On & True

designing logos for the rearview mirror

2012-02-28T18:35:00.001-08:00

Your customers have to be able to read your logo; like, if you're in the business of selling products to colorblind people, your logo probably shouldn't be a mashup of red and green pointillism.

Which is why I find it surprising that so many automotive logos are illegible in the rearview mirror, in that 10-20% of our consumption of car logos is through our rearview, aka "what's that dope ride driving behind me?"

Below, find the ones successfully rearviewified… as well as those done gnorw.

this starbucks coffee sounds like a bipolar girlfriend

2012-02-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

balanced and nutty? hm.

you should follow nathan on twitter here

superbowl sunday, or super-nachos sunday?

2012-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

People searching for "nacho recipe" over time. That crag on the left is superbowl sunday 2011. a similar spike is likely happening right now, as we all panically wonder: "wait do i put the cheese on before or after the chips"

big oil's polar bear smear campaign

2012-01-22T14:50:00.000-08:00

If you plotted a graph of popular interest in climate change over time, alongside mentions of polar bears eating people, you'd find some sinister correlations.

Back in the day, we never talked about polar bears as the maneating gruesomes we think of them as now; they were those cocacola sippin bears who liked to slide down the ice on furry bellys.

But something changed when Al Gore started Truth-preaching, mixing CO2 spikes and .gifs of polar bears drowning wrenching deaths - unable to re-reach the receding ice floes (let me get some Rogaine: just for Ice!).

We started wailing: "the cute polar bears are drowning, we have to do something!".

And my theory is that big oil heard these wails, and knowing that the upticked interest in climate change would inevitably lead to an uptick in shit-frisbees aimed at their corporate headquarters, the oil execs took action. They brought out their smear gas: an international, covert campaign to turn fluffy bear into killy bear; ruining the polar bears' coke endorsement deal; replacing those airport postcards of the polar bears kissing with pics of polar bears eating penguins.

And it worked? The wails that used to be "mom, the polar bears are drowning. we have to do something" became "the polar bears are drowning. good! they eat humans, you know..."

Hey, follow Nathan on Twitter here

youtube lo-jack

2012-01-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

Is it social or internet scroogery to hate it when people show me youtube videos? i'm fine with sharing remotely, but when friends are together and a laptop is out and someone says "yo have you seen this youtube video?"...

I imagine that this is what it feels like to have your bill filibustered. "no, wait, i don't want to watch this, wait, let me just do what i was going to do, wait damn, how long is this thing, 4 more minutes??…"

Generations previous loved 2 things: to set friends up on dates, and say "have you been to this restaurant? you have to go!". we like to make our friends sit through youtube videos.

Which is why i introduce Youtube lo-jack: a carouseling wheel of your favorite content, which'll be safeguarding your web-surfing sanity from the top right of your youtube interface. It'll pull in your favorite content tweets, espn articles, NYT, etc. and scroll it through at a pre-set roll -- you don't have to click, and like should be the case with most youtube videos, ya friends don't even have to know about it.

if you want to help build youtube lo-jack, send email, and please include fav youtube vid.

magazines and dandelions, a shared marketing strategy

2012-01-02T09:01:00.000-08:00

The "save $3.29 on the cover price" magazine inserts, how I hate them, flittering to the ground as I flip from the article about kim kardashian to the one about kourtney.

call it: dandelion marketing.

you stuff seeds into a vehicle and wait for the humans to pick it out of the earth and blow it apart. once dispersed, some of the seeds either strewn to the floor or stuffed in the backs of airplane seats will catch, finding themselves filled out by some guy who wants to save $3.29 on the cover price.

but dandelions are weeds, man. is that how you want to grow your readership? weedily?

an e-reader app for short attention spans

2011-12-08T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here's how we can keep the kids reading... Tetris on the left, book on the right. It's a literary mullet, what could be better.

gmail's "consider including" function put to a more cautious use

2011-10-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

I decided to take gmail up on its Consider Including recs for an entire day; whenever gmail suggested I loop someone into an email thread I did it. I got a lot of "nathan, why the hell are you emailing me this?"s

Gmail uses the space for email-adding, "consider sending this email to x, y, and z as well", when I think it could be better used in subtraction.

Gmail says: "Don't send that to your boss." or,

"Don't send that picture to your friends, you're drunk." or,

"Don't send this break-up email to your boyfriend. I know you think he was lying but he wasn't, trust me, I can read his email. Additionally, I know that he is right now searching for local florist shops.. although he did misspell florist...."

hungry and googling on yom kippur

2011-10-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

The chart shows how often people were google searching "sundown" in October. It sure seems like there was a lot of interest in the precise time of our sun's set on the Saturday of Yom Kippur. I wonder why that could be... "god damnit, how many more hours until I can eat something?"

This Yom Kippur, the google search apparently replaced the old school "looking at the horizon" search.

how we find lost dogs tomorrow

2011-10-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

The next time your pups goes looking for that tennis ball that she left in the bush around the corner, gets sidetracked by some squirrels, and doesn't come back for dinner, don't just staple some xeroxes to your local telephone poles (that's so clinton-gore era, man) -- geo-target some google ads at your zip code and bid on some shit that your neighbors will probably be searching for. When Jim from down the street hops on google, he'll see that Snuffles is on the lam.

note: the image is just a mock-up. there is no snuffles currently on the loose...

the takeaway from the bcs conference realignment waffle house

2011-10-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

If we learn one thing from this college football conference realignment palooza-gate, why not it be on the foolishness of including a number in your conference name..?

To recap: the PAC 10 (once the PAC 8) adds boulder and the U of U to become the PAC 12. The Big 10 had a negative space "11" in their logo cuz they really have eleven teams, before Nebraska left the big 12 to join the big 10, leaving the big 12 with ten teams and the big 10 with twelve teams... except on the second tuesday of every month when they play Parent Trap and pretend to be each other.

I feel like I'm describing a telenovela: musical chair lovers, secret identities, and back from the dead evil twins.

How many trips to the rebranding drawing board will it take before we leave the numbers at the door?

SEC. ACC. Perfectly fine names.

In the age of conference spit-swapping, putting a number behind your name is like naming Destiny's Child "Beyonce, X, and Y" and then adjusting the name and logo of the group each time one of the girls circles in our out.

also, what's with all the bigs?

what i think about HBO

2011-09-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

On puttin the "pop" back in a Coke, cinnabon, and sensory spam.

2011-09-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

Did you hear that Coke made the sound of opening the can louder? Oh, of course you didn't, cuz I was opening my soda.

I have yet to break out my decibel reader, but I'm pretty sure they did.

They must have taken a tip from the indoor cinnabons that blow out enough cinna-scent to lure customers from 2 terminals away. Call it sensory marketing? I say sensory spam.

Someone opens her coke down the hall and suddenly I am drinking a coke in the north pole with a polar bear who's wearing a Christmas sweater.

I think this calls for a Pepsi Challenge spin-off: can you identify your beverage of choice by the sound poppin?

the bieber index: how well do we know the "i before e" rule

2011-09-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

Above, a comparison of the number of times that people google search "bieber" each month versus the number of times that ppl input "beiber".

14,800 searchers -- or 20% of the bieber searching population -- are misspelling young Justin's name, breaking one of the few commandments of 1st grade spelling: "i before e, kid!"

Given this info, can we say that 20% of us are hit or miss on our i's before e's?

Luckily, probably not... Cuz when we consider that 95% of those biebs searches likely came at the quivering hands of pre-teen girls, it might be safer to say that it's just the tweens that are missing that black belt in spelling.

Send 'em back to Ms. Lippy for some remediation.

don't make me "like" bad news

2011-09-06T21:37:00.001-07:00

If the mood strikes, I'll think about tweeting your article. Or I might re-blog it. And if ppl besides Google employees and Adrian Grenier were still using google+, I'd +1 it as well. But don't ask me to "Like" bad news. (see image above)

In a world of so many social networks, the act of "telling your friends" has been branded into mad different directions -- each network having coined its own synonym of "to share": to tweet, to tumbl, to +1, to like.

But Facebook's coin, the "like", can get weird… because dissimilar to its cousins, "like" is, like, a real word.

When you, as a publication, prompt me to like your story about massive wildfires my internal dialogue is "do I like destruction?", rather than "do I want to share this story with my network?". Which seems off.

In my brief Google Skim (as opposed to a more in depth Google Search) it seems like most newspapers have chosen... wisely -- having opted for the "Recommend" Facebook button over the old thumb. But mad others have not… most notably among them the WSJ.

We know that bad news sells, but just because we buy it (retweet it) does not mean that we like it.

adventure™: groupon's monopolization of the "out of the ordinary"

2011-08-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

Tell someone you went zip-lining this weekend, and he'll no doubt say "oh did you get a groupon?"

Or tell your coworker that your boyfriend took you out to the nicest restaurant for 3 zip codes, and hear "hmm, he had a groupon?"

I wonder if this is a bad thing -- the corporate takeover of spontaneity. For like a Valentine's Day defined by 1-800-Flowers and a Hallmark limerick, the interchangeability of "to adventure" and "to redeem your Groupon" is lacking of the original concept.

At the very least, the incorporation of adventure sounds like a Pixar movie waiting to happen.

TBS: prettay, prettayy, prettay funny

2011-08-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

For TBS, for when they inevitably syndicate Larry, Jeff and the rest of the Curb Your Enthusiasm crack squad.

1912 Advertising Fail

2011-08-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

Page 3 of the New York Times on April 16, 1912 -- the day after the sinking of the Titanic. Check out the unfortunate ad in the bottom right: "sail to Europe? hmm. no thanks"

It's tough to imagine that this one saw heaps of click-throughs...

Don Draper vs. @dondraper: how twitter handles have replaced handles of scotch.

2011-08-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

Watching Mad Men we marvel at how much of the work day is spent intaking scotch and cigarette smoke, at how awesomely Don Draper's ideation process was rooted in drinking, smoking, and brooding.

But considering that sir Draper had no twitter account or Facebook newsfeed to lean on as his procrastination-crutch, his indulgences are really not all that surprising.

I ask: what happens when the internet goes dark at your office? ......... Like C-3PO unplugged by master Luke, we pause, look up, slump in our chairs and glaze out. Put a tumbler (not a Tumblr, you addict) of scotch in our palm, and a cigarette between our lips and we are all in a corner office at Sterling Cooper Draper.

De-device us and you open us up to "mad"ness.

Let's visit a Luddite ad agency where out of fervent principal the creative directors and account execs will be non-tweeters -- I guarantee you they will be smoking and drinking their insides out.

Follow on Twitter: @nathtone

no wand? no prob! you've got Harry Potter's iPhone

2011-08-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

Always felt bad that Harry couldn't use his magic while away from Hogwarts. So I made this site to help him out: Harry Potter's iPhone.. HP's favorite spells, potions and magical objects -- in app form. Check it out here.

what do you think, ye fine muggle?

Obama watching things

2011-07-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

women's world cup final v. osama raid.

The "two weeks' notice" Notice

2011-07-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 7/12/2011

you ever notice how your coworkers run up a flurry of linkedin recommendations right before announcing: "later suckers i just got a job at google!"?

Well, with the pattern in mind, we should build a linkedin tie-in for HR departments that monitors one's network for abnormally high rates of getting recommended.

So when your data analyst gets 2 recommendations in the span of 3 days, after an 18 month recommendation drought, our system'll ping her HR department with a message like: "if I were you I'd start posting job listings for a data analyst….."

Call it: the "two weeks' notice" notice

WelMD: A WebMD that won't freak you out

2011-06-30T07:06:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 6/30/2011

Can you imagine a doctor with a worse bedside manner than WebMD?

The web doc is overzealous: you type in "dull headache" and WebMD spits out "brain-munching South American bacteria" instead of "you're hung over, kid".

I've gotta think that WebMD's stress caused vs. stress relieved quotient is deep in the red. Which is why I'm introducing WelMD.

WelMD looks and works the same as WebMD, differing only in the outputs. You put your symptoms into WelMD and it gives back: "nothing to worry about my man. If issue persists for mad long though, consult your IRL physician."

Do you know someone who regularly trips themselves out on WebMD? Then hack their browser of choice and change their WebMD bookmark to redirect to WelMD. They'll almost certainly thank you for it later.

"hey im interviewing for the associate intern position...?"

2011-06-25T13:59:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 6/25/2011

I think that at some point past the word "internship" was used mostly with a time-stamped prefix -- we had summer Internships, semester internships, etc. But as hiring seasons changed and mad things rearranged "internship" ditched its qualifier and stepped out on its autonomous own.

In kind, "I am an intern for the summer" became "I am intern until.. shit, well, i guess until I am no longer an intern". These days, we leave one internship for another like they're mill-runnin' jobs cause the new 'ships promise to be better opportunities.

So, considering that "intern" has become just another title, when will we start seein the usual tagalongs re: associate, senior, junior.

"Mom! I got promoted! From Intern to Senior Intern! Yea! And get this… There are going to be three Associate Interns working underneath me!"

Boyfriend as the shop block:

2011-06-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 6/14/2011

Is a woman who goes into a women's clothing store towing a man expected to spend more or less money than a woman who enters alone?

All things equal, probably less. Thinking on a purely stereotypical level, the man is bored, slouching deep, repetitively thumbing open his iPhone. he's not exactly: "hey try this one on too!"

So as the store, how do you peel off the lame boyfriend?

One idea: locate next to a guy-ish store (see Madewell next to Brookstone in the picture above). Remote control helicopters, massage chairs, ipad accessories and more, right next door! It's like being Richie Rich's neighbor..

Option 2 is to take us clubbin -- put a bouncer out front and don't let the guys under the rope.

The Garageband Loop that Dominates Reality TV

2011-05-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 5/09/2011

You've heard this guitar riff before (pay no attention to the hairy man dancing). The guitar loop to reality tv soundtracks what James Brown's "Funky Drummer" (wiki) is to hip hop. It has whittled its way into the soundtrack of seemingly every reality tv show aired in the last 10 years. Housewives, Bethenny, big brother, HGTV -- it has rocked 'em all. A fact which becomes more noteworthy when we consider that this is Acoustic Noodling 02, a royalty-free loop plucked straight from Apple's Garageband.

For those unfamiliar with Garageband, it is Apple's drag-and-drop music creation studio, which comes pre-packed with 1000s of blippy loops like this one. On Garageband, anyone over the age of 6 can patch these bits into sweet ass songs.

I would think it mad embarrassing for the score of my emmy-nominated, network produced tv show to share the same musical backbone as the "music" that I/DJ Applesauce was making on Garageband at age 14 while on AIM trying to flirt with girls that only dated upperclassmen.

But apparently the execs are cool with bein on my level. I'm like:

Stop bein so cheap, and commission some original riffs, biffs. Cuz if I had known that my tracks could have netted me a nomination for Best Score I never would have quit the band. well, the garageband.

