do you guys think we should call the tumblr reading series?

  meaghano:

  i am hungover and want to die and don’t know my words.

  I’m super excited that I was the person who suggested the name they ended up using, Tumblr Reads. I hope to be able to make it on the 19^th and so should you.

• 2010-01-27

  

  “Missing Pages from The Giver” by Owen Parsons on CollegeHumor

  Probably my favorite thing College Humor has ever done.

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  soupsoup:

  Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone in 2007

  The question is, are you ready to be this excited, yet again.

• 2010-01-24

  Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

  — Ernest Hemingway (via mattdowney)

• 2010-01-23

  Language deprivation experiments

  Language deprivation experiments have been attempted several times through history, isolating infants from the normal use of spoken or signed language in an attempt to discover the fundamental character of human nature or the origins of language.

  One of those things I’ve thought about since I was a kid, but didn’t ever know the name for. Apparently, it’s been tried a few times with no success.

• 2010-01-22

  

  A Tool To Deceive and Slaughter

  Combining Robert Morris’ Box With the Sound of Its Own Making with Baudrillard’s writing on the art auction this sculpture exists in eternal transactional flux. It is a physical sculpture that is perptually attempting to auction itself on eBay.

  Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself.

  If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.

  Exactly the kind of modern art that I find really interesting.

  (via newsweek)

• 2010-01-20

  The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.

  — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (via hivelessmind)

• 2010-01-18

  It’s Complicated

  theidiotking:

  Some people are in relationships that contain a fair amount of gray area. They fight, they break up, they make up, they get back together, only to repeat the exact sequence a week later. They’re confused, they’re clouded by hormones and emotions, and of course, hormotions, which are hormonal emotions.

  These couples argue loudly at gatherings, speak in muted, hushed tones to each other at dinner parties, get into screaming matches on the front porch, throw wine glasses at each other, and eventually end up boning in an upstairs bathroom. These relationships are anything but easy, far from normal, and fairly hard to succinctly explain.

  So, with all these other chances to brag, what’s the need to describe the details of your weird relationship? I can’t think of any reason someone would want to take the words “It’s Complicated” to announce:

  “Hey, I’m sort of seeing someone but I cheated on her and then begged her to take me back and she did but now we’re not technically saying we’re ‘together’ it’s just this in between phase because she says she can’t really trust me anymore but maybe it’ll work out if I can keep my dick in my pants long enough.”

  Ladies, where’s the allure in intimating:

  “So, I was dating this great guy and then I went to Europe to sort of find myself and backpack and do shrooms and one day I fell off my road bike in Rotterdam, and this really great guy came running out of a coffee shop and he cleaned off my knee and bandaged it and took me inside and bought me a muffin and I was so grateful (and also high) that I ended up giving him a hummer in the backroom and now my boyfriend is all ‘well if you love Werner so much maybe you should stay in Europe and now you’re all AHHH what if I SHOULD stay here?”

  Maybe it’s a willingness to overshare with anyone and everyone who might Google you, but I’m pretty sure it’s just their way of saying “yeah, I might not have a ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ PER SAY, but at least I’m getting laid.”

  Astute observations about the absurdity of broadcasting your problems to the world.

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  The more you know, the more you realise that you know nothing.

  — Socrates

• 2010-01-16

  Trying really hard

  1. Juno: You're like... the coolest person I've ever met and you don't even have to try.
  2. Paulie: I try really hard actually.

• 2010-01-15

  

  The ever-charming George Clooney whisked me away on a journey about love, connection, and the humanity and humility of ending things correctly.

  ★★★★★

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  Of course I believe that solipsism is the correct philosophy, but that’s only one man’s opinion.

  — Melvin Fitting