5:18 am

Thus, the Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown … This is again a case of privatizing the gains and socializing the losses; a bailout and socialism for the rich, the well-connected and Wall Street. And it is a scandal that even Congressional Democrats have fallen for this Treasury scam that does little to resolve the debt burden of millions of distressed home owners.

Professor Nouriel Roubini, on the still imminent Wall Street bailout. (Via Glen Greenwald.) (#)

8:17 pm

Older people are definitely sillier and more open to admitting things they like that they may not have admitted before. We are so much more bored than young people, and I think we yearn for high-school-style communication.

Linda Keenan, offering up one explanation for the online exhibitionism of so many post-30-year-olds. (#)

7:45 am

In May I had my first meeting with a major label, Universal Music Group. I went alone and prepared myself for the worst, having spent the last decade toeing the indie party line that the big labels were hopelessly obstinate luddites with no idea what was good for them. I’m here to tell you now that the labels understand their business a lot better than most people suspect, although they each have their own surprisingly distinct personality when it comes to how they approach the future.

Justin Ouellette, from a lengthy exposition on the death and rebirth of Muxtape. The RIAA is, indeed, a big stinking bully. (#)

11:22 am

I doubt that I’ll ever make anything one-tenth as intelligent, thoughtful, and engaging as The Wire, and, in all likelihood, neither will you. But, again, that’s not the point.

The inspiration you need to take away from this is the idea that every scene matters to some arc. Even the one minute with the drunk furniture assembly. Whether your given “scene” is in a screenplay, or an Excel spreadsheet, or the Tweet that you’re about to type about your flight delay: it matters. It all matters.

Merlin Mann, calling on all of us to write into our arc. (#)

8:05 pm

[Modern film] spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change.

Alan Moore, from an interview on Hollywood and its adaptation of his most celebrated work, Watchmen. (Via Jason.) (#)

10:51 am

[S]ome people actively search for routine and repetition as a means to cope with stress or anxiety – which in turn provides the stability to focus (and be creative). Why is instability and disruption so often cited as a means to creativity or innovation?

Sam Martin, from the Design Mind blog, responding to a video installation by Berlin-based artist Jan Koepper (#)

6:20 pm

Now, let us discuss the Élites. There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. That is also why they love me. She did not go to some Élite Ivy League college, which I also did not. Her and me, actually, did not go to the very same Ivy League school. Although she is younger than me, so therefore she didn’t go there slightly earlier than I didn’t go there. But, had I been younger, we possibly could have not graduated in the exact same class. That would have been fun. Sarah Palin is hot. Hot for a politician. Or someone you just see in a store. But, happily, I did not go to college at all, having not finished high school, due to I killed a man. But had I gone to college, trust me, it would not have been some Ivy League Élite-breeding factory but, rather, a community college in danger of losing its accreditation, built right on a fault zone, riddled with asbestos, and also, the crack-addicted professors are all dyslexic.

George Saunders, ripping apart that obnoxious "regular Joe" schtick Republicans seem so fond of. Sometimes I love The New Yorker. (#)

8:16 pm

If the work that really matters to you involves understanding a relationship between a handful of seemingly unrelated things and then figuring out the best way to portray, magnify, or resolve those relationships, then you’re already doing creative work. Any time you make a connection between two or more axes that hadn’t occurred to you 10 minutes ago, yes, you’ve done something creative.

Merlin Mann, a dude who's web famous for his writing on 43 folders but creates brilliant material all over the place, writing about his renewed focus on creativity and quality in a world full of cruft. (#)

6:37 am

Just as everyone in development is enamored with scaling, it seems that far too many designers ask the question, “how much content can we dump in here, and still have things make sense?” rather than “how can we nix this nonsense, and just say what we mean?”. In many projects, it’s taken a priori that all the content that exists going into a project must remain intact. Of course, this leads to the new site simply shuffling a rotten core, putting a new face on old problems. Really, what’s diluting the web are piles of meaningless words, not a lack of style.

Matt Brown, suggesting some ways designers could help simplify the web. (#)