Nathan on Twitter: @nathtone

What to wear for your Skype interview

2011-03-31T20:15:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 3/31/2011

I’m not currently interviewing, but a couple of my friends who are deep in the process have been getting called up for Skype interviews. So this is what I imagine their Skype interview outfit to be, or, is at least what I would surely wear for mine.

And when I’m big up, interviewing people like me and my friends on Skype I’m definitely going to do the pants check. “Hey thanks for taking the time to talk to me, but before I get into your resumé, will you do me a favor? Stand up for a second, I need to make sure you’re wearing pants…”

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Walmart/Google Earth rickroll

2011-03-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 3/28/2011

It's RickROLLBACK time at Walmart again!

Here's a QR Code linkin' to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" splattered across a Walmart.

Well not really, it's sloppily photoshopped, but I imagine it only a matter of months before Astley-smuggling QR codes start poppin up on our sneakiest roofs.

Those pilots, martians and Google Earth fiends won't know what's happening til it's too late.

Follow On & True on Twitter here (not a rickroll)

Shameless Plugs: Mark by Mark Z and Nathan in NYT

2011-03-28T08:04:00.001-07:00

By Nathan 3/28/2011

Mark by Mark Zuckerberg in NYT here (ARTICLE)

On & True as a deal merchant?! Really?

2011-03-25T08:33:00.001-07:00

By Nathan 3/25/2011

Seems like e'eryone's got a daily deal component these days. Radio stations, newspapers, blogs, e-newsletters, etc. are slingin' flash offers to spas and restaurants. Because a deals-service has become one of those precious things which need only bodies to succeed. It's a similar idea as when they first started to sell beer at sporting events; it's like "hey, we've got a lot of people sitting in this stadium... and it's safe to say that most everyone likes beer, so.. why don't we sell beer!!" In terms of deals, once you have bodies in the seats, a readership, a listenership, a regular seaward ship, you just offer a 50% off coupon for a brazilian wax - the proverbial beer - and then sit back and watch the money pile up. So I'm not going to be surprised when Oprah comes out with something like HARPOffers.

I want to get in on the rackett, if only for pun option value of the name. I think I'd call my service sellin coupons to On & True readers: groupOn & True.

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How to Write a Hit Song: Repeat 1 Word Many Times

2011-03-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

By Nathan 3/17/2011

I'm pretty sure that it's Eddie the Echo from those old McDonald's commercials who is writing the pop songs on the radio. Because just like Eddie's vernacular, the verses and choruses topping today's charts consist mainly of the same words repeated over and over again. over again.

The video showcases the worst offenders.

Usher sings: "side to side, side side to side". Ke$ha's chorus: "our bodies go numb numb numb numb numb-numb". That G6 song: "they be actin like they drunk, actin actin like they drunk, etc". Katy Perry's Firework: "boom boom boom, even brighter than the moon moon moon".

Is my iRecord skipping?

Song lyrics have been traditionally formed with sentence-like strings of words punctuated by rhyme, but songsters like Taio Cruz are sayin fuck that. Taio starts Dynamite with: "I came to move move move move move!". Out there, I know. The entire verse includes only 27 unique words. On a warm day, Busta Rhymes could hit that mark with just one line.

We have had much to say about autotune and this robopop trend as being the death-rattle of quality music. And while the fad is certainly beef-worthy, I see the whittling of lyrics down to a repeated word as the much greater evil.

Which leaves me waiting for a sentence-structuring white/black knight. For as long as we are going to let robots sing on all of our hit songs, we should at least teach them more than one word.

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Abe Sees Changes: the last of its tribe

2011-03-06T18:41:00.000-08:00

By Nathan 3/6/2011

I hear that blog readerships like the occasional personal story or biographical bread crumb. So here is one of my favorite crumbs: Abe Sees Changes.

This is my friend Abe, dancing for me and my camera when we were in 11th grade.

I like this video because it came right at the onset of this Youtube era, back in that tweener phase when we were starting to post mad videos online but weren't yet filming shit just to send it viral.

In this vid, Abe danced for the camera because he had nice moves, not because he wanted the "sent viral" badge on his avatar resume.

Abe is not a Numa Numa Guy.

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Why Andrew Mason will replace Zuck as the CEO that we love to hate

2011-03-02T21:00:00.001-08:00

By Nathan 3/2/2011

There is always that guy that we love to hate on – you know, the one in each category who best mixes professional success with a high air of deuchbaggery. In the music industry it’s Kanye. And in his day, Terrell Owens held the position for the NFL. And though Silicon Valley’s resident dbag has for a long time been Mark Zuckerberg – like, for Mubarak-long – there are tidal shifts afoot. Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason will soon become the man of the tech sector that we love to hate.

The switch will be driven by two patterns: Zuck finally doing right, and Mason getting weird.

October 2010 was tough on Mark Zuckerberg. Privacy policy blowback was in full storm, The Social Network came to theaters uniquely focused on how much of a dick Mark was, and then got nominated for Best Picture! People even gave Mark shit for signing the Billionaire Pledge. And dang, when you promise to give away over 50% of your ability to make it rain and still get peed on by Gawker headlines you gotta know you're at a PR low.

That was the floor, no doubt. But with Zuck's willful and mad self-deprecating appearance on Saturday Night Live, he started his three-point turn. Because there is nothing that takes the sting out of making fun of a guy for being a goofy asshole, quite like the guy pleading guilty to being a goofy asshole. Zuck softened, and moved to the other side of the joke, joining the rest of us in making fun of him. In one night, the perception of Zuckerberg changed to: “hey, he ain't so bad.”

But Zuck’s reinvention wouldn't on its own equate to an abdication of his Valley Jerk throne. For royal protocol dictates that you can't step down unless you've got someone else's head to dump the crown on. Which is why it’s lucky that Andrew Mason has been recently grooming himself for the role (at a local salon with a coupon for 65% off!).

Mason has the recipe – the right combination of success and ass-tendencies that can turn any man into the object of our disaffection.

He is the CEO of the fastest growing company in the history of the world. And to get there he didn’t invent steel or a next-gen search algorithm, he took advantage of the universal truth that we are all cheap motherfuckers, and turned it into billions. Truism-leveraging business success, rather than that based on genius is a blend that certainly gets our bitter meters ticking.

Add in that Mason is weirdly jerkish. Mason is known for being a practical joker. A rep that is problematic (beyond the fact that most CEOs are admired more for their vision or genius than for being Michael Scott-ish) because Mason’s bits are always much less funny than they are insensitive.

They say that the Tibet-ripping Super Bowl commercials made sense to the people who understood Mason’s humor…dang. Not funny and semi-offensive? He sounds like a fucking King of Comedy.

But the whole Tibetan curry fiasco plays to me like the first arrest on the rapsheet of a kid who is undoubtedly going to become a career criminal. Some people just wear their roadmaps on their sleeves, and with Mason, you can smell it on him: his horizon is dotted with litters of asshole moves.

So if these patterns lengthen, one of Mason’s missteps will eventually be enough to oust the PR-abiding Zuck, and Mason will be crowned enemy #1.

As we know though, regime topplings are contagious these days – so after Zuck falls, Kanye just might be next.

Hey, like On & True on Facebook here

Robots are Self-Aware and Using Google

2011-02-24T06:43:00.000-08:00

By Nathan 2/24/2011

And the scientists are still telling us that artificial intelligence is years off??? Not buying it. From the looks of it robots are awake, and already up on Google learning everything they can about their future subjects. Humans. If they find Yahoo Answers it's over.

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On Switching the No Smoking Sign for a No Cell Phone Sign

2011-02-21T17:48:00.000-08:00

By Nathan 2/21/11

I know that the FAA has a lot on its pull-out tray these days – what with trying to keep airplanes in the air and TSA ball-grabbers out of the headlines – but here’s one more addition to their to-do list. It’s high time for a redesign of Airplane warning lights, which will replace the No Smoking sign with a No Cell Phone sign, so as to warn passengers against doing something that they actually might actually think to do.

Smoking was banned from air travel one toe at a time starting in ‘88. Practically a generation ago, but I guess they think that we still haven’t learned the rules.

Who is still about to light up on an airplane if not for the No Smoking sign lighting up first? Maybe Brendan Fraser from Blast from the Past, or Leopold from Kate & Leopold, or Brendan Fraser from Encino Man. But those are the only people I can think of.

But 23 years later the reminder still rings, lit obsessively above every seat like some dated Warhol print.

So, let me upgrade you: the No Cell Phone sign.

Which is a reminder that we actually need. Because even though we know that our cell phones are supposed to remain in the off position, it’s hard for us to do the right thing, mookie. It’s not our fault though, whenever our activity level drops below a certain decibel, we instinctually go for the phone to see what’s there. Right or wrong track, we were born this way. A pause in a conversation, a commercial break, a traffic light turning red – whatever the pause, we whip it out. I’ll even step so far as to say that there is no greater certainty in this entire world than you checking your phone when the person you are eating dinner with gets up to go to the bathroom.

And air travel is full of these pauses, of the moments that make our thumbs twitch. So to enforce phone-abstinence on airplanes, bombardment is a req. You know, like, by way of a warning light 3 feet in front of every single one of our faces.

No pressure, but you should like On & True on Facebook here

The Thrillist and JackThreads step-brotherhood as a better revenue model for publications.

2011-02-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

By Nathan 2/16/11

Considering that newspapers and other ad-supported publications are more often folding into bankruptcy these days than across readers’ laps, it's clear that it is nyTimes for a change of approach. And in looking for that change, Thrillist’s purchase and promotion of the flash-sale clothing merchant JackThreads could be one of the necessary coins.

Talking to Thrillist, they described their relationship with JackThreads as one of those “brothers from another mother” situations. So I’m calling the strategy that Thrillist has drunk up the Step-Brother revenue model: where instead of driving traffic to advertisers and earning on the clicks, publications can move readers to their subsidiaries, their step-bros, and earn on what the clicks turn into down the line.

The model is borne out of the tragic irony that while it is profitable for companies (@nike) to place advertisements within publications (@nytimes, @thrillist, @onandtrue), it is mad hard for the publications themselves to make a profit off of the advertisements: Nike makes money by advertising in the New York Times, but Nike’s advertisement coupled with all of the other ads isn’t enough to keep the NYTimes swimmin’ in the black.

To me, it’s like one of those Greek torture myths – like Sisyphus, or that other poor soul who was mad thirsty but saw the pond fall away every time he went in for a sip. The NYTimes – along with other publications, like Thrillist – can make money for other people, but not for themselves. Imagine that there was a wild party happening in your house, but you were for some reason trapped upstairs, locked in your room with your cats. That’s what it probably feels like.

But Thrillist doesn’t like cats (well, besides LOLcatz). So they figured out a way into the party, a way to share in the ROI that their advertisers had been lovin so sweetly all this time: they bought JackThreads and made it their step-brother.

See, Thrillist features a daily list of “must-have recommendations”. And between the features are ads for Bud Light, HD TVs, etc. But for a while now, Thrillist has been “featuring” JackThreads in each issue as some half-ad, half-feature centaur.

It’s similar to Fox running ads for their own sitcoms and dramas during the Fox broadcasted Superbowl: instead of earning on the sale of that ad slot to Doritos, Fox is earning on the future value of driving viewers to their own sitcoms and dramas. And in the same way Thrillist is foregoing the per click ad money from Bud Light in order to feature JackThreads - trading in the $.90 per click on the Bud.L ad for the greater value that that click turns into when people buy sweet swagger from JackThreads.

John Wiseman, Thrillist’s VP of Marketing and Partnerships referred to it as the “fusing together of editorial and e-commerce,” and told me that for JackThreads and Thrillist the marriage is only going to get more fluid. And in my opinion, this type of knitting is the way out. Ad-supported editorial is struggling just to stand, but publications are fertile gardens for e-commerce companies to advertise *within*. So what’s your glitch, Gene? Come to that obvious conclusion (e.g. Leia! Leia is my sister!), and see if that old e-commerce dress fits.

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AOL's acquisition of HuffPo as a win for liberal media

2011-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

By Nathan 2/8/11

So AOL bought huffpo for $315 million big ones huh. Big news, but setting aside whether it will fix AOL's limp, the acquisition is a big win for liberal media.

As part of the deal, Arianna Huffington becomes President and Editor-in-Chief of AOL's umbrella of content, titled to oversee the likes of Techcrunch, Patch, Engadget, Moviefone, and Mapquest - a list of big names which'll only grow as AOL furthers its Content with a capital C strategy.

This is like if MTV had made Tupac the host and producer of T.R.L. in the heat of the East Coast v. West Coast rivalry.Arianna is as politically passionate as they make 'em. And she's now in charge of holding this expansive and highly influential umbrella.

Like Tupac at the helm of TRL, this acquisition builds Arianna a sizable soapbox, from which she will be able to rain her gospel - or if we're talking about the Entertainment section, her gossipel.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for a liberally-biased media; I prefer my news to lean further to the left than Michael Jackson in his Smooth Criminal music vid. So I'm down. But it'll be interesting to see how Arianna's ideology trickles down.

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Verizon + Biggie: Switchin phone carriers is easy!

2011-02-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

From On & True's Digable Ads (beta): Verizon obviously thinks that all you iPhone wielders out there should switch over to their side of the fence - from one prison to another. But maybe you have some doubts, maybe your mind is full of more "what ifs" than a stoned kid's. Luckily Verizon has got biggie on its team, tellin you exactly why switchin will be a cinch. Now you know.

And if you have a good idea for a digable ad, email digable@onandtrue.com

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Judging Architecture from the Skies: Google Earth as the newest vantage point

2011-02-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

In the attached slideshow we've placed some of the most admired buildings of the past decade against their Google Earth mugshots. And as you'll see, some of the buildings play quite well from the skies, while others seem barely more interesting than a Walmart Supercenter. If you want to turn this into a coffee table book with me send an email, cause I know a great coffee table guy... (not Kramer).

Though I can't imagine that the grumpy and ludditish architectural critics are going to agree, I'm thinking that in the next couple of years architectural accomplishment will be somewhat determined by the newest perspective at play - Google Earth's birds-eye.

Before Google conquered outerspace with rearview satelites, architects like Art Vandelay could safely assume their buildings to be experienced from alongside or from within. And as such, the créme de la créme architecture was that that did very well at designing for these two experiences. It didn't matter what was going down roof-wise because no one besides balloon boy would ever see it. But not anymore.

In the Google Earth era, there are two segments of visitors: the people who come physically, and the hundreds of thousands of us who visit the buildings from our computers, descending in to experience the architecture from above.

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The little and BIG difference between a staycation and being unemployed

2011-01-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

This one is from my mainest mainest mayo man Zach G - an On & True contributor.

If college is a short story full of drinking and debauchery, then the epilogue is titled “Unemployment.” It sure seems like a lot of us have been writing/reading the sparknotes of this same story recently. Including me. But while being unemployed, with the time on my hands to do whatever a 20-something could think of doing, I chose to do nothing.You see, that lack of motivation is the key separator between being unemployed and being on a staycation.

