Awesome

Awesome, originally uploaded by Mulling it Over.

This is so LA.

The writers’ strike

I didn’t know much about the writers’ strike, but this Metafilter comment really did a great job of breaking it down:

As a working screenwriter, we need the strike, and aspiring scabs might want to really look at why this strike is getting ready to happen before they offer their services.

If you write an episode of Metafilter Towers, you get paid according to scale for the script; you get paid according to scale for residuals when the show goes into reruns. You always wrote the script, the show is still making money, consequently, you’re entitled to some of that. That’s the current contract.

But TV isn’t just first run and reruns anymore. People can also watch episodes online- free to watch, courtesy of ad revenue. The actors get a sliver of the ad revenue for online display; the producers get a sliver of the ad revenue for online display. The writers currently don’t get any of that ad revenue.

Read the rest here.

LOLcats in history

Many have expressed confusion over the origin of LOLcats. Check out this video to learn for yourself.

Eating my words

Ok, so remember that post where I promised I wasn’t getting an iPhone?

I take it back.

I got one this week, and I’m realizing that Apple stealthily tricked everyone into buying a nanotablet pc which also happens to make phone calls. It’s like someone 20 years in the future stuck their phone in a time machine and sent it back to us. Google Maps with traffic info is making up for the bitter feelings about my laptop. My motivation for getting one? My old roommate and BFF Jeffrey, who, bless his heart is one of the least technical people I know, showed me his Jailbroken iPhone. I felt like a luddite. So I’m going to get cracking and hacking on it.

Ironically, on my first attempt to visit my blog’s admin page with the iPhone, I accidentally deleted the post about how I wasn’t getting one (Honest! I tried to restore it but the Wayback Machine hasn’t spidered my site since June). I think the iPhone may be even smarter and more diabolical than Apple is letting on, but at this point it’s just so ridiculously slick that I don’t care. It’s the first mobile internet device that doesn’t make me want to stab my own eyes out when I try to use it to surf the web. As a bonus, the camera doesn’t suck, which is also a first for a cameraphone.