Felix

trekonomics-blog

trekonomics:
“ The cover for Trekonomics, by Jennifer Bostic (design, types) and John Powers (artwork)
”
So happy to have helped to make this a reality

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Global Entry #protip for New Yorkers

You have Global Entry, right? Well, you might not know that it expires. Check your Global Entry card! (Yes, it is good for something: it has the expiry date on it.) If you signed up relatively early, it might be expiring quite soon.

As you might expect, renewing your Global Entry status is… not particularly easy. In fact, it requires going in for another interview. But here’s how you can, at least, avoid having to schedule something at JFK:

Start your renewal process months in advance.

Yes, this involves paying your renewal fee earlier than you might otherwise need to, but it’s worth it. Once you’ve paid your fee, you’ll get a letter inviting you to make an appointment for your interview. The appointment needs to be scheduled within 30 days of receiving the letter: that is, you have 30 days to nail down a date. The appointment does not, however, need to be held within 30 days of receiving the letter. In fact, you can set the appointment up for months in advance.

Which is great, because there’s one actually quite convenient place where you can get an appointment: the US Customs House, at the tip of downtown Manhattan.

The problem with US Customs House appointments is that they’re solidly booked out as far as the eye can see. Right now, the first available appointment is in January.

But so long as your Global Entry card hasn’t expired yet, you’re not in any rush. So go ahead and make that appointment for January, or February, or whenever you want. Put it in your diary, and when the day comes, just pop down to the financial district, go through the motions, and everything’s a lot easier and less stressful than trying to deal with the airport system.

This is the state of the art of targeted advertising. There’s a money-transfer service which thinks I’ll use them because one of their investors is Richard Branson. There’s a business-class airline which thinks I want to fly from New York to London... — This is the state of the art of targeted advertising. There’s a money-transfer service which thinks I’ll use them because one of their investors is Richard Branson. There’s a business-class airline which thinks I want to fly from New York to London for Thanksgiving. And there’s Microsoft, which thinks I want to see Pitbull in concert at a store opening. Nope, nope, nope…

The NYT Book Review has another one of those covers, this week, where it gives you the very beginnings of three different reviews of three different nonfiction books all more or less on the same subject. Let’s look at the three first sentences:
“A... — The NYT Book Review has another one of those covers, this week, where it gives you the very beginnings of three different reviews of three different nonfiction books all more or less on the same subject. Let’s look at the three first sentences:
A great deal of modern popular culture — including just about everything pertaining to what French savants like to call le nouvel âge d’or de la comédie américaine — runs on the disavowal of maturity.
When did the central aim of parenting become preparing children for success?
The notion that adulthood, despite its perks, is little more than a booby prize for surviving the scrapes and trials of youth has more or less become a cultural given in the modern age.
All three reviewers, in other words, have decided independently to follow the same (tired) general format: you pretty much know how all three of these reviews are going to read, just based on their first sentences.
This style is making its way even into fiction book reviews. Here’s another first sentence from this week:
If only for the outsize cultural imprint left by “The Hunger Games,” it is reasonable to argue that young adult fiction has done a far more aggressive job grappling with social inequality than much of what is rendered today in the name of literary fiction, a world where poor and working-class characters are so often visible merely at the periphery, if they are visible at all.
Precious few NYT blog posts or news-analysis stories are written in this manner, for a host of good reasons. Is there a single good reason to slap a phrase like “le nouvel âge d’or de la comédie américaine” on the front cover of a Sunday newspaper section, especially when it’s entirely gratuitous? Why run with first sentences which need to be read very slowly, or multiple times, just to understand what they’re saying?
Here’s an idea: Why not try to print reviews which people are likely to actually enjoy reading? We ask that of our books, it’s about time we applied the same standard to our book reviews, too.

Facebook video is evil

When I’m on Facebook, I love to consume Facebook video. The experience is fantastic: they autoplay, they’re all in-app, they’re perfectly smooth, they’re easily snackable, etc. It’s pretty much the best shortform video discovery mechanism on the internet, and Facebook’s algos are serving me up a lot of video now, almost to the exclusion of everything else.

But here’s what’s hateful about them: as someone who loves to share things I find online, Facebook videos are the worst. Literally, the absolute worst form of content on the internet. There’s a video I’d love to email to my sister. Can I do that? No. There’s a video I’d love to tweet out to my followers. Can I do that? No. Take every single form of communication that we use these days, from email and Twitter to Instagram and iMessage and WhatsApp and Skype and everything else – yes, even the services which are owned by Facebook. None of them, not one, can be used for sharing Facebook videos. (I’m not sure about Facebook Messenger, because I refuse to download it on principle.)

The only way to share a Facebook video, unless you’re a super ninja when it comes to embed codes, is to share it on a Facebook page, nearly always your own. But I don’t want to share videos with all my Facebook friends, that’s not how I use Facebook. And so Facebook video is a constant exercise in frustration, where I can share the way I don’t want to, and I can’t share the way I do want to. I can narrowly see how this might be good for the FB ecosystem, but it’s surely really bad for the FB brand as a whole.

