Interesting...
- May 26
Here's a brief history of the troubled evolution of the screenplay of Big Trouble In Little China, one of the most oddball—and best movies—of the 1980's. Apparently the longstanding belief that this was originally meant to be a sequel to Buckaroo Banzai is just fiction, which makes sense to me. (previously)
May 22
Here's a tip on how to enable the old startup chime on a newer Mac (I didn't even know this was an option)! (via)
April 29
Lots of good unsolicited advice here from Kevin Kelly, the executive editor of Wired in its heyday and a bunch of other good things. Like these:
Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.
Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.
Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgement.
To make mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting and taking personal responsibility for the mistakes you make and then fixing them fairly. If you mess up, fess up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is.
April 24
At the Atlantic, George Packer argues that we are living in a failed state:
A third of the country locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying.
Totally pessimistic—you may need to day drink while reading this—but he makes a convincing point. Especially on a morning when the Great Pumpkin is telling people to inject disinfectant to clean their lungs.
April 23
Hooray! Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog is back up for all our COVID quarantine needs. To recap: it involves most of the best writers from Deadspin, who came together to cover the Super Bowl for a week, and then dissolved the site. Not necessarily sports content, not necessarily serious, but always good writing.
