On Crack Brownies
I'll have to move (and upgrade the quality of) the salt in my go-to recipe to the top of the batter.
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On "Read It Later": Republishing is Theft
@dudek I get most of my links via Twitter, either directly or from pages that I originally went to via Twitter. Tweets are ephemeral, and there are a lot of them. I need to capture those links, read what I can now, read the rest later.
If I'm on my laptop I, like commenter finn, open each link in a new tab, read the short ones now, the longer ones later. Just regular web surfing, no one gets hurt.
But if I'm on my iPad or my phone, I can't open 40 browser tabs. So I throw the longer reads to Instapaper to read later.
With Instapaper I'll [usually] eventually read your content. Without Instapaper, I'd just say "I don't have time to read this now, so I guess I'm SOL", and never read it at all. Which do you prefer?
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On How To Tell A Playwright You Didn’t Like His Play
Utter rubbish, and hopefully more tongue-in-cheek than I suppose.
In the software business, I've had to dance around my own "playwrights" for years. Executives who think they know how the product should work. Marketing people who KNOW they know how the product should work. Engineering managers (like me) who think they know how the product should work. Arrogant engineers who think just because they're smart and write delicious witty efficient code, they know how the product works and how the audience (users) think.
I always say the same thing: put it in front of a customer/focus group/audience, do not let the author(s) say a bloody word, let the audience experience it, then have them quizzed in a non-confrontational way by an uninvolved third party. Be sure that the uninvolved third party leaves the room on some pretext for quite a few minutes, and eavesdrop to see how the audience talks among itself.
That audience, focus group, what-have-you will give you a brutally honest assessment that no peer, no colleague, no competitor, no fellow suffering author will ever give you. And they'll do so without any hints, suggestions, explanations of motivation, etc etc that you would DIE to give them. Because they're an audience watching a product of your work, not a class taking a seminar in an evolving process of yours with your ongoing guidance.
Then you can either slink home to get properly drunk and do a rewrite, or go out with any and all of your friends/colleagues with your head held high. You can know that no matter what direct or backhanded or passive-aggressive or silent-assent criticisms they may levy, you have produced a play that makes the audience laugh. Or think. Or cringe. Or whatever you might have wanted to evoke in them, and perchance even a bit more.
This requires intestinal fortitude, but it is ever so much more rewarding than taking one's cues from one's colleagues and friends, no matter how much one may respect and/or fear them.
Finally, if you are the type who feels that critical and collegial acclaim is more important than audience accolades, you are likely in the wrong business. Pontification complete!
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On Habanero Salsa: Chase The Dragon
@Stephen Miller@facebook To everything Stephen Miller said here, I say ditto.