December 2011
51 posts
Goodbye, Tumblr
Pop Loser has been moved back to Wordpress. It’s been a fun 20 months guys, and I will miss the community component here, but it’s time.
It’s not you, it’s me.
Anyway, poploser.org is already up and running on WP with the post from here ported over and combined with the posts from there back to 2006. That’s over 5,300 mostly useless posts.
I try to explain some of...
Updates and Changes
I’m porting this site back into Wordpress. Things may be wonky for the next day or so. More info to come.
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Draplin on Design
Another nugget of brilliance from Aaron Draplin:
Go to, uh, Best Buy or some shit and find their “recordable media” section. Maybe there’s some burnable CDs and DVDs and whatever…hell, maybe even some cassette tapes sitting there? Look at the packaging. Shit sucks, right? Of course it does. Then, remember the beautiful reel-to-reel box up above that Minneapolis’ Derek Schille sent in. Nice,...
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Year in Pictures
Part one of the Big Picture’s year in pictures.
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Loving Zooey
The year I learned to love Zooey Deschanel (and hate myself instead).
Even though I couldn’t stand the pilot for The New Girl, I kept watching it, week after week. And since I had repeatedly derided the show, I watched every new episode in secret.
A coworker asked me to articulate what I didn’t like about Zooey Deschanel. Was it because she was inauthentic? Bad at acting? Had a shitty blog? When I...
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Inside Amazon
Inside the Amazon warehouse during the holiday season.
If you live in Canada and have a friend with an Internet connection and a credit card, chances are you’re getting either a calendar, Star Wars Lego, or a book by a Giller Prize nominee. Trust me, I know.
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Rudy Can Fail
Rudy from Rudy has been charged with stock fraud, proving you can overcome the odds to live the American dream. [via]
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Pitchfork's 100 Tracks
Pitchfork’s top 100 tracks of 2011.
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DJ Night
Wanna come to my DJ night?
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Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens died. Obits from the New York Times, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and the Atlantic, as well as the Longform guide to Hitchens, which you can add to Instapaper and read over the holidays.
BONUS ONION HEADLINE: Fumbling, Inarticulate Obituary Writer Somehow Losing Debate To Christopher Hitchens
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Rap 2011
The best rap songs of 2011 (featuring “Gucci Gucci” at number 50).
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Essential Community
The ten essential Community episodes.
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Five Internet Lies
Five internet lies.
I really wanna check out that article you were telling me about, where can I find it? You tweeted it? Okay, cool… wait what? How am I not following you anymore? That’s weird. I definitely didn’t unfollow you. Heh. I mean, why would I unfollow you, right? Odd… Twitter must’ve malfunctioned or something. Following you now!
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Worst Films
AV Club’s worst movies of 2011.
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Elements of Style
Elements of Style: The rap video.
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Best TED Talks
Best TED Talks of 2011.
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Ebert's Best Films
Roger Ebert’s best films of 2011.
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2011: The Cinescape
2011: The Cinescape.
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A Year in Reading
The Millions year in reading.
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Community Should End
NBC was right to suspend Community. BLASPHEMY! Except that I think Fox was right to kill Arrested Development when it did (in retrospect), so maybe I’m just too close to see what’s clearly best. Still… ONE MORE SEASON!
Community was never built for the long haul. It may have borrowed its structure from the standard American sitcom, but it’s a different kind of show, one...
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Top Twenty Top Ten Commenters
The 20 unhappiest people you meet in the comments sections of year-end lists. [via]
6. The Read A Book Guy. “Not one of these movies is as good as reading a book.” On a list of books, by the way, he will say none of the books is as good as books used to be. He also hates Kindles, which he may or may not mention.
[…]
10. Harry The Hipster-Hater, Who Really, Really Hates Hipsters....
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Abandoned Wonderland
From In Focus: China’s abandoned Wonderland. I once threw a rave called Wonderland.
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TIME Person of the Year
The 2011 TIME Person Of the Year: Still not me, though I suppose if I’d occupied something, it totally could have been.
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Results of the Louis CK Experiment
Louis CK is being very open about how his video experiment is performing.
The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around...
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Suicidal Behaviour
You can now report a friend’s suicidal behaviour on Facebook. Um… yeah.
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Give Me Something to Read
Give Me Something to Read’s best long reads of 2011. [via]
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Recovered Who
Two of the missing original Doctor Who episodes have been recovered.
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Miscellaneous Best Of Lists
Other 2011 best-of lists: Best of Longform.org, the Atlantic’s best TV episodes, the New Yorker’s best and worst scandals, Paste’s best viral videos and RWW’s epic tech fails.
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Talk of the Town
Best of the New Yorker’s “Talk Of the Town” section in 2011.
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Best New Blogs
Bygone Bureau’s best new blogs of 2011.
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Louis CK Live at the Beacon Theater
Louis CK is offering a DRM-free video of his act for $5. It’s an interesting and, likely, profitable experiment. I have purchased, but not watched yet, though it’s a safe bet it’s worth your five bucks.
To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge...
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God Particle
The Higgs boson particle (a.k.a. the “God” particle) has been observed. Repeatedly. If I had a better understanding of science, I’d probably understand why this is a big deal. (Side note: I always giggle when I read “Large Hadron Collider.”)
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Enterprise Ambience
This is kind of weird: 24 hours of looping ambient noise from the Starship Enterprise. (I swear that the recent spate of Trek posts isn’t intentional.)
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Bringing Down America
We can either study for our law finals, or we can bring about the violent dissolution of the American legal system.
Sure we can study. We can go over our notes and take a couple practice tests and pray we get good enough grades to land a sweet summer firm job. But let’s be realistic. How hard is it going to be to understand the complex web of choice-of-law analysis implicated by Erie Railroad Co....
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Famous People on Star Trek
Famous people you didn’t know were on Star Trek.
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Drum Machine T-Shirt
A functioning drum machine on a t-shirt.
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Copyright Culture
Andy Baio on copyright culture:
Here’s a thought experiment: Everyone over age 12 when YouTube launched in 2005 is now able to vote.
What happens when — and this is inevitable — a generation completely comfortable with remix culture becomes a majority of the electorate, instead of the fringe youth? What happens when they start getting elected to office? (Maybe “I downloaded but...
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Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger for iPhone.
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Future Drama
Tumblr of note: Future Drama. It collects what the future was supposed to look like.
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Social Web c. 1997
The modern social web as it would have looked in 1997. They even limit the transfer to dial-up speed, which is funny and infinitely frustrating.
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Pitchfork Lists
The Pitchfork lists have started with best music videos and worst album covers.
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The Awl 2011 Song List
The Awl’s best favourite songs of 2011.
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AV Club Best Music
AV Club’s best music of 2011. (And several AVC writer Spotify lists.)
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Band Math
McSweeney’s band math.
Weezer – Air Supply = Grateful Dead
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Colonel Potter
Colonel Potter died.
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TIME's Top Ten of Everything
The TIME top ten of everything in 2011.
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Denby's List
David Denby’s favourite movies of 2011. (Denby is relevant right now because he broke the review embargo on Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and, coincidentally, I’ve finally started reading Snark.