Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

This really is a full service blog.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

This fight is for everything.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Evening Open Thread: Readership Capture

Monday Evening Open Thread: Readership Capture

by | 111 Comments

This post is in: ,

(Yes, this is snark)

(But this — it’s Matt Bai, so maybe not?)

Apart from flavor-of-the-moment media platforms about which NOBODY CARES DAMMIT, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  2. 2.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I think the only thing worse than Twitter are these hideous mashups of twitter conversations.

  3. 3.

    Elmo

    First night of a weeklong biz trip to Chicago. So I’m in the hotel bar, already +2, picking stuff off the menu at random because food is my sole entertainment when I’m on the road.

    Well. Food and Amazon Prime streaming video of stuff my wife wouldn’t be interested in.

    And wine, of course.

  4. 4.

    FlyingToaster

    The problem comes in when President Huckleberry Graham starts tweeting.

    Nothing good comes of this.

    [the only social media I can stand is twitter; bobic is probably right.]

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    these hideous mashups of twitter conversations.

    You mean they are supposed to be conversations? WTF?
    #FML #WhatAreWeGonnaDoNow #KeepRollinRollinRollin

  12. 12.

    geg6

    Prepping to work the polls for my friend who is running for Register of Wills in tomorrow’s primary. I don’t expect him to win, given the horrible corrupt machine our county Dems are, but we need more people to challenge these fuckers and, if they do, one of them will eventually win. Eventually.

  14. 14.

    lamh36

    posted on last thread, but it’s more relevant here:

    Ok, so I see lotsa of people tweeting @POTUS, do they NOT realize that EVERY tweet to this account is being archived?

    I mean I noticed this when I saw @POTUS first tweet. It say so on the page.

    On Twitter, the White House automatically archives “tweets” from official White House accounts, “direct messages” sent to or from official White House accounts, and “mentions” (tweets from other users to official White House accounts; these tweets contain an @ and the username of an official White House account (e.g., @WhiteHouse).

    Reading this Gawker post made me LMAO at people really seem NOT to understand how the internet works sometimes.

    The White House Is Archiving Every Tweet Begging @POTUS for Sex

  15. 15.

    M. Bouffant

    Your First Amendment at work: First time I checked @POTUS there were plenty of replies/tweets at him. Next time I looked they’d all disappeared, like magic.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    I think the only thing worse than Twitter are these hideous mashups of twitter conversations.

    No. Even worse are the people who do a whole series of numbered tweets, so they’re effectively making a short blog post one sentence at a time. Then somebody assembles them into a slideshow. If you can’t say it in one or two tweets, you’re missing the whole point of the medium.

  18. 18.

    Pogonip

    Hello shaper-uppers, sorry I did not report in yesterday. It was a horrible crappy week with very little in the way of program-sticking. I hope everyone else did better than I did–I bet you didn’t do any worse!

  20. 20.

    BruceFromOhio

    bwahaha, I think this is hilarious, and I just fucking hate Twitter and everything about it. I could see the four of them (Obamas and Clintons) running dizzying rings around the rubes this way.

  22. 22.

    Eric U.

    I have one of these new-fangled twitter accounts, but I don’t know how to use it. Which makes me feel old and pathetic. Or disinterested. Something like that

  23. 23.

    Tree With Water

    Maybe if the president had skinned BP alive like the corporation justly deserved, instead of looking forward and not back, its criminal negligence might yet be at the forefront of everyone’s political consciousness. The people of the United States would have cheered had that corporation been dismantled, as it damn well should have been.

  25. 25.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @efgoldman: I hope you don’t have to wait too long. Maybe someday we can 3D print new organs for ourselves. That’s what the science magazines tell me, anyway.

  26. 26.

    Elmo

    @Pogonip:
    I gave myself a pass today because travel and flying and packing were too much to cram into a morning even without my treadmill.
    Tomorrow without fail!!

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    I don’t twit.
    I don’t face.
    I don’t book.
    I think I’m better off for it.

    That’s all very well, but you do Juice.

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    @Tree With Water: Man, you are just all over the damned place. Can’t you just pick a fucking box we can put you in, then appropriately castigate you for your views?

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    Congratulations on being on the list. The first step of many, I assume, but obviously a necessary one. Please keep us as posted as you feel you want to.

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Either 3D printing, or growing new organs from stem cells. I believe there’s some promising research going on there as well.

  32. 32.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @efgoldman:

    For so long that I don’t remember when I started.

    I started not long ago (juicing) so I feel like the youngest in the family. I am intrigued sometimes when commenters talk about dear-departed trolls or front pagers who retired from the game. I feel like I missed a bunch of wild stuff.

