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explanations
mysteries
The "Nefarious O Value" Facebook Stalker Theory
Yesterday we posted five theories about the mysterious Facebook Stalker feature—the one some people think is an undercover way to identify those ex-lovers who are still pining for you, although that is totally unconfirmed and probably false. But we have to admit, none of those theories involved any weird computer language or technical terms. But an astute reader has sent us a theory that, based on the fact that I can't really understand its technical talk, sounds very insightful. We'll call it the "Nefarious O Value" theory. The full email is after the jump. More »
theories
Banksy Unmasked?
Banksy: millionaire street artist, fierce cultural critic, celebrity darling of the art world. The man's prestige has been immeasurably enhanced by his anonymity. He insists on it, and it gives him an air of mystery that only increases his allure to the media, fans, and collectors alike. An alleged photo of him was widely circulated last year, but it certainly didn't result in his real name being printed in his omnipresent media coverage. Those in his inner circle insist on strict concealment of his identity. Theories, of course, abound. But today, Bucky Turco at Animal NY believes he's stumbled upon Banksy's true identity. Combined with some corroborating evidence we got ourselves, the case is plausible—though far from proven. Now this would be big news: More »
journalismism
Washington Post Reports: Powerful People Are Powerful
David Rothkopf, a highly educated scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, penned an explosive op-ed for the Washington Post that could upend the global power structure and spark revolution across the earth. Because it seems that our world—far from being one in which each of the 6 billion humans shares in an equal portion of the political, economic, and cultural power, as you had believed—is actually run by a "superclass" of people who control everything. Rothkopf reports, in direct contradiction to everything that your third grade social studies teacher promised you, that very powerful people are, in fact, very powerful. Bummer! More »
television
Three Reasons Why No One's Watching TV Dramas
Since the strike ended (feels like three years ago) shows like Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, and House have seen ratings dip. Television people—who are always scratching their heads, every day, it is their whole job—are running around, desperately trying to come up with ANSWERS. Bill Carter ventures to help them in the New York Times today, saying it's serialized story lines that are keeping people away, while The TV Addict wonders if it has anything to do with videogames. What's happening here? Why is everyone tuning out? Find out after the jump. More »
LOSSST!
This "Time Loop" Lost theory is crazy and a bit garbled, but some interesting questions are raised, namely: does the author like living in the basement?
This "Time Loop" Lost theory is crazy and a bit garbled, but some interesting questions are raised, namely: does the author like living in the basement?
men and women
Sports Vs. Business: What Men Want
Deadpan actor and much-derided financial commentator Ben Stein has a long article in Best Life Magazine this week in which he speculates about why there are so many attractive women on TV business news channels these days. You can practically see Stein's drool spattered about the pages of the article, and he's drawn some (justified) mockery for the leering tone of the story. But he does raise an interesting question about the profusion of "Money Honeys" on TV. Compare that to the situation in sports broadcasting; it's full of ex-jocks and men's men, not Fox-branded eye candy. Why the discrepancy between the two traditionally male provinces of business and sports TV? You have come to the correct place to hear a theory. More »
journalismism
Stanley Fish Finds Right And Wrong Spectacularly Uninteresting
Stanley Fish, the author, law professor, columnist, and one of the Times' innumerable bloggers, thinks it would be helpful if readers know exactly what his motivation is with all this highbrow writing he does. "Given a choice between being trivial and being ethical in any direction whatsoever, I'll take trivial (although I might want to debate the judgment), because ethics is not something I'm doing in these columns," he explains in his latest entry. How about superfluous, then? Would you consider being pompous and superfluous, Mr. Fish? Sure you would! More »
social studies
Rules Of The Game: Text Flirting
Does this sound right? If you are flirting with someone via text message and you make two spelling errors in two consecutive text messages, especially when the second spelling (actually formatting) error is found in the second text message which is actually a correction of the first, you should immediately cease that flirtation. Because if you can't flirt intelligibly in one-sentence increments correctly, how could you possibly function adequately within the confines of a relationship? Also because then are you supposed to send a third text message correcting the second? That's just silly. Also something that is an issue with flirting via text message on the iPhone is how easily predictive text and clumsy thumbs can render a relatively benign and, in one texter's mind, adorable message completely creepy. For instance, "Spending time with you makes me happy" morphs into the absurd and weird "Spenging time with toe make me happen."
theories
NYT.com: Weight Way Down, Traffic Way Up
Each Friday, 'New York Times' deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman and NYT.com General Manager Vivian Schiller write an in-house email on the subject of The Future and The Internet and The Newsroom. This week: "The number of people coming to our website has really popped. The TechCrunch blog, a respected source, attributes this to the dismantling of our Times Select pay wall. It's reasonable as a hypothesis but premature as a conclusion. Lots of things affect Web traffic so it's hard to isolate individual factors. One thing that obviously has a big impact is news. Here's another, maybe not so obvious: Page weight.... In June, the home page took an average of 1.52 seconds to load. Heavy. For September, the first month our new page-lightening technology was fully installed, the load time dropped to 1.18 seconds, roughly a 22% improvement even though our page views grew by 19% over the same period (574 million in June to 683 million in September). Our performance has continued to improve since then: October: 1.15 seconds, November: 1.14, and so far in December: 0.96, while traffic continues to grow."
theories
