1. Art & Copy. This 2009 PBS documentary about advertising popped up in my Netflix recommendations. An oddly out-of-place parallel story about a man who hangs billboards, peppered with the type of statistics and classic ad examples (Daisy, 1984, Lemon) you’d expect to be bombarded with in a Mass Comm 101 class, this honestly isn’t the most exciting 88 minutes you could spend in front of a screen. But the main feature — the one-on-ones with a handful of ad legends — is worth the time if you’re into that sort of thing.
2. Shit That Siri Says has officially jumped the shark, like a month ago. Most single-serving Tumblr’s seem to fade away after only a few days, but I’ve actually had to take the unusual step of clicking unfollow on this one to save myself from the waterfall of unfunny screenshots. And does the superfluous that in the site title piss off anyone else?
3. Stamped is a very simple iPhone app that lets you give recommendations on just about anything. No five-stars or bullshit 50-100 Robert Parker scale, just an easy pick-your-own-color stamp of approval. It’s a similar concept but different execution to Oink. I’m not sure where these apps go from here, but I’ve been surprised to actually see a handful of Twitter friends sign up for Stamped in the past week.
4. TechCrunch takes a weirdly academic (or is it pseudoscientific?) look at Pinterest’s rapid growth and predicts the service will inspire hundreds of copycats and be a great success. Fine, but where is Pinterest for Men?
5. iMeme is a handy OS X app for making memes without opening Photoshop. Pick from 50+ built-in templates such as the Pickup Line Panda or import your own image. There’s even a button to send your creation to Reddit. (I guess 4chan integration is forthcoming?)

Five things, 11/27/2011

Apple employees jeered their boss’s scheme for a corporate outfit. So he had to settle for a personal uniform, modeled on shirts he saw noted designer Issey Miyake wearing

“That’s what I wear. I have enough to last for the rest of my life.”

A 22-year-old Madison man […] didn’t get what he paid for from an “escort,” called police for help, and ended up getting a $681 ticket for soliciting a prostitute.

Always something strange happening in Wisconsin.

(link via some jerk who thought I’d enjoy it)

Doing it wrong

The latest piece is by Aaron Sorkin and is mostly unremarkable aside from this gem:

The homepage on my web browser is Yahoo, which I’m told it shouldn’t be, but I’ve just been too lazy to change it. From time to time I’ll read some of the comments under stories on it to get a sense of what it must be like at a Klan meeting.

If you’re only going to read one piece in the series, make it Shirky’s, though it is a year old and a lot could possibly have changed since he wrote it.

What “the media elite” read

The message being sent here is weird: that access to the website is worth nothing. Mathematically, if A+B=$15, A+C=$20, and A+B+C=$35, then A=$0.

…

The pricing structure is also a strong disincentive to use the iPad app at all, of course. If you’re already paying $15 every four weeks to have full access to the website, why on earth would you pay extra just to be able to read the paper on its own dedicated app rather than in Safari? I, for one, prefer the experience of reading nytimes.com on the web on my iPad, rather than reading an iPad app which has no search, no links, no archives, no social recommendations, etc etc. If the NYT wanted to kill any incentive to read and develop its iPad app, it’s going about it the right way.

My first inclination after the announcement was to consider a Sunday-only subscription for it’s included online access across all devices; strangely the Sunday-only option is no longer available for Minneapolis on nytimesathome.com.

The paywall

Granted, my usage right now is very extreme. Leading up to SXSW next week, I’m heavily testing out five to ten new apps that people are hoping to launch there. But the fact of the matter is that this is the way things are headed for everyone. It will take the average user longer to hit it, but everyone will eventually hit this app wall.

In this regard, apps are in a way just the new websites. There’s only so many you can visit throughout the day and so you find the ones you like and cycle through those day in and day out. Only on the rare occasion does a new site break into this must-visit cycle.

The App Wall

The photographers who shot these photos, just like those who shoot photos in Afghanistan and other dangerous zones throughout the world everyday, risk their lives. I call that journalism. Compare that to WikiLeaks, which cowardly risks other people’s lives.

Photographing war in Brazil’s favelas

Fried lays out reasons why people tend not to be productive in the office and what companies can do about it. Hits close to home, or work, I suppose.

No working at work

Science Friday, 1993: The Future of the Internet

The future of the Internet (as heard in 1993)

Looks like he shot everything with RED. I surely can’t imagine this film being shot a few years ago. Goes to show the advances that are being made in videography technology.

I can’t tell if this is being released in theaters or what, but some of the behind the scenes stuff is just as stunning as the resulting footage. Just wow.

TimeScapes