“The worst situation is when people confuse dry and sweet,” Mr. Flosse said. “It happens quite often. They say, ‘I’d like to have a sweet wine.’ They don’t mean a dessert wine. So you have to describe exactly what you think they’re thinking, then you bring a wine, and they say, ‘I don’t like that.’ ”
His solution is to bring a sauvignon blanc, a chardonnay and a viognier and let them try. Their choice? “It’s almost always the chardonnay,” he said. “It’s not sweet. It’s a dry grape.”

NYT

Mr. Flosse is the wine director at A Voce, and this is, frankly, everything I hate about sommeliers in one quote. If you’re trying to describe your taste in white wine, and you’re not talking about dessert wines, and you use the word “sweet”, then I, for one, know what you mean, and what you mean is likely to be something in the general neighborhood of a California-style oaked Chardonnay. But Mr Flosse seems to be more interested in playing some weird kind of gotcha game, where he serves you three different dry white wines, you pick the sweetest of the three, and then he goes “that’s not sweet, it’s dry!” Ugh.

I do love these Fusion Instagrams.

The wisdom of Devin Wenig

(Or, if you repeat a word often enough, it sounds just as stupid the fourth time)

I just think we’ve hit an inflection point where technology is now so pervasive and so useful that we’re past the tipping point. And the world of e-commerce and commerce are now just seamlessly merged, and everything is omnichannel.

Today we don’t even know what e-commerce means. They’ve just come together, the on- and the offline. Now, every merchant, every retailer must have an omnichannel strategy or they won’t survive.

Nobody has an electricity department in their company; nobody has an Internet department anymore—although they did a few years ago. I suspect that within 24 months, no one will have a mobile strategy. They’ll just have an omnichannel, connected-screens strategy.

I think that in this omnichannel world—imagine, for planning purposes, that everything is for sale in every marketplace, every means, and every channel. We may never get to that world, but it’s a useful planning assumption.

The Wortham / Kardashian chronicles

July 23: Jenna Wortham outs herself, in BuzzFeed, as a massive fan of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood:

I bought 3 of the $4.99 K packs! It’s mostly for the outfits and hairstyles. The good hairstyles all cost so many points! I bought a cute shaggy bob and then I had to get the beige bathing suit thing with the sheer robe to go with it for the Triste launch party at Chateu Nuit. I would say it embarrasses me to admit that, but I’ve stopped trying to rationalize it.

July 30: Jenna Wortham files “Kim Kardashian, an Unlikely Mobile Video Game Hit” for the NYT:

The game is free to download and play, but it sells in-app purchases for things like additional energy and “K-stars,” which can be used to buy special hairstyles, accessories and clothing. Although players don’t have to spend money to advance in the game play, they are clearly enticed to indulge on the fancier items available for sale — imitating Ms. Kardashian’s own high-spending ways.

August 9: Jenna Wortham files “Living Like the Kardashians, via Smartphone” for the NYT:

The game — which may be downloaded free — encourages players to spend their real-world money on “k-stars,” a game currency that enables them to buy extravagant clothing and hairstyles for their avatars in this virtual world.

n0nbelle asked:

My last name is Salmon also. I've never met another Salmon before. "Salmon" as in a person with that last name, not the pink fish that swim upstream to mate and whatnot. ANYway, hi. Probably out of line or something, Idk, but nice to meet you, fellow Salmon (again not the fish). Question: how is your's pronounced?

Like the fish. Silent l.

neil-gaiman

The greatest cheese writing in the whole of literature.

For other breakfast things, George suggested eggs and bacon, which were easy to cook, cold meat, tea, bread and butter, and jam. For lunch, he said, we could have biscuits, cold meat, bread and butter, and jam – but NO CHEESE. Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself. It wants the whole boat to itself. It goes through the hamper, and gives a cheesy flavour to everything else there. You can’t tell whether you are eating apple-pie or German sausage, or strawberries and cream. It all seems cheese. There is too much odour about cheese.

I remember a friend of mine, buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool. Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a two hundred horse-power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at two hundred yards. I was in Liverpool at the time, and my friend said that if I didn’t mind he would get me to take them back with me to London, as he should not be coming up for a day or two himself, and he did not think the cheeses ought to be kept much longer.

“Oh, with pleasure, dear boy,” I replied, “with pleasure.”

I called for the cheeses, and took them away in a cab. It was a ramshackle affair, dragged along by a knock-kneed, broken-winded somnambulist, which his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm, during conversation, referred to as a horse. I put the cheeses on the top, and we started off at a shamble that would have done credit to the swiftest steam-roller ever built, and all went merry as a funeral bell, until we turned the corner. There, the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses full on to our steed. It woke him up, and, with a snort of terror, he dashed off at three miles an hour. The wind still blew in his direction, and before we reached the end of the street he was laying himself out at the rate of nearly four miles an hour, leaving the cripples and stout old ladies simply nowhere.