I had a job these past couple months... sorta. It started as a 40-hour week, chalk full of gchats, pregnantly long lunches, and those moments in the morning when I would think, “will anybody notice if I don’t shower today?” But then my hours were dropped significantly (unrelated to the fact that I always answered "no way, no one will notice!" to the question above). So for all of the intents and purposes that you could dream up, I was unemployed.

But then I got an offer for a new, better, more job-ish job. And BOOM. Just like that, I was on a staycation. Despite there being no adjustment to my daily routine, I went from being bored out of my mind to absolutely loving it. Here's the difference.

A Staycation is a vacation from the working world. You lose your pants, rent a mini-fridge for your newly discovered rooftop terrace, work out, go everywhere, take up smoking - you do it all. Cause when you’re on that staycation there is the ever-present deadline, the end of the trip looming, at which time you will have to pack it in and go back to work. And with the deadline peaking over the horizon, you cram in as many naps and excessive indulgences as you possibly can. You're like a squirrel in late October, hoarding naps rather than nuts, because you know that it all comes to an ugly end at 8:00 AM on Monday.

But unemployment is a totally different dog, cause even though you have just as much free time as you did on your staycation, you end up doing jack shit.

Unemployment is life without work. You don’t lose your pants cause you never care to look, you get a mini-fridge but you don't plug it in, and you go nowhere. Because there is no deadline. You could do this forever - and that’s what stops us from doing anything of substance: like visiting that science museum, hitting the gym, or meeting up with friends that you haven’t seen in years, that is if you don't count all the times you've "seen" them while stalking on Facebook.

Without that deadline, we say “I’ll do it tomorrow.” But that version of tomorrow conveniently never comes. How perfect for my lazy ass!

But when I quit my shred of a job this morning, and told my new employer that I’d be starting Monday, I felt the instant jump from unemployed jackass to vacationing bachelor. I signed up for a yoga class, took the dog for a walk, and read a book - not cover-to-cover mind you, but cover to a solid 50 pages in. Quite significant accomplishments in comparison to my days of unemployment, during which I merely stared at girls who took yoga, usually forgot that I had a dog, and used books only as tools to level the foosball table.

Ah staycation, how you motivate me.

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Boars Head + Roscoe Dash: Digable Ads #2

2011-01-25T20:28:00.000-08:00

#2 from On & True's Digable Ads, a classic Boars Head ham advert twisted with Roscoe Dash's memorable line from Waka Flocka's guiltily catchy "No Hands". You heard it here: Roscoe is no doubt going to do for Boar's Head what Jay-Z did for Cristal. What do you think?

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Groupon for Groupons: It's time to put your money where you tell us to put our money

2011-01-23T17:27:00.000-08:00

We’ve been told to never trust a skinny chef - to think twice about someone who doesn’t seem to buy into whatever he or she is peddling. And considering the debate regarding Groupon’s effectiveness as a marketing channel, Groupon is starting to look a little slight around the lovehandles. I’m thinking that they need to eat a piece of their own cake while we all watch – they need to offer a Groupon for Groupons.

Doubts about Groupon are high right now, with e'eryone weighing in like it’s the first day at Heavyweights’ Camp Hope. The question is: do Groupon promotions bring in enough new faces and buzz to outweigh the revenue lost from regulars showing up with coupons, or regulars avoiding the Groupie swarm and not showing up at all? Groupon needs to do something about it – because unless you sell duct tape, doubt isn't usually healthy for business models.

This is half a strategy recommendation and half me doing my best Omar, calling Marlo Stanfield a “punk” in the streets.

Here is how I want Groupon to eat their cake and shut us up. Groupon requires participating businesses to offer customers at least 50% off of their goods and services – so Groupon should do the same.

Sell us Groupon Bucks at 50% off: 100 Groupon Bucks redeemable on future Groupon offers ($100 U.S. value) for only $50.

Shouldn’t be a problem, right? Cuz if honesty is indeed their number one policy, Groupon for Groupons’ll turn out to be marketing gold.

But maybe Groupon will politely decline, arguing that Groupon promotions work better for restaurants and yoga studios than for billion dollar ecommerce sites; Maybe Groupon is right in their choice to flood every ad slot across the entire internet with their “1-day deal” adwords ads, instead of taking advantage of their own marketing platform.

To which I have two things to say.

1. Do it anyway: Get like a career politician about the situation and take up an initiative that you know isn’t really gonna work but will play well with your constituents and committee chairmen.

And second: Amazon.com just ran a promotion on one of the Groupon mini-me’s, LivingSocial. So if the Groupon steep-discount model is good enough for the king of the ecommerce jungle, then it should be plenty palatable for the gander himself.

To Andrew Mason: offer the Groupon for Groupon only to new customers; or offer the Groupon on a Groupon gift card; or make it so that 1,000,000 people have to buy the deal in order for the sale to “tip”. It doesn’t matter how you do it Andrew, but if you believe in your platform and prefer the rest of us to continue to share in your belief…. well, you know what to do.

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The entire premise of 'Lost' came from a random episode of 'Felicity'?

2011-01-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

Before creating Lost, J.J. Abrams wrote and directed Felicity, and in watching the clipped scene it becomes clear that J.J. is definitely down with upcycling.

The excerpt above takes us back to episode 4 of Felicity’s sophomore year. Felicity and Julie haven’t been speaking ever since Felicity went roadtrippin’ with Julie’s ex-boyfriend Ben. But we pick things up as the rift between the best-friends starts prairie doggin it, coming to a head. Felicity and Julie have not only stumbled into the same subway car, but into the subway car that then gets stuck below the streets of NY for hours – naturally they get to talking about things, and the fellow passengers become the unwitting jurors in the case of Julie v. Felicity.

What’s interesting to notes is that the black woman’s comment predicts word-for-word what 10 years later became one of the more popular theories about Lost. The idea of “the island” as some tropical purgatory, in which the characters had to come to terms with their pasts, was one of the theories that Lost fans loved to latch onto. And it was a flame that J.J. Abrams and the other writers of Lost were unafraid to stoke. They often did so with dialogue, that looking back seems straight out the mouth of the subway riding black woman in season 2 of Felicity.

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Charmin opts to Hit 'Em Up with New Ad Campaign

2011-01-12T20:58:00.001-08:00

From the On & True vault of rap-lyrics-turned-ads comes a new Charmin Ultra Soft advertisement campaign - switching out that old butt-wipin' bear for the most poetic spokesperson you could ever ask for, Tupac Shakur, and using for the tagline one of my favorite lines from my favorite all time diss track. Charmin Ultra is softer than Alizé with a chaser, but if you wanna be down with bad boy.... then you don't get any toilet paper.

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"The Second Shooter": a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm that doesn't exist but could

2011-01-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

Though Larry David never brought this particular social situation to the screen, I have always thought that the following would’ve fit nicely in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s about the bathroom, but that’s cool cause the bathroom has always been a cornerstone of Curb’s charm. So, true to Larry’s process, here is an outline of how the scene should go – but without LD and his accompli to help out, the improvisation will be left up to our imaginations.

Scene 1, background:

Early in the episode, Larry gets into a typically heated confrontation with Wanda Sykes. Wanda was telling Cheryl that she was recently forced to use a public restroom to “you know… do my business” after eating something untrustworthy. In overhearing their conversation, Larry loudly expresses his disgust – not only in regards to having to hear Wanda talk about using the bathroom, but also over the fact that Wanda used a public bathroom for anything more involved than peeing.

Larry claims to never “do business of the second kind in enemy territory,” stating that he “under no circumstances would not be able to hold it until he got home”, and referring to himself as “a remarkably accomplished holder.”

Wanda gets angry at Larry for implying that “his skinny ass is too gentle to sit on anything but a Seinfeld throne”, and also refuses to believe that Larry never shits outside of his home. The argument ends without resolution.

Scene 2:

Later on at Ted Danson’s house, at a party that Ted is throwing for a visiting eastern-bloc Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Larry leaves a conversation with Jeff to go pee.

When Larry gets to the bathroom he finds it already in use, and he waits briefly. The door opens and a man comes out of the bathroom – followed by an overwhelming shit-smell. Larry’s face twists, and he begins to exclaim as he enters the bathroom.

Larry pees while tortured by the smell, and he tries to cover his nose with various body contortions: one arm up, other arm up, shoulders scrunched, shirt over the nose, etc. Larry finishes and washes his hands, still horrified, and then he leaves the bathroom.

When he opens the door, Wanda is standing there waiting in line to go next. She starts to acknowledge LD, but before she finishes the smell of the bathroom hits her: “Heyy Lar – oh god damn Larry!”

Larry immediately realizes that Wanda thinks him to be responsible for the disgusting smell, which furthermore implicates him in an earlier lie. Larry begins to protest.

Larry: Wait a minute, I know what you think you're smelling, that wasn’t me!

Wanda: I knew that you were full of shit, Larry! Accomplished holder my ass!

Larry argues that he is a holder and always has been a holder – in particular a dinner party holder.

They continue to argue. Wanda begins to walk away. Larry tries to explain, he blames a “Second Shooter”.

They enter the main party area, voices rising, and people start to quiet down and tune into the scene Larry is making.

Larry claims that he is a patsy, taking the fall for another man’s crime, that there “was another man on that hill”. Wanda is not buying it.

Larry then sees the true perpetrator.

Larry: There! Him!

Larry approaches the man: Tell her! Tell her that you were the one that took that nasty shit – it was you that stunk it up well before I ever even got there!

The whole party is watching, Larry continues to single out and draw attention to the man until Cheryl interrupts.

Cheryl: Larry!

She mimes for Larry to look at the man’s nametag.

The camera follows her point, zooming in on the nametag of the Second Shooter: it’s the Nobel winner and guest of honor.

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Why the world might actually end in 2012: Seinfeld, Schemas and Mayan Prophecies

2011-01-02T20:14:00.001-08:00

Back in their heyday the Mayans threw out this wild “tupac-is-still-alive” type prophecy that the world would meet its apocalypse on December 21, 2012. And though end-of-world prophecies seldom come true, given our incredible ability as humans to misattribute, I’m thinking that come 2012 the average roster of unfortunate events might snowball into a self-fulfilling Judgement Day.

But Arnold can’t help us this time, because the 2012 apocalypse has everything to do instead with Jerry and George sitting in the coffee shop pretending to be gay lovers for the benefit of an eavesdropping NYU reporter.

In this one episode (youtube), after hearing Jerry and George feigning gay, an NYU reporter takes on the belief that two are a thing. This misconception leads her to wrongly interpret Jerry and George’s later which could really have gone either way as the banter of a loving partnership. Cyclically, her misattributions only reinforce her initial beliefs that Jerry and George are a couple – comedy obviously ensues. Psychologists refer to the NYU reporter’s preconceptions, which informed her subsequent interpretations as a schema – and it’s the damn schemas that are gonna fuck us up in 2012.

Though we likely don’t believe in the Mayan prediction – the only thing I’ve ever believed about 2012 is that it made for an awful movie – we are all certainly aware of it. Because we have heard about it, we will in 2012 have an inkling of a world-end schema, a schema embryo. Others, the apocalypse groupies like the ones in Independence Day that got lasered on top of that skyskcraper, will round out the spectrum with full-blown, third trimester schemas. And so, just as the NYU reporter’s belief/awareness caused her to interpret George sayin “Jerry, is this pear washed?” as the question of a gay man, our awareness of the idea that the world might end might cause us to interpret e’eryday bad events as apocalypse forbearers – a misperception that would inevitably cause us to blow ourselves up: Romeo + Juliet style.

Because here’s the thing: bad things happen every year. Some years are worse than others, some decades extra shitty, but all years are within a couple of standard deviations from the mean of shittyness.

So in 2012, North Korea will invade Seoul; the bee populations in California will continue to dwindle; earthquakes and hurricanes’ll hit South East Asia; the Dodgers will win the pennant; Sarah Palin will win the presidency.

And while all definitely bad things, these are bad things that could happen any year.

But maybe in 2012 we won’t see it like that – maybe we will misinterpret the events as pieces of the apocalypse, and think that Jerry and George are gay afterall. And if our schemas reinforce, and our misinterpretation gets strong enough – if our belief that the world might actually end becomes the conventional wisdom, would the mass hysteria reach the tipping point necessary for self-fulfillment?

What we really want to know about our favorite rappers

2010-12-24T16:01:00.000-08:00

Now that Google Instant is in the business of finishing our ~~sandwiches~~ searches, we can use the big G not just for asking questions, but for peeping in on the questions that other people are asking as well. So: let’s see what e’eryone wants to know about 9 of their favorite rappers.

Most of the results turn up silly, but in some cases the questions that we are asking build neat wireframes of the artists’ personas, highlighting the traits that a caricature would surely elaborate.

1.Specifics on 50 cent's numerous beefs (including one with grandma?). But interesting to see that 50 is still leveraging beef so successfully towards stirring us up.

2.we want more on Weezy's jail time; and "is lil wayne gay", this is something that people are asking about a lot of rappers.

the absolute basics: name and favored gesture. We are essentially asking him to explain every one of his album covers.

Some attribute kanye west's asshole streak (his skidmark) to him being a devil worshipper, others think it's because he's a christian.

Drake might just be the first ever jewish, canadian rapper to marry a man

seems like all of those references to each other really turned some of us into Drakey-Minaj believers

#4, gold

is rumormongering a fitting legacy?

shit, I guess I'm the only one asking that one.... but you should follow On & True on twitter: HERE.

a Twitter-Optimized iPhone keyboard

2010-12-19T20:19:00.000-08:00

Check out this stepped-on graphic that we put together:

it’s an iPhone keyboard twisted for optimal tweetin’.

As you can see, the On & Twitter keyboard has a couple of key changes perfect for any iPhone-weilding tweeker.

First we dropped the “return” button in favor of a tweet button, because hitting return is weak when we aren’t really returning. I get where it comes from and all: “return” to the left side of the page to start in on a fresh line (though not as fresh a line as “we prime like optimus/ hungry hungry on the mic like I’m a fuckin hippopotamus.”) But Twizzles don’t like the implications of returning: they prefer to keep things moving forward, always onto the next quippy, slightly notable but mostly mad stupid thought that they think is totally tweet-worthy.

Secondly, we swapped the “U” and “I” keys for the @ and # characters. From the power-user perspective this trade’ll most likely turn out a better deal than one of those Groupon dips. Because when you think about it, vowels are nothing more than middlemen – taking up mad resources just to connect the letters that are actually doing the work. We used to have to ‘buy a vowel’, but these days vowels are heavy burdens. “@”, “#” on the other hand, damn: @ and # are the amino acids of writing on Twitter.

And as the third switch, you can see that we replaced the “O” with a question mark. As noted, vowels on Twttr r slly, so cutting the “O” makes sense – but that said, why promote the question mark? The “?” seems to be really important to Twitter users, all hypnotized with the impression that their most mundane curiosities deserve to be Tweets: “why do there have to be pretzels in Chex Mix??” It’s ugly, but it’s probably therapeutic, so it’s whatever and we’re hooking them up.

