OK Tumblr, OK Tumblr, we get it. You don’t like the nav bar on our theme so you’ve completely covered it with your own. It’s like you designed it just to cover the SFB nav bar.
A job posting at the prestigious foreign policy magazine for an editorial assistants job.
They want you to write, pitch, fact-check and research, five days a week, for at least 35 hours a week. A full-time job, in other words.
How much are they willing to pay? Nothing at all. They want your labor, for free. And what do they offer in return? Experience. That’s it.
If you’re wondering why it’s hard to find people from low-income backgrounds in elite journalism—which, disproportionately, means people of color—look no further than this. The only people who can afford to work full-time for free come from wealth, and generally, if you’re wealthy in America, you’re white.
It’s a barrier to entry that keeps the field closed to everyone but our affluent, (almost certainly) Ivy-educated elites. That’s a problem.
Important comment above. (Also relevant.)
163 people killed in Syria today, according to a local activist committee. The fact that one of them was a Michigan woman has turned heads at the State Department; according to both AP and John McCain, the regime has recently gained the upper hand in the two-year-old conflict, which has claimed roughly 80,000 lives so far. source
“Basically, after all that’s gone on, and with Michele Bachmann now stepping down, I’ve been talking to my friends and family and frankly, the feeling is, ‘Mission Accomplished.’ She wasn’t representing the people of the 6th District appropriately, and now she won’t be representing them. There’s no way anyone could run and win who would be worse than Michele Bachmann. So we accomplished that task.”
I asked Graves if he was claiming credit for ending Bachmann’s political career, but he demurred. “I don’t know everything that went into her decision,” he said. “Clearly, it was going to be a competitive race. All through Memorial Day weekend, she was in the district, working the crowds. Obviously something happened to cause her to believe that she shouldn’t run again. We’re very happy she dropped out. The country can do better.”
And so now, there suddenly aren’t any Democrats or Republicans running to represent Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. This will change, of course, but it’s not every day that both candidates in the most highly-watched congressional race in the country drop out within 48 hours of one another. source
I love those final moments of a Spelling Bee. Watch 13-year-old Arvind Mahankali stifle his smile as it dawns on him, “Knaidel. I’ve got this.” Then cut to the proud little brother who can’t contain his excitement, the beaming parents, and finally, the winner, frozen in immortality.
Arvind goes to M.S. 74 in Bayside. Go Queens!!
Wow, spelling bees are more awesome that I remember.
Perfectly preserved woolly mammoth, complete with liquid blood, discovered in Arctic
Russian researchers say they have discovered a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal.
They say the frozen remains of a female mammoth were so well-preserved that blood was found in ice cavities when they were broken up.
Semyon Grigoryev, the head of the Mammoth Museum who led the expedition, said Thursday the carcass was preserved because its lower part was stuck in pure ice. He said the find could provide scientific material for cloning a mammoth. (SEMYON GRIGORYEV/AFP/Getty Images)
“Oh, we just found a wooly mammoth in the ice. No big deal.”
mayor-letao asks: As someone who's used Tumblr for years, along with Twitter, I feel having in-stream ads spaced between my curated feed is perfectly fine. It's a free service. I feel there's a lot of entitlement that comes with using social media, but it helps to remember that they are free to the consumer, in exchange for advertising. Otherwise they wouldn't exist!
» SFB says: Exactly my feeling. Wouldn’t be opposed to paying a couple bucks each month to get them removed, though. But I recommend that anyone considering using ad-blocking software check out this 2010 article by Ars Technica which I think is encapsulates why it’s not fair to creators. At the time, Ars Technica was feeling the pinch from such ad blockers because their site’s audience is so tech-savvy that many of their readers were using it. I understand why people hate ads, I understand the moral and privacy reasons that people are upset by advertising, but I also know at the end of the day it’s the best thing that most content-producing sites have for making a buck. Smart people in boardrooms and skunkworks labs have spent the past two decades working to figure out a plan B, and we’ve only gotten as far as plan AAA. I don’t begrudge anyone for disagreeing with me, but that’s my stance. — Ernie @ SFB
So, Yahoo bought Tumblr and the reason they spent $1.1 billion on it was because they think they can buy our time and attention. Tumblr sold us to Yahoo using what they call “Web in-stream ads,” which is a way for posts from companies you don’t follow to show up on your dash; I just saw my…
Letting you guys know it exists because people will find out about this anyway, but also letting you know that I got into an argument with the author on Twitter because I think using ad-blocking software is inherently unfair to creators. — Ernie @ SFB
That’s correct. People misunderstood. There was a school of thought that I had eaten my first pizza, but of course how could that possibly be true? I would have had to have stayed locked up in a cellar. But nevertheless, this was my first slice of pizza, which I was only eating because my fiancée and I were a little hung-over yesterday morning and she said what we need is pizza and a soothing drink — and she was right. It solved the problem. But, in fact, it was my first slice, and when it was brought over to me, my first comment was “There’s no knife and fork.” Of course, I was mocked for thinking that I could eat a pizza slice with a knife and fork.Patrick “Jean-Luc Picard” Stewart • Explaining that when he said he was eating his first “slice” of pizza, he was eating his first piece of New York-style corner-shop pizza, sold in slice form, sans knife and fork. The kind you fold over. Which everyone seemed to misunderstand when he tweeted about it.
I can’t add much to what’s already been (and will be) ...
One of the perks of being an early employee...
Over the last 90 days, the Digg...
#FMMDI (at 30 Rockefeller Plaza)
Thanks. I guess my thoughts are as follows:
1. I think...
Two Months Ago I set out to interview the principal cast...
Headed by Editorial Director Keith Phipps, former editor of The A.V. Club and a contributor to NPR.org, Slate, and other publications, The Dissolve brings together a dream team of film writers who share a common vision. Editor Scott Tobias, the former film editor of The A.V. Club and a contributor to NPR.org, brings with him bottomless knowledge, passion, and wit. The same holds true of the rest of the staff, which includes Senior Editors Tasha Robinson (The A.V. Club, Chicago Tribune, NPR.org) and Genevieve Koski (The A.V. Club); staff writers Nathan Rabin (The A.V. Club, and author of The Big Rewind, My Year of Flops, and You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me) and Noel Murray (The A.V. Club, Los Angeles Times); and News Editor Matt Singer (Indiewire, Filmspotting: SVU).
I looked this over six times before I finally figured it out.
Two-year-old Trenton Mathis was pronounced dead on Wednesday afternoon at a hospital in Tyler, after the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said he shot himself in the face.
According to Trenton’s great-grandmother Carolyn Mathis, Trenton had eaten two pieces of gum Wednesday, and he asked his great-grandfather for more. His great-grandfather told Trenton he could have some after dinner. Later, Trenton went into his great-grandparent’s bedroom, looking for gum. Carolyn said Trenton’s great-grandfather left his handgun on the nightstand, but he thought he had closed and locked the door. Carolyn said the door was locked, but it was not closed all the way. Trenton was able to go into the bedroom, and then he climbed onto the bed and searched the nightstand looking for gum. Instead, he found the handgun.
Around the same time in Minnesota, a handgun suddenly went off in a 3rd grader’s backpack while he was at school. In that case, nobody was hurt. source
A letter was intercepted at the Secret Service’s White House mail-screening facility on Thursday, after the deadly substance ricin was found in an envelope addressed to President Obama. Similar letters were sent to New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Mayors Against Illegal Guns earlier this week, and the FBI is currently investigating possible connections between the letters. (Photo via Chicago Tribune) source
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