How (Not) To Save Newspapers, pt. 5

Ira Stoll, former VP of the failed New York Sun, is apparently offering a new business model for journalism. That’s right, for just a couple hundred thousand dollars, you can buy your own reporter:

You will “support a reporter to cover the Federal Reserve, Treasury, Congress, White House, or other beat designated by the sponsor in consultation with the editor.” Hoo boy. Though! For just $75K a year, you get to call and email Ira Stoll anytime you want, night or day.

Leaving aside the irony of something called the “Future of Capitalism” that requires donation from sponsors — because if you can miss that, then there’s just no way to make it obvious enough — I think Stoll is drastically overcharging. I worked as a reporter. Trust me, we can be had for much, much less. Seriously, like, a box of Krispy Kremes. Throw in coffee and you decide what goes on the front page.

 

Wearable Internet

Not sure how this will work in real life, but I’m definitely getting one.

Vampires Aren’t Kosher

My friend Mayrav’s rabbi explains why in this very smart piece at the Jewish Journal:

Despite the mad and murderous blood libel, Jews abhor eating blood. The Bible is explicit in its prohibition against eating blood, and generations of salted meat are our culinary legacy. Jews overcook and oversalt. It is what we do. My mother, God bless her, thought meat underdone if it could not double as a club for batting practice. Moistness was the enemy.

More reasons here.

Take Your Dog To Work Day

Sadie, supervising.

 

Happy Veterans Day

It kills me to be away from my daughter for the day. I can’t imagine how our soldiers do it for months at a time.

To all of them: thank you. And come home soon.

Tactical Bacon

In case of zombie outbreaks, swine flu epidemics, or alien invasion: Tac Bac, the bacon in a can.

Best possible argument for this product, from Facebook:

“You might think $16 is a bit much to pay for a can of bacon. Ask yourself that question again after civilization collapses. You’ll be all like ‘Man I really could go for some bacon right now. I wish I’d bought that Tactically Canned Bacon back in 2009.’”

– Mark Kinsey

 

Why I Don’t Send My Daughter To Auditions

My daughter is painfully cute. Sure, every dad thinks this, but I happen to have empirical evidence on my side. And since I also live in L.A., my wife and I get questioned regularly about when we’re going to get an agent for her and start her on the road to child stardom.

Answer: not in this life, Jack.

She’d be great at it, no question. She’s social, talkative, has a ridiculous vocabulary for an 18-month-old, and an even more ridiculous memory. I have no doubt that if we put her in front of cameras, she’d be working steadily until I have enough money for her college education or a new Porsche.

Still. It’s not going to happen.

Here’s one reason: the process sucks. Your child, who loves you and wants nothing more than to have your love, is set up for repeated failure and rejection. Call me old-fashioned, but I think she should wait until junior high for those things like everyone else.

Here’s the other reason. I started to list all the former child stars with drug addictions/arrests/bankruptcies/all of the above. Like Robert Blake, Adam Rich, Dana Plato, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Lindsay Lohan, Jodie Sweetin, Todd Bridges, Gary Coleman, River Phoenix, Tatum O’Neal, Macaulay Culkin, Maureen McCormick…

Then I decided it would be quicker to name the former child stars who don’t have any of those problems and continue to work steadily:

Jason Bateman.

Those are not good odds.

Just in time for Christmas…

Sherlock Holmes. Just keeps looking better and better.

Suck On That, Cesar Milan

(Via Sleestak.)

Like I Wasn’t Feeling Slow Enough…

This is a list of (alleged) interview questions you’ll have to answer if you want a job at search engine/software developer/world domination machine Google. It’s like a nightmare version of the SATs. For example:

In a country in which people only want boys every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?

(I’m sure some of my smarter friends will be able to snap off the answer after two seconds of mental arithmetic. It makes my eyes cross.)

This is, so far, the only question I can answer, and I’m sure it’s only there to make people who won’t get hired feel better:

A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?

Answers here.

(Found via The Awl.)