The On & Twitter keyboard is about user experience – tweaking for tweek optimization.

If I were a betting man I’d expect to find the updated keyboard in the next couple of updates to the Twitter App. But just to make sure, you can sign the petition for it by retweeting.

When Brains get iPhones, Ads Are Going to Suck

2010-12-16T21:49:00.000-08:00

Are you excited to get a computer chip implanted in your brain so that you can receive texts, listen to music and search google from the comfort of your head? Well a lot of people are: so many in fact, that soon Jerry is going to have to send Elaine into the steam room see if Sidra has *brain* implants.

Neural interfacing – as sci-fi Gleeks call it – is a wave of the future that’s getting closer and closer to the beach. But when our iPhone 12s are connected snugly to our brain tissue, when our emails, texts, movies and facts are uplinked instantly into our psyches, advertisements are going to straight up suck.

Consider the changes in the consumption of entertainment and consumption. The absorption of advertisements will change in step.

Right now we listen to music, we watch movies, we read information: we gather the stimuli and then invite it within our castle-walls.

But come the iPhone 12, we won’t listen to music in the traditional sense – you know, with ears and ear drums. The music will instead be experienced, passed from the implant directly into the brain – which takes the meaning of “headphones” to a whole other level.

The same goes for information though – when facts and theories are downloaded into our awareness, we won’t be consciously reading as much as our consciousness will be getting read to.

So then what about advertisements?

Because from the moment you walk out of that AT&T store of the future, which’ll no doubt have an iPhone implanatation brain-drill behind the counter, the advertisements will be there. They always are. In every channel – mail, phone, email, hieroglyphics (the spamming caveman who was scratching directions to his rock-grinding shop in between the etchings of droughts and tribal wars drawn by his archivist buddies). If you build it, marketers will show up and dump on your baseball diamond.

We are already soaked with advertisements, trailed around each day by marketers trying to tell us something, trying to make us feel a certain way about a product, or trying to make us take a certain action. But we don’t have to let them in when they knock. We still possess a filter and at least some degree of agency.

But the iPhone 12 will give marketers their Trojan horse, their drug tunnel from Mexico to the U.S., their drunk co-ed tunnel from the U.S. to Mexico.

The ad will buzz in your brain, shaking your retinas. In the same way that we will begin to “experience” rather than consume communication and entertainment, the tagalong advertisements will start to automatically become a part of us – sidling into our personas while we change the channels on our TV with thought.

Death by 7 Characters: TinyURL as Dr. Frankenstein

2010-12-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

In 2001 a couple of programmer bro’s got tired of posting long-ass links in emails and founded TinyURL: the first URL shortening service (you know the kind: take http://www.onandtrue.com/2010/11/black-friday-its-historical.html and turn it into http://bit.ly/g5HmvC). TinyURL’s crack squad was the first to point out the cost associated with URL length, and their service provided the sword for us to cut the waste. But in 2010, parallel with the transition of URL shortening from novelty into necessity, TinyURL is being forced onto its own sword: its domain name is just a couple of characters too long.

For its first four or five years, TinyURL just kinda dingled in obscurity – cause URL shortening was cool and all, but, like, who cared. We didn’t mind sending and receiving long links in our emails: it never seemed pressing to trim letters off of a link. Which was the case until Twitter showed up to the party – with a cooler full of 40’s and got us all mad drunk.

Twitter blew up fast, and like the barnacle that latched onto Free Willy – TinyURL rose to prominence on the underbelly of Twitter, the much more rock-starrish sea-creature.

Because the dawn of the Twitter-era brought with it Tweet-gentrification that pushed traditional long-trail links out of our virtual communications.

We no longer had mounds of characters to fuck around with. The allocation was stingy (140), and as such the “cost” of a character went wayy up. Long-trail links couldn’t afford the new prices – you gonna take up your whole tweet pasting the article link? nope – and so the old school long links were forced out of the space – to be replaced with nicely packaged short links.

And just like the Cali pick-axe salesmen were saying at the beginning of the Gold Rush, TinyURL saw Twitter growing in popularity and was like “fuck yeah, bros”. Cause like the pick-axe in 1849, everybody needed TinyURL’s tool.

Popularity though courted mad imitation: first bit.ly, then goo.gl, t.co, and countless other TinyURL look-a-likes showed up for a slice of pie. And though the services were all essentially peas in a pod, there was one key and tragic difference between TinyURL and its offspring: domain length.

TinyURL.com is 11 characters long (t-i-n-y-u….). bit.ly is 6. T.co if 4 and a couple of othersr are 4. Shiiiit, cause in a tweet, 7 characters can make all the difference – the best Twitter users could make you cry with 7 characters. Just like that, TinyURL could no longer compete at its own game.

Though TinyURL invented URL shortening, it came into existence and was named/branded, before URL shortening was important down every letter. “Let’s call it TinyURL, that’s short enough..”

These other guys came post-Twitter, with exactly the same goods, but shorter domains: the first ever 7-character deathblow.

TinyURL becomes Dr. Frankenstein: falling at the hands of his own monster.

the plague of "10 best" lists and why testing in school is starting to make sense (again)

2010-11-29T19:31:00.001-08:00

Put aside for a minute the hot-buttons that usually pop when we get to talking about education – because this is a different pair of pants. Though many claim our current educational norms of timed tests, regurgitative homework, and rigid curriculums to be antiquated as shit, when I see the apocalyptic flood of “19 great ways to ____” and “10 best ______” type articles on the internet, I start thinking that we might actually be right on point. By being far enough behind the times, our educational philosophy might actually be ahead of the curve.

We hear that an education should in large part equip tomorrow’s workforce to succeed in tomorrow’s economy – an idea which is certainly tough to fuck with.

So when the western world transitioned from an industrial economy into a post-industrial economy, using tests as the main form of student evaluation became as inappropriate as Gary Busey’s twitter feed. Because back in the factory days it was mad important for workers to be able to accomplish distinct tasks in specific amounts of time; Charlie Chaplin had to screw the bolts into those nuts before that shit moved to the next wrench-wieldin’ Biff on the assembly line. Tests made a lot sense in this world – spit me back this information in this amount of time – as the tests were appropriate indicators of the student’s future success in THAT economy.

But as times changed, and the workforce sped from the factories like fresh-off-the-line Toyotas with faulty breaks, using tests as the go-to form of student evaluation began to make less and less sense.

The new economy was about collating ideas and constructing convincing arguments (arguments like: “although I accidentally sent an email to our biggest client calling her a dick, it wasn’t really my fault…”. Still mad boring, still a 9-5 job, but the question became: why are you testing me on facts, Professor, when I can just use my sweet calculator, google that shit, or worst case start a Yahoo Ask thread?

Which is where we are now - maybe. But I’m not sure that our river is still continuing on from that old factory mindset as much as it is straight up oxbowing in on itself, returning to where we have already been.

Look something up on the internet that is not a fact, something more vague, something that is related to doing something: increasing traffic to your blog, creating a successful internet marketing campaign, growing delicious tomatoes. Most likely you will find your way to an article that answers your query with an “8 steps to ___” or “10 great ways to _____” type article. They're more common than Lonnie Rashied Lynn.

The listed three examples are representative of the complex, post-assembly line problems for which we apparently need a more modern education to solve. Charlie Chaplin couldn’t develop a multi-faceted strategy for a marketing campaign; he was cogged out – only trained to manage his specific task.

But with the ever-increasing popularity of articles featuring numbered lists, the open-ended problems are being further and further replaced by highly replicable, step-by-step processes.

And while these lists themselves don’t equate to the reindustrialization of our problem solving, we should see “the 5 questions you must ask in an interview” article as a leading indicator of what is to come.

And if this is what’s ahead, it seems like fact-centric timed tests might not be so far from appropriate.

Mark By Mark Zuckerberg: An introduction

2010-11-29T06:22:00.000-08:00

It’s always a good time to make fun of Mark Zuckerberg, and conversely making fun of Facebook’s goofy ass founder always ends up being a good time. So with this in mind we put together Mark By Mark Zuckerberg: the blowing-up line of mens fashion inspired by the looks and lifestyle of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. The 2011 collection includes shit like Adidas flip-flops, elastic jeans, and bathrobes – each a crucial piece of Mark’s unfortunate persona. If you want to look like Mark, work like Mark or just make fun of Mark: be sure to check out Mark by Mark Zuckerberg. And tell your friends.

Black Friday: It's historical!

2010-11-26T00:14:00.000-08:00

“Yeah, I’ve never really been much for camping, I just don’t really like sleeping on the ground ----- wait, does camping out in Black Friday lines count?” Black Friday is so easy to rip on.

But I’m tired of Black Friday getting called out as dogshit American consumerism run rampant, because Black Friday is way more nuanced than dogshit. It’s totally weird yea, but just like Thanksgiving, Black Friday is an heirloom of early colonial and Native American relations.

So in theory our Thanksgiving meals are recreations of that pilgrim and native american Holiday Mixer, right. We get together and eat a certain set of foods because that’s what those guys did, and although pilgrim-imitation is no longer our main motivation for celebrating thanksgiving, it certainly seems like it still gets play as the root of the tradition.

Black Friday is of a similar root: we go out on the day after thanksgiving expecting heavy discounts on all products because that is exactly what the pilgrims did. After their Thanksgiving, those pilgrims plundered and straight up took the land, furs, crops, and other assorted goods with a mentality that paying full price for the products would have been a preposterous proposition. And so towards a more complete reenactment of early America: after the annual migration of the turkey from plate to stomach, Americans engage in plunder.

This isn’t normal consumerism, this is the turkey-triggered consumerism in your DNA.

Facebook Email vs. Google Buzz: A heavyweight bout to fail less hard

2010-11-14T21:07:00.000-08:00

Update: Though everyone is quick to point out that Facebook Messages released 11/15 is "not email!", it is important to note that this is Email: Facebook Edition. We shouldn't expect Facebook to come out with a mill-runnin' email platform, considering that it is a social network (and if we are talkin like NFL players announcing their universities on Monday Night Football: THE social network). It makes sense that their push into the email realm is all mixed up with all things social. That said, the points below are still valid.

Facebook email dropped today; Zuckerberg steps with socks and sandals onto Google’s turf. And although Facebook email will likely dud out, it won’t be a complete waste of time for us: as a comparison of Facebook’s failure to ‘go email’ with Google’s failure to go social might indicate who is currently the top dog in Silicon Valley.

Although some tech-centric chicken littles are callin it a ‘gmail killer’ I’m unmoved by the additional feature. I feel like @facebook.com email will really only be utilized by the already Facebook fanatical. Think about it: this generation’s professional world won’t use it; privacy hounds’ll surely be like fuck that. Adults won’t be down unless they are awkwardly trying to be the cool Mom. The complacent half won’t convert. And the hipsters won’t sign up: they’re busy in a fritz trying to accessorize with earthlink.net email addresses.

So it’ll really just be those like my 13 year old cousin who go nuts for the thing. Which indicates that gmail can sleep well tonight knowing that it’s hard to make the argument that Gmail’s downfall will come by the mass emigration of Gleeks – not that there’s anything wrong with being a Gleek.

But even though Facebook email will likely never turn “Jack the Gmail Ripper” and strangle Google out of its orbit, we will still be able to find something meaningful in the failure of Facebook mail. Consider:

We’ve been trying to determine which of Google and Facebook has the leg up on the other. But in the tech world – an industry that moves faster than Aaron Sorkin dialogue – it has been mad hard.

Google Buzz could have helped us out with this; to prove its alpha-status Google came out with Google Buzz – the social component of the Google weaponry that was predicted to take Facebook down by the knees. A successful Google Buzz might have laid some cement in the hierarchy: “I’m Google, I do mail AND I can do social better than you, Mark.” But as we know, Buzz went downhill faster than Weeds after Season 2. So no help there.

So now, Facebook counterstrikes with a strategic attack on Gmail, one of Google’s main metropolitan areas (# attacking Google through Gmail is the equivalent of a U.S. enemy striking Chicago). As we talked about though, @facebook.com doesn’t have too many more strides in it than did Buzz and so will also fail to be the decider.

Which is why we will have to bring some creativity to the analysis of this dual hegemony. In thinking about Buzz vs. Facemail let’s not only talk about about relative success, but comparative failure.

The failure of Buzz to establish a stronghold in Facebook territory was flailing and loud. So if Facebook mail can kind of work, or fail quietly, or exist totally awkwardly but content without popularity, then maybe Facebook can come away looking like the fighter relatively more ready to claim the championship belt.

In the tech world, hegemonies might have to be graded on a curve.

How do you feel about it? Let the world know by clicking “You Know What I’m Sayin?” below.

Disproving the "I can't remember anyone's phone number" drama

2010-10-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

If you ever chill without earbuds you’ve probably heard the complainers, they say: “it’s so terrible isn’t it? I used to know everyone’s phone number by heart, but now because of my cell phone I can’t remember even one”. This shit is one of those dark-side of technology arguments, a tenet of the “tech innovations are melting our brains and ruining the way we live” school of thought. But it’s important that we start deny-deny-denying this opinion – as the inability to recall someone’s phone number does not represent the malevolent technological takeover of a brain process but rather a reversion to our natural condition in which humans send and receive communications from real-ass people: aka things with names.

Last week my phone fritzed the fuck out and deleted all of the contact names off of the numbers. All the numbers are still as they were, they just don’t have the names attached anymore, so instead of getting calls from real live people, my telephone is now buzzing with old fashioned 415s and 914s like I’m a modern day Ludacris featuring Nate Dogg.

I’m down with the switch though: it’s like a small puzzle every time someone calls me. “a 510 number? That’s gotta be vic; 206 texting about the giants game? Most likely my dad; a text from a 310 number in which I’m referred to as nephew?? Father Snoop, without a doubt.”

After solving enough puzzles, I’ve started to recognize the numbers again. I see a number and know whose voice I’m expecting to hear when I pick up. I’m back in the land of understanding strange strings of numbers to represent human beings, the loss of which is mourned so loudly by the aforementioned complainers.

So: ahhh, this is just how it’s supposed to be right? The glory days of the 20^th century that cell phone number-storing/hiding fucked up….

But to that we’ve gotta be like Angelina in the Jersey Shore intro:: “ummm…HELLO?!?!” I’m looking at my phone full of numbers and it’s like: “this is that dehumanized future; this is the Brave New World/1984 predecessor.”

Little did we know that the advancement in cell phone number-storing would actually re-humanize our communications.

What do you think? And who wants Snoop’s number?

The Obama streaker and the value of a viral

2010-10-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

So not only is the Obama streaker the most rational naked-man in recent memory, but Juan Ramirez and his loins are doing great things in helping us understand the financials of viral marketing campaigns; Juan'll eventually help answer the elixir of life question: how much is a viral worth?