    Is there a balloon-juice greatest hits link somewhere?

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    @efgoldman:

    Didn’t they have to do multiple-second exposures in those days?

    As I understand it, they were operating at an ISO speed somewhere around 1, which would let you do use an exposure shorter than a second in direct sunlight- which most of those pictures seem to be. That’s still very slow by modern standards, and they mention that a tripod would be absolutely required, but the multi-second stuff was mostly the early technology in the 19th Century.

  35. 35.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @SiubhanDuinne: From what I understood, the frame is 3D printed, and then the stem cells attach to the frame. Then the frame is discarded or dissolved?

  37. 37.

    Pogonip

    @Germy Shoemangler: There should be. The mustard, the mopping, some incident where Cole was trapped on the roof, or maybe it was a tree, the Best of Tunch. I hope Cole sees this and starts a Classics category.

  40. 40.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Pogonip: Sometimes someone will mention some old troll by name, and others will chuckle and nod in a sardonic way. It all goes over my head, but I find it entertaining nevertheless.

    Are there many front pagers who no longer… page?

  42. 42.

    sharl

    @efgoldman:

    I got the official word today that I have been approved for the kidney transplant list. Now it’s a waiting game. Nothing’s going to happen very soon.

    Congrats! Like someone already said, hope you don’t have to wait too long.

  43. 43.

    Gravenstone

    @Tree With Water: You do realize that the president, as an individual or as an official role cannot flay corporations, regardless of how “deserving” they might be? Or does the concept of “due process” completely escape your monomaniacal worldview?

    I swear, you don’t just want a unicorn, you want the whole fucking enchanted forest.

  46. 46.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
    I can’t tell if you’re being snarky! This is a satirical article poking fun at the MRAs who are so angry at the new Mad Max movie. I just saw that movie, and it’s awesome, and yes after Max, the next six most badass people are grannies. Furiosa might be more badass than Max. It’s kind of hard to tell. They’re both pretty amazing. Also, the movie specifically says several times that women are not objects. So, you know, the MRAs are having hysterics.

  47. 47.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @jl:

    Things were in color back then? I thought everything was in black and white, just like the photographs!

    I’m convinced people in the future will think we lived in a flat universe because our photos and videos were not 3D (except for a few action and sci-fi films).

    EDIT: Looking at one of the old photos from 1930 of young ladies on the beach, I find myself falling in love with a young woman in the far right of the frame. She looks contemporary to me, like a time-traveler who wandered into the shoot.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Either 3D printing, or growing new organs from stem cells.

    I think you’d probably wind up with a mix of the two. The 3-D printer would create a matrix that could then be seeded with stem cells that would grow into the organ. That would give you results much faster than trying to grow from a small cluster of cells.

  50. 50.

    Gravenstone

    @Germy Shoemangler: Take a dive through the archives some day. You’ll return wiser, scarred mentally and emotionally, but wiser.

    ETA: and check the dropdown of front pager contacts. Then contrast it to the number of actual active front pagers.

  54. 54.

    JPL

    @efgoldman: Many decades ago, a friend had a kidney transplant and she is still doing great. Hopefully, the time comes soon because life gets so much easier.

  56. 56.

    satby

    @Elmo: Hey! I’m in Chicago on Wednesday, how about a Chicago meet-up ? Anyone else in? I’m only an hour away, so if another night works better that’s ok too.

  63. 63.

    satby

    It was a beautiful day, I puttered around the house getting some long deferred stuff done and hearing from friends all over the world. Now sitting on my deck with a nice merlot watching the hummingbirds bicker and feed at the two feeders and the dogs try to catch frogs in the pond.
    Life is good!

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    @Germy Shoemangler: Thank you. Look forward to the color pics.

    @efgoldman: Great about the list. Fingers crossed for you.

    And you do facechat with the darling granddaughter, so you are not a total Luddite.

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    Just noticed the first lightning bug of the summer. Out on deck, thinking we might get rain, but it seems to have blown over. Again.

    It’s cooler, though.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    I like Twitter. If you’re interested in one specific thing you can find an expert (or obessive) on that specific topic and that person then interacts with other obsessives and they all link to what they’re reading on that subject.

    I don’t even have an account and I follow certain people all the time. It’s weirdly efficient and focused. You’re not really reading what they say. You’re reading what they link to.

  78. 78.

    Shana

    @Elmo: Check out Heaven on Seven. They have a location just off Michigan Ave. near the Marriott, but it may be closed for renovation. The original location, on the 7th floor of an office building in the Loop (hence the name) is open for dinner during the renovation I believe. Great cajun food. The chef/owner trained with Paul Prudhomme.

