Writing

Thing: Futurese: The American Language in 3000 AD by Justin B. Rye. TIME MACHINE PREP: unless you can tell what the word ZHÜBwatögh refers to, you’re going to need to click and read, overwhelmedly. Also, a tremendous quote:

When looking at a biological family tree (such as the evolutionary history of the horse), the general public insists on seeing any movement as intrinsically progressive, moving from primitive to advanced designs. Yet somehow when looking at the linguistic equivalent (such as the development of the Romance languages from Vulgar Latin) they see exactly the reverse - any change is proof that the language is in decline. In reality they’re just as wrong both times!

Thing: The Itch of Curiosity from Wired.

Thing: Creating Cultural Change by John Rauser. The keys to cultural change — whether that means getting people to brew another pot of coffee, dance en masse on the side of a hill, or buy more of a particular brand of cereal — include letting them in on the big joke:

It’s Not Really a Bonus If There’s Always a Bonus

A montage of the greatest Iron Chef America mystery ingredient reveals. Stick around for honeycombs wielded as weapons, the overwhelming glory of the farmer’s market, and Bruce Lee swish noises used to punctuate eyebrow gestures. I don’t understand any of this:

[via Ryan See]

Thing: The Best Magazine Articles Ever by Kevin Kelly. KK is putting together a list of the best magazine articles ever, spanning from an 1816 article on criticism to a piece from tomorrow’s New Yorker on hospices, and people are voting on them. This is the most obvious instant bookmark you’ve come across in quite some time.

Thing: Your Complete Guide to Bad Burqa Puns by Muslimah Media Watch. For newspaper headline editors, stupid burqa wordplay has replaced meet the new boss, same as the old boss as the cliche of choice.

Thing: Mood, twitter, and the new shape of america by Harvard’s Complexity and Social Networks Blog. Some math people did a Twitter-data thing to map our state-by-state zeitgeist as it changes throughout the day and across the country. You can read about how they did it, or you can watch the mesmerizing video:

Conclusions: people in Florida and California are pretty much never unhappy; Georgia is happy but the relatively grumpiest state in its neighborhood; and the Mississippi delta region and parts of the midwest are pretty much never happy.

America’s favorite time of day: quittin’ time is an obvious favorite, but early birds (people up between 5 AM and 7 AM) tend to be obnoxiously chipper* and have skewed our whole mornings green. America’s least favorite time of day: the post-lunch-pre-quittin’-time death march is pretty bad, but apparently oceans of horror start washing all over Twitter after 1 AM. Except in Florida and California, where they just have oceans of warm water.

* Full disclosure: I’m an early bird.

Another QUICK FAST BUSY EDITION:

THING: A Comedy Writer Confronts ‘Mind-Shredding Evil’ in Uganda from RD Magazine. Jane Bussman, a former South Park writer, somehow went from interviewing Ashton Kutcher for blahblahblah to doing real, dangerous (in every sense) journalism. This is this week’s must-click.

THING: Students Record Spellbinding Video of Disintegrating Spacecraft form NASA. Hey, it’s real-life Ender’s Game!

Last year, high school science teacher Ron Dantowitz of Brookline, Mass., played a clever trick on three of his best students. He asked them to plan a hypothetical mission to fly onboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft and observe a spacecraft disintegrate as it came screaming into Earth’s atmosphere. How would they record the event? What could they learn?
For 6 months, they worked hard on their assignment, never suspecting the surprise Dantowitz had in store.
On March 12th, he stunned them with the news: “The mission is real, and you’re going along for the ride.”

THING: The Making of OutKast’s Aquemini from Creative Loafing. If you’re me, then you barely made it through that headline before clicking on it. However, please report back on how long it took you to click if you are, in fact, not me. Big Boi’s debut solo album drops this week, and at least one-fourth of our staff is very excited about that.

Bonus Patriotic Bonus

Via SBN, the best fake documentary trailer you’ll wish was a trailer for a real movie all season:

THING: Color Survey by XKCD. Men and women see color differently. Everyone accepts this. But according to science!, some things about the effects of gender on color perception aren’t quite what you’d think. And other things are exactly what you’d think. So.
THING: Why Is It Always Minority Players Suffering From Lack of Hustle? by Walkoff Walk. Certain sportswriter cliches — deceptively fast, great motor, reminds me of Wes Welker — have long been suspected of being applied much more frequently to white athletes. Well, somebody finally put it to the test. As Walkoff Walk proves, at least one descriptor, lack of hustle, is almost exclusively reserved for black players. I tried Googling up some football-related racial code language. The most common recipient of Wes Welkerousness as bestowed by pro writers? Looks like it’s Golden Tate, a black player. (If we’re counting message boards, then it’s Jordan Shipley, a white player who’s taller, skinnier, much less agile, and a little slower than Welker — plus they play in very different offenses. Nevermind all that; Jordan Shipley Wes Welker is a Google suggested search at this point. I just football-nerded all over the place, and I apologize.) For whatever reason football writers seem to be less influenced by race than baseball writers. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. Fans and TV announcers, on the other hand…
THING: Local boy with cancer turns into a superhero for a day by the Seattle Times. Half the town of Seattle conspired with Make-A-Wish to give superpowers to a 13-year-old with life-threatening liver cancer. If you can make it through this article without misting up, your not-crying muscles have superpowers of their own.

Bonus

This piece is entitled “Tea with Tyson,” as in Mike Tyson, and as in discussing tea with him. The following three minutes will rank among the best fifteen minutes of your day, unless if you’ve saved Seattle from Dr. Dark today:

Thing: Don’t throw that out! Editing like it’s paper destroys journalistic value by Jonathan Stray.

Thing: What’s in a Nickname? In Spirits World, an Implied Relationship by Ad Age. Coke. Jack (and Coke). VW Bug. Mickey D’s. Keys to the Beemer. The Big Apple, ATL, what happens in Vegas. A Louis bag and a pair of Chucks. Some brands have earned nicknames from their patrons the old-fashioned way, but the new marketing thing is to try and force nicknames on people, like this is first grade recess and Brand X is telling us we have to call it Musclebutt The Impossible because it climbed up the slide backwards woooooooo.

Corporations have successfully incorporated nicknames before, but only after the nicknames arose organically. Federal Express wouldn’t have changed its name to FedEx if everyone hadn’t already been calling it FedEx for years. Same story with the former Kentucky Fried Chicken. America Online. The obvious difference between these and Keystone Light trying to get you to call it Stones is FedEx and KFC and AOL didn’t force the change, as if they’re Brand Jœhanndreus X deciding to go by its middle name during its sophomore year because college girls seem to like weird names.

Who knows; maybe it’ll work. Seems more like they’re trying to fit in with Sam, the Captain, Heiny, Jager, Bud, Maker’s, PBR, Henny, and Natty. Also we’ve decided we want you guys to start calling us Eng.

Thing: As Australian comedy trio Axis of Awesome demonstrates, all you need to do to write a hit song is use the four-chord progression that’s used in every other hit song. Or just about. Medley us: [NSFW: Three cusses.]

Bonus Bonus Bonus