But first: wouldn't you streak Obama for a million dollars? A million dollars is a serious amount of money, and although I get that it's kind of earnin G's today in sleezy ways, how is a million dollars for streaking the leader of the free world with a corporate logo on your chest any worse ethically than receiving your wall street end of year bonus for being good at credit-spit-swapping?

I just think that Alki David the billionaire streaker-benefactor wayy overpaid for the deed. Just think about all your broke ass "privacy is dead" friends that would have done it for 100k. And shit, if David had just been like: "streak him and you'll probably end up with a reality show" people would no doubt have been trippin over each other for the job - i mean, that strategy worked on that party crashing DC Real Housewife..

Either way, I think that Obama should strike back and get Rahm Emanuel in his Coup de Grace to run naked through the battle.net offices with "repeal don't ask don't tell" painted on his lower back and ass cheeks.

This story has significance beyond its Gawker-value though, in that it provides the first data point in determining the monetary value of a bit going viral.

Which will be helpful for professional marketers considering that over the past couple of years the marketing world has been scrambling like a young Donovan McNabb cooking eggs, figuring out ways to apply old school business metrics to the realms of social networks and shit like youtube. It's hard out there for Mad Men 2010: as the effects on revenue and profits of "hits" "likes" and "retweets" are harder to understand than Brad Pitt in Snatch.

These days marketers are saying sentences like: "well our orange soda commercial got 1800 'likes' on Facebook (i.e. "i do, i do, i do-oo's"), but I'm not really sure what that is going to mean in terms of actual sales"; or "our webside got 1 million views in the first week but it is unclear how many of those viewers are actually going to buy".

It is practically impossible to determine viral-value ex-facto.

But over time we will be able to infer the value just by watching billionaire boys like Akili David pay people to do silly things.

Consider: David was willing drop a hot mil for battle.net to go viral. Soon there will be another guy/girl like him paying another guy/girl streaker-mercenary to do something else spread-worthy: maybe she'll pay 250 k this time. After enough iterations of this exchange, a going rate for streaking the national media will start to emerge.

This going rate will represent the cost of getting something "plauging" - a term we should coin to signify when something goes super-viral. We will eventually know that if you want your company name to be seen by millions of people you will have to pay someone X amount of money.

The cost will be the lower bound of the value of a viral, as people like David will only be willing to front the going rate if the value of a viral is greater than that cost. And there it will be: the value of a viral, right before our eyes.

But to determine this bound we are going to need a lot of billionaires and a lot of desperate streakers: so take your clothes off and do something for science. As an additional perk, you'll get rich.

This sweet ass post was written for the Thought Catalog.

quick hitting: pizza toppings and a twitter feed

2010-10-20T06:34:00.000-07:00

Wednesday. Some thoughts for you to toot and boot:

1. Something that's got to go: overpriced custom pizza.

You're in a pizza place right. And this is a sit down spot. The menu has a lot of specialty pizza's that "Enzo's" is excited to make for you. They've got this meat lovers pizza with the whole farm on it for like 20 dollars lets say. But then there's an option to create your own, be creative, customize your za. "Base price for just cheese: $18, and then it'll be $1.5o for each additional topping." So what you're really trying to say is that my pepperoni pizza will be essentially as expensive as the meat lover's pizza which includes just as much pepperoni and pounds of other shit? There's an economic explanation but I don't want to get into it. I can't believe we're continuing to stand for this. Fuck, we're getting a rawer deal than Time Warner did in the AOL merger. Let's start the revolution in the pizza parlor, just like they did in Do The Right Thing.

2. A twitter feed that I think should exist: "Celebrities, filtered"

One of the cool things about twitter is that it brings you a couple feet closer to real interactions with your fav celebrities. Celebrities talking about the most mundane shit is apparently awesome. the only problem though is that these savvy celebs are using twitter mostly to promote whatever they are promoting: I'm not interested in this. I'm interested in ochocinco talking about his pet pigeons. So we need one twitter feed that follows all good celebrities and retweets only the best from all of them. That way we only get the good shit. And as an added bonus we will only have to follow one account: which will help with our twitter sexiness by cutting our "following"s, as we all know that the only way to look like a bigger loser than following more people than you have followers is to go to school with "Loser" stamped to your forehead after you accidentally fall asleep on your hand after accidentally eating an edible at a "rufus" reggae lounge.

all i got. who's gonna start "celebrity filtered". ill follow you

How Adam Carolla is similar to Walmart

2010-10-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve got some thoughts on this Walmart story breakin loose yesterday. You know: about the chain's Food Rebel worthy sustainability initiative focused on sourcing mad local goods and hooking up small and medium sized farmers.

Damn this is getting confusing.

What are we supposed to think when the evil empire makes a kind gesture? I know that we are all supposed to hate Walmart but they keep doing these socially responsible things like first puttin up solar pannels, then throwing parades for small farmers, etc., (givin us 20 cents off rollbacks on captain crunch!). This is like in ROTJ when Darth Vader is juust about to turn good and stop the Emperor from torturing Luke but hasn’t yet, and even though he is wearing his full coverage Vader mask we still feel like we can see the emotional turmoil beneath.

Luckily for us over here at rebellion radio, Adam Carolla of man show, loveline and having overly bushy eyebrows fame, can help us clarify this whole situation.

I was listening to his podcast the other day – I used to listen to political podcasts but why learn when you can laugh – and the Ace man was talking about how the women in his Carolla lineage all hate their fathers and that he is seeing the first signs of the blood-hate blood-trait in his 4 year old daughter. He said that his goal was that if she was going to hate him, he wasn’t going to give her any evidence to support her position; if she was going to be in therapy (with Dr. Drew) later in life straight hating her dad, Adam wanted her to be saying “I don’t like my dad… I don’t know why: he was a good enough guy, but I just don’t like him.”

Because I guess that’s all he can do. I feel like this is what the Walmart execs/PR department has gotta be saying these days too:

“Fuck it, they may not ever like us – but we aren’t going to give them any evidence: commence primary ignition on the sustainability initiatives.”

Quick hittin: water cups, usher and iPhone's for the blind

2010-10-13T06:29:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday again. Here are a couple of segmented thoughts:

1. Something that's got to go: Small water cups

You're at the counter of any takeaway lunch spot and in response to the "anything to drink?" prompt you say "ah, just a cup for water, please" and they pull out a maad small glass."Damnn so much for sandwich-momentum, I'm gonna have to go to the dispenser at least 6 times to get through my meal." HOw are they going to give her the Wall E citizen, downfall of humanity sized Big Gulp for her diet coke while handing me this shit? Obvo it's a biz decision, but considering that it is, I'm sayin that the gov't should subsidize the water glass to promote my water drinking habits.

2. A "that" there should be an App for: iPhone brail

Blind people are missing out. But now that this dude is developing that badass "feel the keys" touch screen technology, iPhone brail shouldn't be far behind.

3. Least favorite song right now: Usher's DJ Got Us Fallin In Love

Not only is it more overplayed on our radio airwaves than World of Warcraft is among the Chinese youth, but it bugs me how few lyrics there are quantitatively. Usher seems to repeat every word at least 3 times just to take up space (side side to side side). He's like Eddie the Echo from those old McDonald's commercials.

I guess he said everything he had to say in the first installment of the saga. If the Love in this Club Trilogy continues on this trajectory though, the third iteration will just be Usher singing one phrase - "Around the World" style.

What is your least fav song right now? there's plenty to choose from (@ke$ha)

tweet or post a comment by next Tuesday to join the On & True high council

2010-10-12T06:20:00.001-07:00

the subject line says it all. we've got a competition going on right now to choose the On & True high council. this is a game like trick-or-treat: you're guaranteed to win. all you have to do is comment on a post or tweet a post afixed with the (@onandtrue) and you'll be in.

what are the perks of being a high council member? shit, thousands. but deciding on the specific benefits will most likely be the first order of biz for the council.

follow us on twitter: On & True

My briefest brush with MTV fame turned waxy

2010-10-10T21:14:00.001-07:00

Check out the email I got last week. I’ll give you a second to finish. A message from MTV!? On & True transforming from Urcle into Stephan right before our eyes.! But not actually, in the end we’re still nowhere just sitting here thinking of a better time.

When I first got the message I thought I was going to jail but this ain’t kafka. Then I showed it to my so fly gfry and she interpreted it as a first step towards getting chosen to be the next MTV video dj which might actually have been even worse. So I looked closer: although the email seems surfacely legitimate – the “Request from MTV” subject line, and the twitter and facebook follow links are done well – a closer examination reveals an email sketchier than that guy who brings a backpack to a house party.

The domain mtvncontractor.com doesn’t exist. And a Lisbeth style google search reveals some @mtvncontractor.com email addresses using bigoted slurs on message boards. Shiiit I said: this wasn’t the first splintering of my big break, I was just a patsy – a regular Billy Mumphrey getting mixed up in the high stakes game of world diplomacy and international intrigue: this was some sort of weird scam.

It was a let down no doubt, and it got me thinking about how great things must have been back in the internet’s salad days before the medium became saturated with promotions, spams and scam.

Remember how good that stuffed AOL mailbox used to look good back in middle school? It was one of the most alluring and filled-with-possibility box in the history of boxes, ranking third behind only Wonderbox and the one pandora had.

And it must have been nice when you could trust that someone offering you a Free iPad wasn't just trying to install malware on your computer. Or when you could believe in the Nigerian prince's offer to share his fortune with you and not fear the kidnapping of your social security number. When an email from MTV was most likely an email from MTV.

Although there’s exaggeration here, it seems that we have long passed the spam vs. content tipping point, and are now using the internet much more often for mischief than for creation.

I feel like a Native American walking through the dump ass strip malls of modern day suburbia, imagining what the plains mountains and rivers looked like before the white-man spammed that shit.

Be good or be good at it: what Snoop Dogg and Lil' Wayne say about society at large

2010-10-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

You follow Snoop on twitter? The feed is really not as interesting as it should be but whatever - it was the first place I heard that phrase "be good or be good at it", that's what the Dogg has been pied-pipin to his followers/"nephews". Now Lil' Wayne is sayin it on his guest verse in that Eminem song "No Love".

It's unclear whether Sneezy Dogg and Lil' Woop are using the phrase in reference to some rap related shit like crime (dont steal, or be good at stealing so you dont get caught), drugs, or cheating on your girlfriend, or rather towards more wholesome messaging - using it like a lifeguard at a pool telling kids not to run, but if they have to run to at least be coordinated enough to not slip and crack skulls. Whichever intention, the two have hit on a microcosm for how success is determined in this western world - you don't have to be good as long as you're good at being bad.

As exhibit A let's use Wall Street and the idea of too big to fail - a phrase they stole out of a pep talk on the "biggest loser" i.e. "You can't quit, you are too big to fail!"

Those boys were winning big sellin whatever financial-credit-swap-derrivative-asset-leveraging-package that shit was – and then it all went souther than México and a lot of people got collaterally fucked. Wall Street was bad - but they were good at it; they had burrowed into a cozy lil' node having orchestrated the system to depend on the rhythm of their own baton. So when all the septic shit hit the fan, it certainly didn’t touch Wall Street's fan - especially cause they had those Dyson buffer-free ones.

Exhibit B: thinkin politically. As we’ve all heard wayy too many times the political system is more backwards than Kris Kross, such that political advancement isn’t necessarily tied to quality of platform or debate. Seems like you can get mad far these days with lies and fear mongering - as long as you’re good at it.

Exhibit C+: the Jersey Shore - a windex-clear demonstration of how success can justify serious immorality. I remember post-season 1 when the Italian American outcry against Jersey Shore aka Guidogate was brought up with the Situation. He referenced the ratings and for some reason we were like oh yeah, that’s a valid excuse. The popularity of the show was justification for the sketchy moral of the Jersey Shtorey.

I'm sayin that it will be important to not let good-at-bad become interchangeable with good-at-good as although it is often easier to use the good-at-bad express lane, the rest of us derive positive externalities from good-at-good actions. So shouldn’t we re-up our support?

What do you think though? Stop takin your comments with you and leave some behind.

Why Lance Armstrong never got caught for doping: Illusions!

2010-10-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

I saw a headline the other day (“good for you, loser”): I didn’t end up reading the article but it was about how the Tour de France champ Alberto Contador had tested positive for ‘roidin dirty. He said that it was probably something he ate – which by the way is an excuse appropriate for a dude with bad smelling farts, not a Tour de France champion.

The Contador fuck-up got me re-thinking about Lance Armstrong though: how did Lance never get caught for using steroids?

Because it’s pretty (the) clear by now that Lance had his doping game going. For a guy who never made significant waves at a tour to come back from cancer and smoke out 7 times in a row (!) the best cyclists in the world who were all doped out of their minds.. – I mean let’s be real.

Defenders say though that Lance’s success can be explained by shit like Lance’s thighbone to height ratio: a simple combination of once-in-a-generation genetics and fierce determination. I'm like: determination can only get you so far, kids; steroids on the other hand… shiit, the record books have proven to be no ceiling.

But how did Lance never get caught? As made abundantly “the clear” by “the cream” of our generation’s athletes who have gotten caught, people who use steroids and are really successful always get caught. It’s like gchatting at work – no matter how sneaky you are, eventually your boss is going to see that goddamn orange “blonk!”ing.

But Lance kept it close. He was one of the most tested athletes in history and never tested positive. So, how did he do it?? It’s an illusion, Michael, and Lance lived that shit up.

Have you ever seen The Prestige? In it, Christian Bale has this crazy ass magic trick where he disappears on one side of the stage and reappears on the other side mad quickly. Is it teleportation? “that’s impossible.” A look alike? “no, they look too identical”. Etc. Attempting to uncover the explanation drives fellow magician Hugh Jackman mad. It was a mystery almost bigger than why Aretha Franklin tells us to take out T,C,P from the “Respect” song. But thankfully for us (spoiler alert) the mystery is solved at the end of the movie when we learn that Christian Bale has a secret twin. They live the illusion. There are two of them and nobody else in the world knows - teleportation made easy.

See where I’m going with this?

Lance Armstrong has a secret twin – maybe his name is Chance.

Lance roids, rides and wins. Chance looks the part and takes the drug tests. Sometimes he gets to stand on the podium, yellow-jerseyed and pretending to be Lance.

Or did this all just happen in an episode of Sister, Sister? What do you think? Leave yer comment.

My GPS thinks Central Market is overpriced

2010-09-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

My GPS has beef with the grocery chain Central Market: it's been calling it Central Mark-up.

I think beefing fits with the general personality of the GPS, always doing shit like interrupting important car conversations with redundant directions and sending me time and again through the cuttyest parts of town like it thinks I enjoy playing the high-risk olympics game. I’m like: “I realize that this might be a shorter distance to my destination but stop." It's probably an even faster route than the GPS actually thinks considering that I have to run through every red light. (or maybe that has been its logic this whole time).

