It’s cool that there’s water on Mars but Apple Music still sucks.
— Jake Mohan (@DependentClause) September 29, 2015
The new MacArthur Fellows are out! And here I am, still writing “Alison Bechdel” on all my checks. This year’s genii include Ta-Nehisi Coates, who recently made the case for reparations and explained what was up between the world and him, and who is getting ready to write a new Black Panther series for Marvel Comics. Also Ben Lerner, author of the outstanding novels “Leaving the Atocha Station” and “10:04,” whose literary explorations of impostor syndrome should be fueled by this award for years to come, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer of “Hamilton” which is the only musical I’ve ever seen media people gush about. Fortunately Miranda has pledged to put the whole grant toward free tickets! Just show up whenever, everyone gets in for free now. They’re performing Hamilton non-stop, 24/7, from now until all humans on Earth have seen it at least once. Other new Fellows include a lot of people who are either saving the world or puppeteers.
A brief and dignified talk I’ve prepared on this day of august accolades. https://t.co/HkHg45DgmO
— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) September 29, 2015
Medium raised $57 million from Egg and the other usual suspects. Business Insider’s Biz Carson theorized that Medium’s “big plans” are to monetize its role as Silicon Valley’s go-to PR channel. Meanwhile the Axel Springer Business Insider acquision just went through, with the German company paying $343 million to own a total of 97 percent of Henry Blodget’s slice-of-privileged-life photo gallery website.1
Sarah Jeong interviewed the PETA lawyer who is suing on behalf of “a male Sulawesi crested macaque named Naruto, arguing that the monkey owns a copyright in the famous ‘monkey selfies.’” You might imagine this interview is great, but it’s better than you are imagining.
You know who really imagines things? “Black Mirror” creator Charlie Brooker.2 The dystopian “what if phones, but too much” series has been picked up by Netflix for twelve new episodes. Naturally, people have already begun suggesting new plotlines, including Motherboard (“The Amazon Dash Button”) and Brian Feldman (“good app is actually bad”).
“Frances Ha! Got y’all in check!” – Baumbachsta Rhymes
(Don’t @ me I’m a beam of pure energy now.)— Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) September 29, 2015
What If Longreads, But Too Much?
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Park MacDougald profiled the emerging anti-democratic right wing for The Awl. “This brand of authoritarian capitalism has a certain fascist sheen, but in truth it’s closer to a rigidly formalized capitalist technocracy…”
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In the New York Times Magazine, Mark Leibovich profiled Donald Trump, and got at the combination of Trump’s media accessability and the public’s willingness to be told they hate “politics as usual” that is driving his popularity.
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Katie J.M. Baker wrote a horrific story for Buzzfeed about what happened when a woman reported her rape, and police decided she was lying. Trigger warnings for basically everything here.
What? No.: Beard beer. I’m pretty sure Qoopy is a joke. San Francisco napping studio Doze is real though. Is Mercury in Retrograde Right Now?
Today’s Tech Management Longread Most Of You Won’t Care About: Twitter Engineering Effectiveness lead Peter Seibel on how to actually make engineering groups effective.
Today’s Song: Smashing Pumpkins, “Rocket“
~Tab you with a smile, and cut you like you want me to~
Today in Tabs mwamp wamp wamp wamp Fast Company wamp mwamp mwamp your email wamp wamp waahhhh @rustyk5. Charlie Brown, are you even listening? I said your dog got hit by a car, you could at least pretend to care.