  81. 81.

    Chris

    @Roger Moore:

    No. Even worse are the people who do a whole series of numbered tweets, so they’re effectively making a short blog post one sentence at a time. Then somebody assembles them into a slideshow. If you can’t say it in one or two tweets, you’re missing the whole point of the medium.

    THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

  83. 83.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Roger Moore: Also I bemoan the proliferation of picture memes. I have a theory that Egypt started with an alphabet and the full-on written word but eventually devolved into tweets, then picture memes then finally hieroglyphs.

  85. 85.

    Roger Moore

    @Chris:
    I feel as if everyone on Twitter should remember Pascal’s Apology for writing a long letter because he didn’t have time to write a short one. Tweeters should focus on pith rather than immediacy.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    I like mildy “famous” people (in a specific area) because they’re all business. I don’t want to hear about the airport you’re sitting in or what the weather is or what you’re eating or (worse) planning on eating. If I’m not mistaken all that belongs on Facebook, which I don’t read.

  93. 93.

    the Conster

    Twitter has tomorrow’s news today, and it goes around and through the gatekeepers. It’s conversation and information sharing that goes on without any filtering from the MSM, which is universally reviled. I like the immediacy of it. It’s truly the hive mind.

  97. 97.

    Botsplainer

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    EDIT: Looking at one of the old photos from 1930 of young ladies on the beach, I find myself falling in love with a young woman in the far right of the frame. She looks contemporary to me, like a time-traveler who wandered into the shoot.

    She doesn’t quite belong, does she?

  98. 98.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman: Congratulations, and I sincerely hope you’re wrong about the ‘nothing’s going to happen very soon’ part!

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @the Conster:

    I like that about it too. It’s egalitarian. If media people go on it they have to respond to the angry mob because they’re just like everyone else. :)

  101. 101.

    the Conster

    @Kay:

    Yup. I had a back and forth with Jay Rosen today, and the feedback around CNNs report that Lindsay Graham was going to announce a run for president by announcing a 10,000 troop “surge” to quickly train the Iraq army to fight ISIS was gratifying to see. I don’t need to wait to hear what the Morning Joe sock puppets tell me about Lindsay’s serious plan for the Middle East.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    This is why Twitter is good- I give you David Frum:

    Soaring salaries for CEOs indicates desperate shortage of executive talent. Stagnant wages below indicates labor glut for lower 99.9%. So ..

    He goes on to call for importing “super elite” people.

    I feel like he would be less true to himself in a more thoughtful, measured medium and then we wouldn’t know how horrible he is ! :)

  104. 104.

    danielx

    @the Conster:

    …CNNs report that Lindsay Graham was going to announce a run for president by announcing a 10,000 troop “surge” to quickly train the Iraq army to fight ISIS…

    Yeah, that’ll work. We’ve been training those guys for ten years, and what they seem to be best at is donating their equipment (paid for by you and me) to the bad guys. Yet another Huckleberry brainstorm…on the other hand, you can’t really blame him for looking at the current crop of Republican possibles and thinking “why not me, I look as good or better than these assholes..”.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @the Conster:

    Did he write the thing about how media are horribly compromised and conflicted on Iraq and “access journalism” and they can’t get past it? I think there’s truth to that.

    In a weird way I think “data journalism” is an over-correction, maybe a response. “We can’t trust any of the things powerful people tell us because we keep getting bamboozled so we’ll just analyze these charts!”

  106. 106.

    the Conster

    @Kay:

    It was about what I felt was his misplaced concern that ABC wouldn’t let Stephanapolous report on any of Clinton’s campaign. I said who cares – anyone who asks about flag pins is not going to be missed.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @the Conster:

    It would be a horrible distraction anyway because they’d just end up talking about him for 6 months. It’s a bad idea.

    Ultimately I think they have to decide whether they’re media personalities or reporters.

  108. 108.

    the Conster

    @efgoldman:

    That was my point. There is no value to Stephanopolous, when there are any number of useless hacks who can ask that kind of question.

  109. 109.

    the Conster

    @Kay:

    There are no reporters on national broadcasts any more – there are talking hairdos without a thought in their heads, or there are corporate hacks like Jonathan Karl, Sheryl Atkinsson, Andrea Mitchell. That’s why I like Twitter – I follow reporters, who will never be seen on your TV.

  111. 111.

    PaulW

    It’s not that he tweets. It’s a question if he retweets your sh-t forward, ’cause THAT will matter.

    Answer back, dammit. I’ve sent five tweets to ya, boss.

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