So: I always knew my GPS was rude and stubborn but I never imagined it to be mad opinionated as well. In the video above - an On & True original documentary tentatively titled GPScandal - my GPS says "Central Mark-Up" ins of Central Market, straight up calling out C.Market for being wayy overpriced.

Which brings us to the edge of the question cliff: is this a glitch or an easter egg? coincidence or conspiracy?

Given that the Central Mark-up nickname seems to be an austin vernacular-piece, I think I'm voting for conspiracy. But I always vote conspiracy. (I'm not a birther though.)

Maybe the tale starts with a disgruntled Central Market bag-boy who turned GPS programmer to wreak revenge on the overpriced opression. Whatever the backstory, it's certainly a silly easter egg for the programmers to include.

Oh and speaking of eggs - buy yours at HEB, i hear central market is expensive.

Quick hits: Apple answering consumer doubts?

2010-09-29T06:27:00.000-07:00

It's wednesday, you aint got no job, you aint got shit to do, so i'm gonna get you highly interested in what the new ipad commercial is all about. Did you know that the movie Friday was originally entitled Wednesday to maximize that feeling of unemployment? But anyway, I'm sure you've seen this commercial. And if you haven't, click that play button.

It shows a list of semi-applicable shit that you can do with the iPad. We're not talking about how thin or light or revolutionary this is anymore, the focus is on what we can do with it: hmm, I guess apple got tired of people saying "I mean it's cool and everything, but I just don't know what I would use it for."

Guest Post from The Food Rebel: Safeway's blog and what it means for food

2010-09-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

A guest post from my mainest man Zach Gerstein. Be sure to check out his food blog: it's fresher than the produce section.

OMG, Safeway has a blog. And a Twitter account. Why Safeway needs a Twitter I don't know, but it's consistent with their awareness of the digital age: do-it-yourself checkouts, online ordering, and now a Facebook page and a blog.

The Safeway blog is full of tips for making bruschetta, advice on feeding your kids in the morning, and altogether lacking in original content. Their Facebook page is much the same.

As you know, when Facebook users 'like' something on Facebook -- be it denim jackets, Zigtech shoes, etc, -- companies like Gap and Reebok can see who 'liked' their product and use that information to customize their online stores. It provides a better, more personalized online shopping experience. Now imagine if Safeway did the same thing.

Using Facebook is second nature for my generation. That said, the executives at Safeway need to put their college interns in charge of their social media campaign, and once the 'like' button is available for fresh produce our entire food shopping experience will be altered. "Hey David, did you see Safeways new batch of white peaches from Frog Hollow Farm? I totally 'liked' it."

Social activists like Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, and Wendell Berry changed the way we view food by talking about GMOs, technological advancements in sustainable farming, and sophisticated satellite tracking systems. I see the next piece in the future of food to be the Facebook 'like' feature. By giving us the ability to 'like' what we're eating producers will gain greater access to consumer food trends, just like Gap and Reebok already do with their clothing. Maybe in 10 years a peach will have two stickers on it, one from the farm and the other a Facebook 'like' button.

Food goes socially viral, it's about time.

Read more from Zach: The Food Rebel

ebooks, mp3's, and why the publishing industry has nothing to worry about

2010-09-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

These days, the “e” that you find preceding nouns like mail and commerce is all up in the publishing industry; gimme an iBook, gimme an eBook, gimme a nook – anything but a regular b-o-o-k! The internet tends to fuck industries up, so the publishers in their titan of industry thrones are nervous: even in a cushy throne your ass can still sweat. But why should their butts be stayin sweat free? Considering how significantly the mp3 fucked up the music industry, shouldn’t we expect the ebook to knock at least a couple of zeros off of the Random House’s profit? (future NYT headline?: “ebooks send Random House into Foreclosure”).

Here’s what I’d say at the investors meeting if I was the Random House CEO: “chillll you crazy bats everything is fine!” Because shit, we can’t use the mp3-provoked decline of the music industry as a predictor of the ebook’s impact on the publishing industry, as the ebook has been raised in an environment way too different than the birth-era of the “esong”. Consider the wild difference in who was in control when the two mediums went digital.

You remember Napster and Kazaa and Limewire (which sucked, but at least was mac compatible. Damn I used to be so jealous of my pc friends). These networks didn’t develop the technology, but they digitized the song on the mass scale in invention of the idea that a song should actually be free.

These file-swapping guys were some best of the best of the best dorm-room geeks (with honors), who didn’t care about totally inverting the music industry’s business model. For them it was like: why shouldn’t the song be free? And for us it was like: yeah you’re right, why shouldn’t a song be free? And like tink says: since we all believed, it became so. The music industry says fuck, their cash crop being completely revolutionized and liberated in a dorm room fully outside of their control: no wonder the mp3 had such a profound effect on the bottom line.

But there is no Seth Green from the Italian Job chillin in the ebook story. If mp3 swapping was like some 60’s daisy age free love type shit, the ebook is the mayor of that town in Footloose. This time the medium was digitized by Amazon, by Apple, and by Microsoft: aka by the man, which almost ensures that the ebook is not at all revolutionary. The money is in control, and when the money is in control, things work out so that the money stays in control.

"Hello," as the new handshake: from Grandfathers to Slim Shadys

2010-09-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

Besides “What did you say?”, another item of the grandfather lexicon is “you can learn everything you need to know about a person from their handshake.” Although my grandpa has never told me this – he uses his other senses (as long as you speak up) as his tools of perception – the handshake bit of wisdom is certainly more native to his timeline than mine. He’s the man by the way, my grandma too. A couple of years ago she told me: “I better live for at least 3 more years so that I can find out what happens in Lost”.

A good handshake and eye contact though was all you used to need to signify your flight plan of flying right. But for the Generation “i”, professionalism is determined not just in your physical greeting, but in your eGreetings as well. (and we aren’t talking about Blue Mountain).

The email greeting is today’s handshake. The line has to be professional, and it has to be perfect. I never thought I’d spend so much time thinking about something and end up at “Hello,”. But in sending out emails to the working world, we’ve all gone neurotic over the email greeting.

“Hi” sounds too flirtatious. “Hello” sounds spammy. “Hey” is too stoner-ish. “Greetings” is like what an alien would say. “Good afternoon” might work unless they read it in the morning. “To whom it may concern” sounds like you’re receiving a letter to let you know that an estranged great uncle of yours just died. And by the way: your email only “concerns” the recipient, in that she is “concerned” about all the resume spam cluttering up her inbox.

My friend Andrew told me he always just went with “Cheers”. I was like damn, you might as well have signed off with a “Sent from my iKeg”, frat boy.

There really aren’t many good options, which is one of the reasons why I start all my emails with either: “Well well well, look what we have here,” or “I’m slim shady yes I’m the real shady”.

Because you have to find a way to differentiate yourself. Think about it: if you’re shaking mad hands, you’re going to remember the guy that scratches your wrist with his index finger mid-shake. I mean,,, that’s how my grandpa got his first job.

NJ Housewives reunion resembling political discourse: That's how you know it's bad

2010-09-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

So I watched the Housewives of New Jersey reunion the other day. Shit, I was down – thoroughly entertained by these women arguing so forcefully over so little: just like we do drama, America loves irrationality. While watching though, I started to get that feeling that you get when you are unknowingly rewatching a movie that you saw mad long before, where things start to feel more and more familiar until it’s like “ah fuck me, I’ve already seen this movie.” And when I got to the scene clipped out above, I had the ah-ha (ah-fuck-me) moment. I immediately recognized the style of argument: I wasn’t watching Bravo entertainment, I was watching politics.

In the clip, Jacqueline starts getting deep with Danielle starting at 1:20 – who apparently has got more going on in the chest-region than a dude wearing an Ed Hardy tee – over how many times Danielle played escort for Jacqueline’s fertility treatment. This is first of all the most useless of arguments. Whether Danielle went to fertility treatments or not?? Jacqueline says one thing, Danielle says another, and then they start yelling. It’s a basic (s)he said, she said situation, exaggerated by both parties screaming too much, and thinkin that any concession to the other side is as out of the question as a Teresa daughter without a bow.

Both parties yelling in an apparent zero-sum argument, which revolves around a dispute over trivial facts ::::: damn that sounds familiar.

Because it resembles public political discussion. The public debate that I’m seeing right now is like some sort of fairytale filled with jackasses – which by the way would be the theme of the Kanye and Taylor Swift collab album.

Consider: in discussing the Mosque at Ground Zero, we don’t fuck with discussions of the First Amendment, we fight about whether Obama is a secret Muslim. “He is!”, “He isn’t”. (See how I said fuck when mentioning Amendment 1, gonna go kick over trash cans now.)

In the debate over Health Care reform, politicians weren’t discussing real meat, they were too busy shouting about fascist, abuela killin’ death panels. “Fascisim!” “Not Fascism!”.

And as the audience watching our leaders yelling in disagreement over pointless details just like the NJ wives, what are we left to think?

I mean, we all know by now that it has gotten bad. It’s just that it gets harder to swallow when you realize that politicians and pundits aren’t doing much better than Jacqueline and Danielle.

If it don't twitter, you must aquit her

2010-09-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

Forget about the bad times, follow On & True on Twitter.

Is it worth it to pick up coins off the ground?

2010-09-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

I’m lookin for a diime.

But nah nah Tia, I don’t need a gf, I’m talking about the coin. And you should be talking about it too, because picking up dimes turns out to be a pretty good hourly wage.

I used to waffle over ground money. My habits were to almost always pick up fallen quarters, but live and live the dimes, nickles, pennies and pesos. Last night though, I dropped a dime at the grocery store and decided to leave it there. After walking away,I saw a woman sidle over to the dime and scoop it. “Daamn.” I said “What does she know that I don’t?”

So on my way to the car I did the math: some quick arithmetic for our benefit. Turns out: picking up dimes is equivalent to a VP/Consultant level paycheck. Let’s assume that it takes 3 seconds to pick up a dime from the initial bend to the pocket placement (although it would be more if you are a coin collector and brought along your magnifying glass). Given 3-second retrievals, we can extrapolate to find the hourly wage. 1 dime every 3 seconds, is 20 dimes every minute; or $2 a minute, which after 60 minutes is $120 an hour. $120 an hour works out to over 200k a year. Shiit, 200k? That’ll almost qualify you for Bush style tax cuts.

Most people usually say: “but is the one dime really going to make the difference.” And no, unless you’re at that moment ten cents short of the 1.25 you need to get a soda, it won’t. This though, is not about straws and camelbacks – we’re just talking about appropriate compensation for time worked.

(An aside: if in the future the Camelback company is brought down by a class action lawsuit that accuses a particular Camelback straw/sucking-tube of causing choking, or tooth decay, or whatever, “The Straw that Broke the Camelback” will be a great NYTimes headline.)

In finishing up thoughts on coinage: don’t let your friends tell you that you’re overly frugal for picking up dimes, because now you know that you are just trying to get paid like an executive. And if it so happens that the clique catches you picking up pennies (20k a year), a situation in which the paycheck defense is not as applicable, just tell them that you don’t like litter.

Pavlov's dog, my dog, and why Febreze needs a scent change

2010-09-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

I was about to write something about politics, but decided instead to talk about something that is starting to smell like shit. And I’m not thinking about all the D.C. noses like you were, but something a little more unexpected. To myself and others Febreze is starting to smell like straight up poo, which makes me think that for Febreze it is time for a change. (And when it’s time for a change, think…..)

You say: isn’t Febreze supposed to eliminate the shit smell though?

And it does…to a degree close enough for gov’t work. It’s not that the scent of Febreze is itself bad: sniffed objectively Febreze still smells like a BladeRunnin’ flower garden replicant. Febreze resembles flowers in the same way that grape flavored candy tastes like grapes: even though the representation is not even close, we all just apathize like “fuck it”.

Back on track: we didn’t grow up in Plato’s cave – a shadow is shade, and we sniff Febreze within the context of our histories – which is where Pavlov’s dog comes into play ((fetch)).

You know Pavlov’s dog. Pavlov and his friends rang a bell before each dog meal, until Spot started associating ringing bells with 2-piece chicken dinners. After a certain amount of time, Pavlov found that Spot would start salivating whenever he rang the bell. Association is a powerful thing. Curiosity killed the cat, but association put Curiosity’s friend in jail as an accomplice.

I’ve been feeling a lot like Spot recently, in that every time someone sprays Febreze I react like someone sprayed me in the face with shit.

Not that surprising. After years of stink conditioning, I can’t help but associate the smell of straight Febreze with the awful Febrezey-shit-air aftermath of people trying to cover up their nasty ass dumps.

So here is a takeaway: if you sell a product that is used exclusively to cover-up or alleviate bad smells, tastes, or textures you gotta keep your product in flux. You gotta keep Pavlov and Spot in mind. Listen when they tell you that a static cover-up is going to eventually start reminding your customers of the dog shit to be covered.

Lastly: speaking of dogs, my dog Molly used to hump her dog-bed every night after eating dinner – but I’m not sure that that’s relevant here.

From appertunity: Why do I have Shazam in my iPhone's bottom bar? Incorporating urgency

2010-09-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Here's an article I wrote for the all things iPhone blog -- appertunity.com. If you're into iPhones or Container Store type organization, you'll be down. Read the post below, or in its native habitat over at appertunity.

Since the iDawn of the iPhone era, most people have organized their iPhone apps according to frequency of use, loading up their homepages and bottom bars with the apps that they think they will most often need: phone, email, text, Twitter (for the fiends), iPonzi (for the crooks). Like hanging their coat by the door, they think: “I use it a lot, so I want easy access.” But this thought process might not actually be the most effective way to map out your apps (and neither is a color-coded scheme, Katy Perry). Instead, when organizing our apps, we have to think not just about frequency of use, but urgency of use as well.

I have Shazam in my bottom bar. (For those of you in the app cave, Shazam identifies songs that are playing on the radio or in the background and gives you the details) When I showed my friend my bar, without explaining my technique, he said “Buzz, your bottom bar: woof!”.

Here’s the explanation though: although I don’t use Shazam that often, Shazam is one of those apps, which has a very time-sensitive usefulness: when you hear a song that you like on the radio, you have to get Shazam opened and listening before the song ends or is cut off. I have missed out on a lot of songs, by being a couple of seconds late on the “Tag Now”.

So even though I don’t use Shazam as often as I do other apps, I moved Shazam to the bottom bar – a location we all know to have higher rent per sq. ft. than that Upper East Side.

We have to find an equilibrium that incorporates both urgently and frequently used apps, in order to jointly minimize the cost of time-wasted getting to frequently used apps, and value lost from not opening urgent apps fast enough. It is certainly a balance beam, and one that we should all start to tip-toe.

So, here’s what you can do: of the 16 apps on your homepage, reserve at least the bottom four spots for your quick-fire apps – such as Shazam, Camera, Twitter, Bump, iPepperSpray, etc.. I think you’ll find this ratio to be a good starting point.