It took two porters as well as the driver to hold him in at the station; and I do not think they would have done it, even then, had not one of the men had the presence of mind to put a handkerchief over his nose, and to light a bit of brown paper.

I took my ticket, and marched proudly up the platform, with my cheeses, the people falling back respectfully on either side. The train was crowded, and I had to get into a carriage where there were already seven other people. One crusty old gentleman objected, but I got in, notwithstanding; and, putting my cheeses upon the rack, squeezed down with a pleasant smile, and said it was a warm day.

A few moments passed, and then the old gentleman began to fidget.

“Very close in here,” he said.

“Quite oppressive,” said the man next him.

And then they both began sniffing, and, at the third sniff, they caught it right on the chest, and rose up without another word and went out. And then a stout lady got up, and said it was disgraceful that a respectable married woman should be harried about in this way, and gathered up a bag and eight parcels and went. The remaining four passengers sat on for a while, until a solemn-looking man in the corner, who, from his dress and general appearance, seemed to belong to the undertaker class, said it put him in mind of dead baby; and the other three passengers tried to get out of the door at the same time, and hurt themselves.

I smiled at the black gentleman, and said I thought we were going to have the carriage to ourselves; and he laughed pleasantly, and said that some people made such a fuss over a little thing. But even he grew strangely depressed after we had started, and so, when we reached Crewe, I asked him to come and have a drink. He accepted, and we forced our way into the buffet, where we yelled, and stamped, and waved our umbrellas for a quarter of an hour; and then a young lady came, and asked us if we wanted anything.

“What’s yours?” I said, turning to my friend.

“I’ll have half-a-crown’s worth of brandy, neat, if you please, miss,” he responded.

And he went off quietly after he had drunk it and got into another carriage, which I thought mean.

From Crewe I had the compartment to myself, though the train was crowded. As we drew up at the different stations, the people, seeing my empty carriage, would rush for it. “Here y’ are, Maria; come along, plenty of room.” “All right, Tom; we’ll get in here,” they would shout. And they would run along, carrying heavy bags, and fight round the door to get in first. And one would open the door and mount the steps, and stagger back into the arms of the man behind him; and they would all come and have a sniff, and then droop off and squeeze into other carriages, or pay the difference and go first.

From Euston, I took the cheeses down to my friend’s house. When his wife came into the room she smelt round for an instant. Then she said:

“What is it? Tell me the worst.”

I said:

“It’s cheeses. Tom bought them in Liverpool, and asked me to bring them up with me.”

And I added that I hoped she understood that it had nothing to do with me; and she said that she was sure of that, but that she would speak to Tom about it when he came back.

My friend was detained in Liverpool longer than he expected; and, three days later, as he hadn’t returned home, his wife called on me. She said:

“What did Tom say about those cheeses?”

I replied that he had directed they were to be kept in a moist place, and that nobody was to touch them.

She said:

“Nobody’s likely to touch them. Had he smelt them?”

I thought he had, and added that he seemed greatly attached to them.

“You think he would be upset,” she queried, “if I gave a man a sovereign to take them away and bury them?”

I answered that I thought he would never smile again.

An idea struck her. She said:

“Do you mind keeping them for him? Let me send them round to you.”

“Madam,” I replied, “for myself I like the smell of cheese, and the journey the other day with them from Liverpool I shall ever look back upon as a happy ending to a pleasant holiday. But, in this world, we must consider others. The lady under whose roof I have the honour of residing is a widow, and, for all I know, possibly an orphan too. She has a strong, I may say an eloquent, objection to being what she terms `put upon.’ The presence of your husband’s cheeses in her house she would, I instinctively feel, regard as a `put upon’; and it shall never be said that I put upon the widow and the orphan.”

“Very well, then,” said my friend’s wife, rising, “all I have to say is, that I shall take the children and go to an hotel until those cheeses are eaten. I decline to live any longer in the same house with them.”

She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of the charwoman, who, when asked if she could stand the smell, replied, “What smell?” and who, when taken close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard, said she could detect a faint odour of melons. It was argued from this that little injury could result to the woman from the atmosphere, and she was left.

The hotel bill came to fifteen guineas; and my friend, after reckoning everything up, found that the cheeses had cost him eight-and-sixpence a pound. He said he dearly loved a bit of cheese, but it was beyond his means; so he determined to get rid of them. He threw them into the canal; but had to fish them out again, as the bargemen complained. They said it made them feel quite faint. And, after that, he took them one dark night and left them in the parish mortuary. But the coroner discovered them, and made a fearful fuss.

He said it was a plot to deprive him of his living by waking up the corpses.

My friend got rid of them, at last, by taking them down to a sea-side town, and burying them on the beach. It gained the place quite a reputation. Visitors said they had never noticed before how strong the air was, and weak-chested and consumptive people used to throng there for years afterwards.

three men in a boat jerome k. jerome

Felix — trekonomics: The cover for Trekonomics, by...

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.