I was surprised by this news, though I’m not sure why. Ars Technica has been a great resource for technology info for years, and it was only a matter of time before someone snapped them up. That someone is Conde Nast, who will be folding Ars into the Wired Digital network, also known ad Condenet.
But it’s important to note that Ars is no fly-by-night payday. The site has been operating since 1998, first as a labor of love and later as a viable business. It succeeds because the site gives first-rate analysis and news on topics a niche audience want to read about, like games, all things Apple, science and computer hardware. And it took ten years to get to this point, something that some startups forget in their rush to get bought out.
Vice Magazine is a snarky and somewhat pretentious rag that’s funny for about ten minutes, but gradually becomes annoying after you’ve read the tenth faux-rebellious article about hipsters or some band you’ve never heard of, wedged up against an ad for some expensive perfume. VBS.TV, Vice’s video arm, VBS.TV, is a different beast entirely, with great documentaries that delve into the world’s hot spots and go past the usual surface gloss of the Six O’Clock News (no surprise there, since no-one under 40 watches the nightly news anymore.) This report on the gun markets of Pakistan is particularly decent.
I’ve been working as an editor on a video podcast featuring Vancouver Adobe evangalist Duane Nickull called Duane’s World. The show is all about coding, tech, music and Duane’s unique take on the world, and is hosted on Adobe TV, a central hub for shows about all things Adobe. Check it out!
Joi Ito, who was recently named as the head of Creative Commons and with whom I once had the pleasure of drinking a few beers with, recently explained from Cannes how the world of Creative Commons and the traditional media are at odds, and how “big media” misses the point that user generated content is all about authenticity and connections between people. Watch his impromptu talk below:
The Three Who Rule spent a mind-shattering 40-odd minutes conversing about the “Sontaran Stratagem,” a fine return to form for the Doctor’s beloved potato-headed enemies (unless you ask Chris, he thought the episode was a bit crap.) And good thing too, since there was very little in the news for your intrepid hosts to ponder, though that didn’t stop the usual digressions, tangents and nonsense.
I wrote an article for Mac|Life about the lengths we have to go to north of the border to get and use iPhones. I think Mac|Life deserves extra points for using a flappy headed South Park Canadian as the symbol of our displeasure.
The New Yorker has a great article up about the dire straits the newspaper industry finds itself in, and how they can best move past what is clearly a dying business model.
When I was a kid, I used to ravenously consume my dad’s old Mad magazines. It’s fair to say that a lot of my love of both reading and recent history comes from Mad (my knowledge of the Nixon administration, for one), and I’m glad that my collection has now been passed on to another young guy with an appetite for satire and sarcasm. One of my favorite Mad writer/artists was Al Jaffe, and it turns out he’s still kicking at 87, and still drawing amazing fold-ins for the back page of the magazine.
With the release of Be Kind Rewind (which i didn’t think much of), the phenomenon of “sweding” films has gripped Internet videographers like a VHS-fueled fever. “Sweding” is the art of remaking famous film scenes in as clunky and obviously lo-fi way as possible. Most of these efforts fall kind of flat, but this remake of Tron is absolutely beautiful.