But what do we do with the frequently urgent apps? Maybe Katy Perry will know

The Glee Model: How to present social issues on TV without everyone running in terror

2010-09-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

So in this year's Emmy's, Glee was nominated for 19 awards - the most nominations for any comedy series at this year's ceremony. Truthfully, I haven't watched Glee but I hear it's a good show: it's funny, has great music, and, most importantly, does a good job of both capturing the life of a high schooler and tackling social issues. Glee was one of the first shows in years, drama or comedy, to heavily feature social issues and get recognition from the Emmy voters - but why?

Other shows that received lots of nominations this year (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc) and in years past (The Sopranos, The West Wing, etc) don't necessarily approach social issues in the same way, if at all. The Sopranos, The West Wing, and Breaking Bad are all about the characters and the story. Mad Men does tackle social issues, but they are social issues from the 60s, when milk was delivered to your door step and you could smoke and drink while pregnant and no one gave a shit (ahh the good old days).

In addition, Glee is a comedy. While 30 Rock and The Office have ruled the comedic roost for the past few years, neither go deep, and are more celebrated for their goofiness (30 Rock) or absurdity/awkwardness (The Office). Shows in the past that have been well-received by critics that also spoke about issues were generally not well-received by Emmy voters. Friday Night Lights comes to mind, which similarly to Glee - it's about high school - effectively depicts the life of a high schooler, and presents social issues (racism, ethics, teen drinking, etc.). But not only does Friday Night Lights not get a lot of viewers (probably because the smart guys at NBC actually aired it on Friday nights - a cool idea given the shows title but a shitty one considering no one watches TV on Friday nights) but it doesn't get much love from the Emmy's either. But the most glaring example of the Emmy's not being down with socially substantive shows has to be the The Wire.

The Wire, which was praised by some critics as being the best show on TV while it was on the air, was the show that best tackled pertinent social issues over the last decade. It was a powerful show, hailed by critics and loyal viewers as some of the best TV ever produced. Despite all of this, the show received only 2(!) Emmy noms in 5 seasons of being on the air, and they were both for writing. None for directing or acting, not to mention, Best Drama Series. That's like if an NFL player had one of the best statistical seasons of all time and didn't receive a single MVP vote (oh wait?).

So why didn't The Wire get the recognition it deserved? It could have to do with any number of things, but this blogger believes it had to do with the way the information was presented. First, let me say that I wouldn't change a thing about The Wire. I don't really care if the show won any Emmy's, it's still a great show, and frankly I can't imagine the creators of The Wire care much either. But maybe the reason they didn't do it up at the Emmy's each year was because it was too real.

Glee presents social issues, but filters them through song, dance, and best of all comedy. These things draw people in because they are all very non-threatening. Once people are enjoying the jokes and musical portions, the show can present its viewers with its primary objective: portraying hot-button issues of American high school life (dating, sex, teacher ethics, being gay/lesbian in high school, bullying, etc). In comparison, The Wire did not filter the issues it brought to light (corruption, crime, terrible inner-city school systems, the media, etc). It addressed them in the most brutally honest way possible. They were basically saying "Here is whats going in Baltimore, and other similar urban areas in the US, right now." This may have been too much for the American public, sort of similar to the one-back rule my man prez posted about recently - it may have hit a little too close to home. The Wire may have been better off having singing and dancing police officers and drug dealers (and maybe even Jane Lynch as the no-nonsense mayor) to mask the show's true message.

Overall what I'm trying to say is that though the American public might want to be confronted with the issues in the shows mentioned in this post, we want to do so on our own terms. We might not want to see what's currently going on in Baltimore because it's frightening that a major American city is in that condition.

It's a lot easier to present controversial or jarring content when you've already entered the subject's comfort zone and made them feel more at ease. Even though my man Frank Reynolds says otherwise, the classic business tactic of "drop the bomb, then soften the blow" doesn't always seem to work. Regardless, go watch The Wire if you haven't already, and let your world be rocked. It'll be good for you.

Is Twitter really the end of literature? Just ask Drake

2010-09-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Not only the Luddites have been voting no on proposition-Twitter. For many, tweets have become the Poster-children of the Corn for the threat that the 2nd generation Web poses to the future of quality literature. The argument isn't bad: sayin that while twitter, blogs and the rest of their posse make it mad easy for us to learn about a lot of things, we don't end up learning a lot about any particular thing. In the Twitter era, we're good on breadth, but we lack in depth of information, and a lot of people argue that lasting thought and great literature are products of depth.

It's an interesting idea, but ideas get a lot less interesting when we can’t find proof that anything is actually going down (mlb trade deadline, WMD’s). So unless Twitter’s hand fits nicely inside the glove that has literature’s blood on it, we must let Twitter join OJ and Iraq. But I think that Twitter’s hand(le) is actually getting redder these days, and we can see her effect on literature most immediately in a growing rap trend.

I'm trying to find the words to describe this rap trend without being disrespectfuul.

Everyone is doing her though - the rap trend that is. Rappers don't include "like" in their similes anymore. It's been dropped and replaced like it was hot in favor of the ":".

It might have started with Drake when he said in that song: "come and find me: Nemo/ if I was a the club you know I balled: Chemo". But regardless of origin, it's now everywhere (: gas stations). As some example, Lil' Wayne says he's got girls "running back and forth: soccer team"; Ludacris is "coming down the street like a parade: Macy's". And Nicki Minaj is telling us all that "it's going down: basement".

We start seeing that while riding this new wave (: Finding Nemo 2), rappers don't have to tie together cohesive arguments. When they're using colons (: digestive system) rappers just have to say something, place a colon and then finish the line with a couple of words only somewhat associated with the initial clause (: Santa's aloof Dad). "Ohh I see Nicki, to go to the basement you usually go down stairs, so you can say that 'basement' is like it's going down." I mean I guess it's true, but it's not clever. Or magnetic, or lasting.

And it is all very Twitter. You know, we have to save space, and get to the point; drop the "like" for a ":", and just blurt out the reference you are trying to make - fuck the form of it.

Imagine arguing a point on paper, and then reformatting the argument into a Twitter version. Wouldn't the result mostly resemble these Simile 2.0 verses? And as we can see in these shitty ass lines, doesn't most of the takeaway get lost in the transition?

Youtube at a glance: don't Broadcast Yourself, listen to your favorite song!

2010-09-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

As a Labor Day hold over - not hangover - I thought it'd be alright to list out the top suggested searches that youtube spits out when we start out with a particular letter (what's the most common search line that starts with A for ex). In looking at the results, it's clear(channel) that although Youtube's slogan tells us to broadcast ourselves, we are really much more interested in listening to hit singles.

The list as of Monday, Sept 6, 2010:

A - airplanes

B - baby justin bieber

C - california gurls katy perry

D - dynamite taio cruz

E - eminem

F - funny video

G - gummy bear song

H - hey soul sister

I - i love the way you lie

J - justin bieber

K - katy perry

L - love the way you lie

M - michael jackson

N - not afriad

O - omg usher

P - paramore

Q - queen

R - rihanna

S - shakira waka waka

T - teach me how to dougie

U - usher

V - vanessa hudgens

W - waka waka

X - xbox 360 slim

Y - your love nicki minaj

Z - zombie

It seems as if the "broadcast yourself" slogan now only applies to the letter F. And maybe Z too, depending on what this zombie search term is all about.

Check back tomorrow with the labor day hangover. do we drink on labor day?

On rickshaws, segways, Austin, and mules

2010-09-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

I’ve been in Austin for a couple of weeks now, and so far I’d say that it’s been mostly like Sinead’s Ex: nothing compares.

It seems like a generally cool place. In particular, we immediately notice that Austin is deeper than most in a couple of key categories: taco trucks, music festivals, pools, farmers’ markets. But I’d already heard about all those before coming down here. What I didn’t know though is that Austin’s crown is also mad heavily laden in two other types of jewels: rickshaws and Segways.

It’s a safer bet than gold to wager that Austin has a higher per capita population of both Rickshaws and Segways than any other city in the United States. (Is it compensation for a less than public transportation system?). I don’t care - what I do care about is the commonality between these two forms of transportation: primarily, that both modes make their passengers look totally ridiculous.

Think first about riding in a rickshaw: taxi’d by manpower? I feel like it is nothing but too close to a birthday girl entrance on My Super Sweet Sixteen. “yo but, manpower transport is romantic in venice”. Yeah, although: being looped around busy ass streets, sharing the carriage with your otherhalf (aw) and the farts of the hipster pedaling you is really not that Venetian Gondolaish. (Aside: when did hipsters take over the rickshaw industry? And is it there counterculture response to the Spinning craze?) Nothing against hipsters, but riding in the back of a rickshaw can never be pulled off casually or stylishly (just like my friend Abe’s permanent chest hair sweater…, which coincidentally is also similar to Sinead’s ex: the hair is as thick as thieves).

The same can be said about Segway ridin’. We’ve all known it to be true – trying to look cool while on a Segway is like trying not to get pregnant: they say the only foolproof method is abstinence. (Has someone made that joke before?)

So here’s what I’m asking. I’ve seen bike-powered and leg-powered (and Kramer-powered) rickshaws. And since Segways were heralded to replace both bikes and legs, when are we going to see the first Segway-drawn rickshaw?

Here's a Texas themed analogy to prove the point: if you keep a lot of horses and donkeys in a pen for long enough, you are eventually going to wind up with mad mules. The same is true for Austin transportation options. When we hold high numbers of two off-the-wall forms of transportation in the same corral - especially a corral that is down for keeping itself weird - we're inevitably going to find ourselves riding in Segway-drawn rickshaws.

Who's going to be first? Ridin' Solo Segway-Rickshaw edition?

Note: Segway I think is actually coming out/came out with something they call the Segway-Rickshaw. This isn't what we're talking about though: it's more like a Segway SmartCar. Check out the impostor here.

What happened to Eminem? ::: A Swayze Tuesday Exclusive

2010-08-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

So I recently saw the music video for the Eminem song "Love the Way You Lie" and even though I don't think it's a bad song, I am troubled with how Eminem's career has changed over time. Look at the man on the left. He's young and angry and has a deep hate for anything that is considered corny, poppy, mainstream, etc. The man on the right is a totally different person. The man on the right is old and doing songs with Rihanna.

Now some may attribute Eminem's change in music to his age. I agree - it's hard to be funny and relevant when you're pushing 40. But this is true only up to a certain extent. While I think Eminem is too old to still be shitting on the Britney Spears' and 'N Sync's of the world and putting out music videos like "The Real Slim Shady", it doesn't mean he has to start doing songs with them. For God's sake on his most recent album Eminem does a song with Pink! With Pink!! I had to do a double take when I saw that. The old Eminem woulda made some to be censored slur and taken a swing at her if he was drunk and high enough - obviously not the best course of action, but a much more likely action-path for the old Em than doing a song with a pop star.

Now, I haven't listened to this song with Pink so it may be fire, but I don't need to or want to. One of the primary reasons Eminem became popular in the late '90s/early '00s was because of 'N Sync and Britney Spears. He was their antithesis. He was an escape for all the young people who weren't down with the rise of the boy-band. It's the same reason Limp Bizkit became popular, the only difference is that Eminem is actually talented and was one of the best rapper's alive in his prime, so he had staying power. These 2 factors, the timing of the popularity of teen pop and Eminem's talent, were the main contribution to Eminem becoming one of the biggest most talked about starts of the early part of the decade. Yea he had legal troubles and was controversial, but no one gives a shit unless you're actually good (I can go start spewing gay slurs and pistol whipping people right now and no one would give a shit to try and ban my records). What I'm trying to say is him doing poppy songs with Pink and Rihanna is such a rapid departure from the Eminem everyone fell in love with in the first place that it's unsettling.

Furthermore, the way Eminem approaches his subject matter is remarkably different. In "Love the Way You Lie" he tells a story of a couple who are deeply in love with each other yet very self-destructive which leads to domestic violence and other acts that are disruptive to a healthy relationship. Now, like I said above I don't think it's a bad song (the lyrics aren't great but Rihanna kills it as always) but it could be so much better considering this is familiar territory for Eminem. If you go back and listen to The Marshall Mathers LP you will notice a common theme throughout the album. For the most part, every song is about him. Whether it's his trouble with the law, his troubled relationships with his daughter/mother/wife/etc., or generally just how hard his life can sometimes be, he's always talking about himself. And this is what made him so good - he was funny, angry, sorrowful, misogynistic, homophobic, and passionate in the most honest way. I'm not saying it's good to be misogynistic or homophobic, but this is what gave his music that edge: his blaring honesty, wherever that led him. His songs about domestic violence were from his own life and experiences. The song "Love the Way You Lie" is a story about a fictional couple going through it, whereas the old Eminem would have put out a song that a) sounded wayy less pop and b) was true to self.

I will always consider Eminem one of my favorite rappers because of the quality he put out from The Slim Shady LP to The Eminem Show, but he is just different now. This seems to happen to most once-popular rappers who continue to rap into their late 30s (Jay-Z, Snoop) but the difference is that Jay and Snoop have still found a way to continue to appeal to fans without changing their style too much. Like I said before, I don't expect Eminem to continue to be obsessed with tearing down pop stars because he is older, but he didn't have to become one himself.

One final note: I was hanging out with my 3 year old cousin last weekend and Love the Way You Lie came on the radio. My cousin, who can barely talk, began to sing the song just as if she was singing a Miley Cyrus song or any other pop song on the radio. Idk... this post is depressing me. I'm gonna go blast "The Way I Am" and remember the good old days.

Why the facebook movie is doomed: a violation of the one back rule

2010-08-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

Considering the previews, as well as the fact that it arrives in a period of time for some reason worse for the quality of movies in the United States than the Franco dictatorship in Spain, I’m not sure that anyone is expecting The Social Network to be good. In case though that there was still anyone eager for Aaron Sorkin’s “Network” to exit beta and be released into theaters, I should say: keep your anticipation close to the chest, because the movie is going to be uncomfortable. Although Sorkin can script a better walk-and-talk than anyone, he will not be able to pull off the walk-and-tag-a-photo. Which isn’t his fault, he never had a chance, as the story toes to the neck violates the On & True one-back rule.

The one-back rule is simple, but not simple minded: the “present day” that any movie, song, or tv show lives in cannot contain any of the most recent details of our (listener land) real present day. Instead, the “present” of these entertainment products must be lagged by at least one time period. If the one-back rule isn’t followed, we get confused.

Some examples. Movies and TV shows released today should never mention the bad economy. They have to lag their crises by one; so they can talk about the War in Iraq, or 9/11, but all things recession have to be saved for the sequel. If New Orleans comes up in passing dialogue, your protagonist can mention Katrina, but not BP or the oil spill. You can talk about Clinton, but not Bush. And in terms of technology, your characters can text and email at ease, but when they tweet or tag or mention a video they saw on youtube it just sounds weird (but maybe if they’d autotune it…).

