24 Jul 2018
Interesting post on society’s tendency to focus on successes rather than failures. Quite right about how failures don’t really constitute sexy television or YouTube videos. I’m not entirely sure that the advancement of the likes of YouTube and Facebook (and whatever else there is nowadays) would see an increase in that particular observation… Sure, more people would search for clips of “successes.” I do think, however, that just as many would be likely to be exposed to failures and disasters and the like through channels like YouTube. You mention people are more likely to watch successes than to watch weekly or daily videos, but I think YouTube trends show just the opposite. ‘LastWeekTonight,’ the British parrot John Oliver’s YouTube channel, has, at present, 6,308,392 subscribers. His most recent video, which, by the way, isn’t really his usual weekly coverage of a global event or topic of interest, but rather a collection of funny graphics he never got to use, has garnered 1.7 million views within just four days of release. I can only remember this particular channel off the top of my head, but I’m aware that there are plenty of others like ‘LastWeekTonight.’ And goodness knows John Oliver doesn’t sugar coat anything he covers, which range from government surveillance to floods.
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18 Jul 2018
“In Event of Moon Disaster:
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
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11 Jul 2018
"No one has a Suzuki tattoo" [1] - a nugget from an otherwise so-so
Medium article
The numbers are clear though. As the article notes, half of Harley Davidson’s revenues come from deals to license their name and the sale of apparel. This is the power of branding — something apparel companies do particularly well (Vineyard Vines, Carhartt, etc) but they all do it — so the comparative gains to be had are probably minimal. Harley Davidson has probably found such success because Suzuki and its competitors don’t do this on the same level or at all.
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04 Jul 2018
“When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.” -
The Unknown Citizen: WH Auden, 1939
WH Auden’s The Unknown Citizen is a cynical response to perceived bureaucratic encroach by western governments in the 1930s so this is admittedly a pretty odd poem to write a July 4th post about but I found it odd that my residential advisor would post it in the hall [1] of my dorm freshman year so here we are. For some reason, these middling stanzas have stuck with me as a good definition of doing your duty to country.
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27 Jun 2018
“People wonder why their daughter is taking 10,000 photos a day. What they don’t realize is that she isn’t preserving images. She’s talking.” -
Evan Spiegel, CEO Snap
Snapchat fundamentally changed the way we think about what a camera is. This is perhaps the natural conclusion of the spread in accessibly and volume of images in the last hundred years.
First were the formal portraits you sat for once that your family framed and kept on the mantle that your grandparents still have today. Equipment was expensive and you didn’t even take the photo yourself.
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