The Social Network was one of my favourite movies of 2010, needless to say it was something I looked at a couple of times. The story speaks volumes to entrepreneurs and geeks, and anyone who has an idea, or knows of one that could be improved, that others might find cool.
It was also a film, that through many of its lines, also spoke I thought, to bloggers and online publishers. While a lot of lines could be quoted in a variety of contexts, here are a few that I thought were especially relevant to writers working online.
I need to do something substantial in order to get the attention of the clubs.
The blogosphere has its own variation of the final clubs — the undergraduate social clubs of Harvard University — though such things don’t appeal to everyone… I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. In other words always do your own thing.
I shouldn’t have written that thing about the farm animals. That was stupid. But I was kidding for gods sakes. Doesn’t anybody have a sense of humor?
Humour is subjective… anyone who has been writing online for even a short period of time will appreciate this comment.
The internet’s not written in pencil. It’s written in ink.
Ain’t that the truth? Need I say more.
It won’t be finished. That’s the point. The way fashion’s never finished.
If you’re onto a good thing you’ll be doing far more than merely writing and posting articles.
We don’t even know what it is yet. We don’t know what it is. We don’t know what it can be. We don’t what it will be. We know that it is cool. That is a priceless asset I’m not giving up.
Never underestimate the value of cool in the rush to monetise, or turn a profit.
He was right. California’s the place we’ve gotta be.
You might already live in California, but that’s not the point, your blog could seriously take you places and you need to be ready to move with it.
We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re gonna live on the internet!
I suspect bloggers and online publishers realised this well before Facebook came along.
Originally published Tuesday 28 December 2010, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
The more common, well-known, Flat and Phillips screw heads are just two of some 28 varieties of screw drive type… you may therefore need to expand the range of screwdrivers you own in case you encounter any of the not so common sorts. Image via Apartment Therapy.
Originally published Wednesday 15 December 2010.
Here’s your chance to see the work of Australian graffiti and street artist Sofles.
Sofles has burst from the anonymity of the graffiti world onto a public stage in a manner comparable to the explosive impact of his images rendered on canvas, brick, paper and human bodies. Witness blank space being filled with imagery from the over-running cup of his enigmatic mind.
Ladies of the Letterform is quite possibly Lo-Fi Collective’s last ever exhibition so make sure you don’t miss it. The show takes place at Lo-Fi Collective, Floor 3, 383 Bourke Street, Surry Hills, Sydney, on Thursday, 16 December, 2010 at 6pm.
Update: I posted some photos from the show on my Flickr page.
Originally published Friday 10 December 2010, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
Since I can’t get enough of minimal design and illustration… graphic designer Eric Slager’s Minimalist Muppets illustration series.
No Cookie Monster then?
(Thanks Jessica)
Originally published Monday 6 December 2010.
After the German cities of West Berlin and East Berlin were completely partitioned following the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, accessing one side of the city from the other — was at first — pretty much out of the question for all but a small number of people.
One group unaffected — to a degree — by the separation of the city were West Berlin train commuters who used a small number of underground services whose lines crossed into parts of East Berlin, as they travelled from one area of West Berlin to another.
While trains still ran through East Berlin, they did not stop at stations on the eastern side of the border. Many of these stations closed during the period the city was divided by the wall were dubbed “ghost stations”, and were usually heavily guarded by East German troops.
The YouTube video, above, contains footage filmed from the driver’s compartments of West Berlin trains as they passed through a couple of East Berlin’s ghost stations.
Update: unfortunately the original YouTube video has been taken down as a result of a copyright claim.
Originally published Monday 6 December 2010.
