Oh hey everyone. What have you been up to? We were away for a little while but Big Google says we're allowed to be on the Internet now and did we miss anything? Did anyone get fired from her job for complaining about something at a conference or anything?
I was correct! The Times Economix blog, the AP, Reuters, CNBC and the Telegraph have all agreed in the last hour the that U.S. economy is losing steam! Noooo! Our steam! Without the steam, we are lost! I don't have any steam left to give either. What about our giant steam engines? That once made all our precious steam? Sad day…. for steam and its enthusiasts. (No but seriously we're maybe as screwed as I've always said we would be, which is weird and unlikely!)
Basically all this front-page article in the Times about small company bosses laying off their workers teaches you is: they really do discriminate against childless and single people! Literally, if you have kids, you get laid off last. Also when you do finally lay off the people with children, they totally flip out on you, because they expect the corporate mommy-state to enable their God-given right to breed. It's so wonderful to have one's paranoid theories confirmed.
• Has the Internet Run Out of Ideas? "We're now at the stage where we should be getting the next wave of disruptive surprises. But—guess what?—they're nowhere to be seen. Instead, we're getting an endless stream of incremental changes and me-tooism."
• Navigating a Tightrope with Amazon. Apple "selected Mr. Bissinger’s digital sequel as a Pick of the Week, giving customers a code they could redeem online for the book… Amazon interpreted the promotion as a price drop and lowered its price for 'After Friday Night Lights' to exactly zero."
• With No Revenue, an Illusion of Value. "When small start-ups I’ve spoken with do make money, [...]
From time to time, The Awl offers space to ordinary citizens to discuss their bizarre medical issues. This is one such time!
As if we don't have enough to worry about! As a species, we no longer have natural predators (well, aside from BP and the Tea Partiers), but we have a host of what Tricky might have dubbed Post-Millennium Tension. Is the Internet going to make me dumb? Are The Machines going to kill me? Am I drinking too much, or more importantly, the right drinks? Will the Red Wings re-sign Nick Lidstrom? Am I taking the appropriate drugs to cope with all [...]
Back in January, we wrote about Kentucky v. King, when, during the arguments, we got to have Justice Scalia tell us that one important tool of policing was that criminals were stupid. Well, the joke's on us! Eight to one, the Supreme Court agrees (decision here [PDF]) that if the police "hear something" that sounds like evidence being destroyed, because they come a-knocking, they can break down your door. This is one of those special days when liberals and libertarians come together in horror! Hold us closer, Justice Ginsburg, lone dissenter!
Slate, our totally favorite website, where we all desperately want to work some day, looks at the annual statement by the good people at the Committee To Protect Journalists, who report today that 46% of journalists in jail are freelancers-and half of them work online: "A decade ago, when China first topped the list, most of those jailed were print reporters for mainstream media outlets who had gone too far in their criticism of government officials… But online journalists can't be fired, blacklisted, or, in most cases, bought off precisely because most work independently. They don't have employers who can be pressured. Chinese authorities have few options when [...]