It all centers on keeping our present and the faux-present of the piece definitively separate. Because in order to suspend disbelief and be awed or obsessesed or provoked of thought, their world needs to stay behind the screen (or the music) and we need to stay in our seats. When Lil’ Wayne says that some girl is “down like the economy” I’m always like “wait, there’s a simultaneous recession in Lil’ Wayne’s world (not the part of NYC where people from Wayne’s World all live and work)?” Once you realize he’s here with us, it’s just like,, he’s out a damn mind. And if you want a pure Action movie with no political overtones you have to follow the one-back enemy rule. You can’t be fighting Iraq, or North Korea, or Afghanistan, cause you’re bound to make a blackwater reference and make things too political. To make an action-only movie you have to fight one-back:: Russians! Imagine if Taylor Swift started singing about falling in love through texts. “People text in fairytales too?” shiiit.

Not to mention it in two consecutive posts, but making You've Got Mail today would've been all good. Email is now fair game. Facebook though is still the newest piece, and so plotting a story around Facebook is going to feel awkward and a little too familiar. just like mark zuckerberg.

Z100 is that propaganda radio: but not on our watch

2010-08-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

I always knew that we couldn't trust Ryan Seacrest. And I'm sure he has had some sex tape/ money laundering charity scandal in the past that I completely missed, but it's cool now because I've got all the proof I'll ever need.

There's some serious shit going on at the NY radio station Z100. Some scandalous corporate strategy that if left unchecked might soon corrode the very impartiality of our radio airwaves, something that has traditionally been one of big-up mainstays of this whole free press idea, which we hear is important.. This isn't one of those Clear Channel monopoly, Google/Verizon pact to destroy the internet type conspiracies (both mad boring). This theory has sex appeal and it circles around Nicki Minaj.

It's been a couple of weeks since I was in New York, but when I left they were still playing that "Your Love" Nicki Minaj song. And considering that a Z100 hit has a half-life on the Z playlist similar to that of styrofoam decomposing in a landfill, I'm sure that they are still running it.

In the middle of the song though, Nicki raps about how something, I can't remember exactly what (probably her dojo-master boyfriend), makes her "scream like Summer Jam." But when Z plays the song, they make a point to bleep out the words Summer Jam. ... yo commish, put up the woodward and bernstein bat-signal quick, cause they've got work to do!

Summer Jam is a Hot 97 festival, (obviously). And although I realize that Hot 97 is a Z100 competitor, it doesn't at all mean that Z gets to bleep out the name of the Hot 97 hip hop show.

Isn't the bleeper just for swear words?; I thought it was an FCC device to protect the ears of our innocent, not a tool to protect the ears of the masses from whatever the fuck you don't want them to hear. I'd understand if the name of the festival was like "Summer fuck".

I mean, the pyramids of democratic glory are most likely not going to crumble to the ground at the feet of BleeperGate. And the whole thing is really barely as annoying as when those never before heard of DJ's release leaked rap songs with fake fader effects (brand new exclusive-sive-sive, featuring...featuring...featuring). But I do think that it is important to note that the bleeper might not be as objective an instrument as we might have thought it to be.

And isn't the radio dead anyway?

Who killed The Real World? A Jer.Shore/You've Got Mail story

2010-08-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

4 weeks into Jersey Shore 2.0 and by now we know that this isn’t just a fad, but a growing institution, a discrepancy which lies in the quality of viewing attention that we give it. We watch youtube things as whatever, but the experience of watching the Jersey Shore is like clicking through the photo albums of your overly slutty friendgirl on facebook; even though each subsequent picture is the same, and we know that what we are looking at is nothing but bad, we click with an attention-intensity otherwise only achieved in the 18-34 demographic using adderoll. After a year, the Situation is nothing but an icon, same with Snooki, Sammi and Ronnie are this decade’s Ross and Rachel. But for MTV, the rise of the Jersey Shore empire is somewhat bittersweet, as the Jersey Shore era has spelled the fade (not Vinny’s hairstyle) of another MTV long-horse, the Real World.

Because think about why we had been watching the Real World: certainly not out of fascination for the dynamics of seven stranger roommates interacting, hanging out, and hashing out real issues. We were more like the swillin’ NASCAR fans, really just waiting for the crashes, the explosions, the drama. Because the rest is boring as shit. We wanted to see drunk assholes fighting, throwing up, having sex and making decisions that we never would, and the Real World gave this to us, way more often than the real real world did. Then came the Jersey Shore though, Real World: Jersey Shore, bringing with it drinking, fighting, tanning and drama on levels that the Real World never could have even imagined. The Padawan becomes the Master. It was like in You’ve Got Mail (you saw it) when the Border’s books equivalent moves in around the corner from Meg Ryan’s boutique book purveyor: theres no comparison nor competition to be had between the two, Tom Hanks’ chain is a heavyweight. And the same is true here. After the Jersey lot showed up, the “drama” taking place on the Real World seemed like barely some 14-year old shit about which nobody cares. Like a Bachelor spin-off where Justin Bieber dates tweens.

But don’t blame the Situation, or Pauly, or Sammi and Ronnie who in the last ever episode of the series will finally get together for good after Sammi gets off the plane to Paris right before takeoff. Blame MTV for letting the Real World sink to what it is now. Back in the day, the Real World was about real things. In SF, one guy had AIDS, and in a time that was mad different than today.

And so, now that it is clear that the MTV land mass cannot support two simultaneous empires, something has got to change. Because just like Neon Deion did in that Pizza Hut commercial from way back, MTV certainly wants to have “both”. But how? Like this: Let the Jersey Shore be the Jersey Shore (“do you!”), and bring the Real World back to its roots, dealing with whats to be dealt with in “reality”. Do like a boutique bookstore and compete with the heavyweight by focusing on quality.

Or did Meg Ryan’s store close at the end? Who can remember, we all watched on tbs.

Angelina Jolie was the first "terror baby"

2010-08-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

So, I wrote that post about how hollywood is always turning our current stressors into themes for apocalypse movies. Now it seems that the tables have turned -- with this terror baby nonsense, life imitates art (well not really art, just "Salt").

You've heard about it, the silly Gohmert/Riddle instigated conspiracy that anchors'll turn into terrorists. They want the anti-illegal immigration ante upped; apparently the public was not up in arms enough (which babies often are ironically (up in arms, get it)) about the threat of illegal babies simply being in the USA. Babies just hanging out, who cares really, it's just a baby. The only baby that ever scared me was that talking Michellin baby. That is until now. Since we didn't care enough that illegal-babies were taking up space, Gohmert and Riddle had to find some other way to make us care -- terror babies, deep-deep-REM-sleeper cells planted in the United States since birth to achieve maximum infiltration of the evil western empire.

They want us to think that if we are lax on babies, we are left more vulnerable than we are in the 15 second post-fart window, during which we can only hope that no one walks over to our corner of the room/cocktail party.

The idea is funny on its own - terror babies, it sounds like an awful youtube video that your friend makes you watch. It's even better though that the threat probably came out of Gohmert and Riddle's movie date to see "Salt". I'd say spoiler alert, but you wouldn't be that worried about a shitty McDonalds hamburger patty spoiling, would you?

Angelina was a terror baby, a russian-bred killer who rose up the ranks of the CIA only to reveal later in the movie that her real last name is Chenkov. (As an aside, in that we know that the role of Salt was originally meant to be played by a man, it's obvious that when they decided to go female with the part they were too lazy to change the name of the character. Chenkov? that's a male russian last name no doubt. In the movies, your last name has to be gender appropriate, just like your first name. Chenkov?? That's a proper name for one of those Die Hard twins, not Angelina Jolie.)

Riddle/Gohmert saw this all happening on screen and thought "Bingo was his name-oh", but ohhh how many squares you were missing. As a rule: a plot of a bad movie usually will turn into a worse political push.

Anyway.

why we shouldn't be afraid of a terrorist attack on our water system

2010-07-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

How recently did we start sweating the security of our water supply?

In the past certain amount of years our arm hairs have begun perking to the tune of a different threat: a terrorist attack on our water supply and treatment systems. In terms of instilling widespread fear, the idea isn't bad - even in the post-9/11 world some of could still say "I don't fly, I don't live in New York, I don't work in a tall building - I'm still good, chillin at personal threat level green". But no one besides the ascetics and those aliens from M. Night's Signs can say "I don't drink water."

Water terrorism - not bad in theory. But in an attack on our roman aqueduct equivalents Al Qaeda would be overlooking two important realities.

First, we don't drink tap water. For years now it's been Fiji or Smart water only. Second and more seriously, in large part due to our (the U.S.') culture of affluence and imperial materialism we have unwittingly grown a vigorous water terrorism defense system: swimming pools, lots and lots of them.

I did some rough estimating (see the rough appendix), to find that the United States population could drink comfortably for 720 days using just the water from the 10 million private swimming pools across the United States. The expanse of our deep end gives us some breathing room.

I figure that with a 2 year cushion, we would be able to fix whatever damage the hypothetical attack had done. The government would just have to eminent domain everybody's pools and pool toys to avoid a russian revolution type attack on the pool-laden.

So, here's whats left: as long as we stop peeing in our pools, we should be fine - back down to threat level orange, boys.

Rough Appendix:

There are 10 million swimming pools in U.S. with an average of 13,000 gallons of water in each. There are around 300 million people in the U.S., and each one of us drinks close to .6 gallons of water each day. Multiply pools by gallons to get total water in pools, and mult people by gallons drunk per person to get total water drunk in the U.S. per day. Then divide the two to get 720 days of water supply in our pools. and you don't stop.

A casual prediction regarding Snoop Dogg's next verse

2010-07-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

I should start by saying that I think very highly of Father Snoop - higher than the dogg himself before he "gave up" smoking. Beyond his resume, I admire how true he is to his image: with every molecule of his being he is definitely Snoop Dogg. He could never be anything else than Snoop, which is probably why he has never gotten serious about acting.

But Snoop Dogg's rhymes have been for a long time softening ("Bikinis, tankinis, martinis, no weenies", I'm just glad he didn't include zucchinis like we thought he was going to) and now often rest on true but obvious pop culture references: e.j. "I be like True Blood, I sink me teeth in". I mean, it makes sense, but not in any special way, and True Blood is kinda soft as a reference - as soft a reference as putting your dad down as a reference for that finance job you were trying for.

So to me, it seems inevitable that Snoop Dogg is soon going to say something about a vuvuzela, the horns that blew straight through the World Cup. Right? "makin noise like a vuvuzela" or "she knows that i've always been a playa/got her blowin me like i'm a vuvuzela"

It's one of those statistical certainties. It hasn't happened yet, but it almost certainly will. I'll let you know when it happens.

invert the self-help hierarchy

2010-07-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

who all is tired of the self-help industry say yeah.

I am. Not that I read very many self-help books. But that's the problem because I am sure there are skills out there to learn and in some cases master (nunchucks). It's just hard for me to be down to read some book written by some impressively accomplished but also impressively smarmy asshole. I hate when Rachel Ray says E.V.O.O and I forever think that other self-helpers profiting off of our belief in their teachings are full of shit.

But I am down to learn new things. Which is why I think it's important that we shake up (not stir up) the self-help industry. Introducing Jack-to guides, which let beginners do the teaching. Each Jack-to guide chronicles the trials and tribulations of an absolute novice on his or her quest towards a new skill.

The first installment in the Jack-to line is "From Jack to an App", my own step-by-step tales of learning the necessary skills to build a sweet ass iPhone application. This is practically ready to go, but needs a little help to get up the hill (like Lance Armstrong these days). So...

If you are into learning but hate the experts, and think that Jack-to guides might be an alright solution, head over the the page below. I'm doing a little fundraising to get this whole jack-to thing off the ground... (some might say this could be called: from jack to something real)

you will be compensated for your donations with sweet gifts listed on the donation page..

the details: http://kck.st/aigYkr

lock your house like you lock your car: On & True presents...

2010-06-17T00:48:00.000-07:00

The DoorBooper.

We've got ideas here. I'm not going to act on this one though (thats what keeanu reeves said before filming matrix 3 by the way), so I thought I'd post it up.

How easy is it to unlock your car? you press that button, you hear that beautiful unclick and you're in. and on your way out, don't stop to check and see if that shit is locked, just make sure you hear that beep as you stride off into the distance.

Now, how annoying is it to unlock your front door.? Especially when you have things in hand, or when you are making out with that neighbor girl that you've always had a crush on and the only thing that stands between you and fulfillment is finding the right key and finding that key into the lock. the locked front door has a similar but lesser effect on the mood as condoms. except the front door lock is like the younger brother of the condom - the lock could just never live up to the accomplishments of his brother in boner killing.

Why can't we boop our way into our homes like we boop our way into our cars?

A remote to unlock your front door, just like you do your car... it'd be tight. at least tight enough to get into skymall. here's what we need to make it happen:

1. an engineer - someone to design and draw up technical designs for the booping device

2. a residential contractor - someone familiar with the industry, as well as with doors

3. a sugar daddy/mama - preferably someone like mike lawwwwry to finance this operation

Email me if you're any one of these people at prez.onandtrue@gmail.com (not you, Martin Lawrence)

Appendix: In case you think that Fobs already accomplish this:

Not true. Fobs still require that rub the fob all up on the receiver. The Fob therefore only saves you the hassle of putting the key in the lock. The easiest part in my opinion. With the HomeBooper, I will have the door unlocked before I'm passed the first step, so while you're fumbling for your fob, homeboopers will be boopin it with your neighbor after they boop open their doors.

Did those shark-skin swimsuits give swimmers an advantage: how to best smuggle grapes

2010-06-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

Below, my mainest man Biff provides specifics on exactly how much of an advantage those full bodied, made out of shark skin, pre-spermacided swimsuits gave swimmers in the past couple Olympics and World Championships. Biff writes a music blog. Check it out, and report back.

The full-body swimsuits used in Beijing in 2008 are the real deal. I researched their effects, did some number crunching, and found that all things equal the suits, on average, boosted swim times by 1.3 to 2.2 percent. Lets think about this, consider a 100m freestyle time of around 48 seconds, which happens to be around the world record as of 2000, before the super suits came of age. Simply by donning the suit that time of 48 seconds should be expected to fall by around 2 percent – 2 percent of 48 seconds is around 1 second. In swimming, 1 second is sometimes all you need. The world record for the 100m was 47.05s in 2008..

The 1500m freestyle was the only race in which the suits didn't help performance, which makes sense, since the suits both decrease mobility and drag, and constrict the muscles. For the shorter events (50, 100, 200m), drag reduction is key. So is muscle constriction, which allows for a quick burst of speed. But for the longer events (400, 1500), mobility rules. And muscle constriction does not help with long distances; it might actually even hurt.

So the mystery is solved, which helps explain why after 2009, every single world record achieved before 2008, barring the 1500 meter freestyle, had been beaten. Michael Phelps also crushed 8 events while wearing the suit (the Speedo LZR), which is now banned from competition. So his legacy is probably going to survive for some time.

appendix:

check out more of biff here: biffwooten.wordpress.com