“We’ve now moved to a point in history where we have a large chunk of the audience who has never experienced life without computers, and life without the Internet. And because of that, there’s this recognition that we now need to write television shows about technology as history. We need to go and show the creation of the world we live in now.””
— Writer Chuck Klosterman, riffing on a Grantland podcast about the way tech has appeared recently on TV shows set in the past, including “The Americans,” “Mad Men” and “Halt and Catch Fire.”
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
]]>“We’re not here to tell you what to do with them. We’re here to get you rats, STAT.”
— Jared Dunn, a character on HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” during a sleep-deprived set of informal polls/focus groups intended to determine a new goal for Pied Piper.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
]]>“For some reason that I can’t pinpoint, the new Facebook font is making everything seem much more serious. Which seems particularly misleading when the headline is something like ‘I got the Horse — What is Your Spirit Animal?’”
— Journalist Alexandra Berzon reacts to the new-look Facebook on her personal Facebook page
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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The most intriguing self-descriptions of just 10 of the more than 70 main-stage presenters at the 30th TED conference in Vancouver, Canada:
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
]]>“He was a very unusual 20-year-old. He was at that point shy and awkward, but super thoughtful. You would ask him a question and he would pause before answering it. I wasn’t entirely sure why he was pausing — I didn’t know if I had insulted him or something — but he was thinking, and we in Washington are not used to people thinking when you ask them a question.”
Former Washington Post CEO Don Graham on meeting Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg for the first time, in an interview with Ozymandias
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
]]>“The viability of that technology is very good. Of course, the big question is whether the airline industry that often bleats on out about the fact that it is constantly losing money hand over fist will want to invest in that technology.”
–Aviation security consultant Chris Yates on NPR’s Morning Edition about whether black boxes can transmit information rather than just store it, negating the need to search for them.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
]]>“What shading do they give to the word boom? Do they use it to evoke a colorful futurist dream, or do they use it to imply destruction? Do they say it with a hint of awe, or as though they simply hope to survive it?”
— Writer Daniel Alarcon, in one of a series of New York Magazine essays about San Francisco at the exploding center of factions, issues and controversies created by the tech … boom
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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“I’m gonna be tweeting throughout the night, and I realized after my monologue … what I’m looking at is incredible. I mean the view of everybody … So if you don’t mind, really quickly I’m gonna take a picture of myself looking at you.”
— Ellen Degeneres, starting the selfie-celebration while hosting the 86th Academy Awards.
— The Ellen Show (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
And then she took one with the gang in the front row:
If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— The Ellen Show (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
]]>“… [I]n the beginning I really didn’t want to do Twitter. I said that I didn’t want to do it and my publisher set up an account. I think they do that with a number of writers and they want you to announce when you’re going to do a book reading or visit a college and so forth so I started doing that. Then I was following a number of people. I follow about 40 people. Steve Martin was one of the first people I followed. He’s so funny. And I started, not emulating Steve, because one can’t do that, but sort of writing a different kind of tweet. It wasn’t just about what I was doing but observations on life. And then sometimes I would read and respond to other tweets. Sometimes I don’t …
“I don’t consider that I really said anything that I don’t feel and I think that sometimes the crowd is not necessarily correct. You know, Kierkegaard said, “The crowd is a lie.” The sort of lynch mob mentality among some people on Twitter and they rush after somebody — they rush in this direction; they rush over here; they’re kind of rushing around the landscape of the news — and this goes on a lot on Twitter. Not necessarily that I’m watching, but I know it goes on elsewhere. When I first started there was a lot in the news about gun control so I was tweeting about that and I got these amazing tweets from these complete strangers who just hated me and what do I know about guns, that I know nothing. I’m this liberal person. And really some of these things I was really astonished. But then I just stopped reading them because I still feel there should be gun control. I don’t care if a million people think I’m wrong. I just think there should be gun control. So basically you react by withdrawing. Many people on Twitter who I follow, like Bill Maher, who is very outspoken. So I imagine he just doesn’t read all the negative tweets. He must care.”
— Prolific author Joyce Carol Oates, talking about her often-controversial Twitter feed, in an interview with Salon
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
]]>“I want to join the U.S. women’s national team, win an Olympic gold medal and a World Cup.”
— 10-year-old tackle football player, author and YouTube viral phenom Sam Gordon — who is taking her talents to the soccer field. “Makers come in many different heights,” said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who introduced her onstage at the Maker Conference as a “maker in the making.”
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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