But in this case, again, I think the Netflix model hurt the show rather than helped it. Had the episode been allowed to stand on its own, it would have stood out; a week to consider this softer vision of Francis Underwood would have allowed viewers to fill in some of the emotional blanks in House of Cards’ unceasing scheming. Instead, sandwiched as it was in the middle of my personal binge, the episode and its revelations seemed ephemeral and weightless. Hitting “next” on my remote allowed me to swallow without chewing, to move on without digesting.

Andy Greenwald makes the first compelling case against “the Netflix model” that I’ve read. I watched House of Cards the exact same way he did, and totally missed what should have been a key turn in the show.

(Also: spoilers. Duh.)

In “Blackwater” I was finally flooded with big-screen bombast that merited the bluster of backstabbing brothers and know-it-all Martin readers alike. It was an unblinking glimpse of the savagery that had lurked beneath every alliance made and promise broken in the battle-scarred Seven Kingdoms. When Ned Stark lost his head it taught audiences that no one, not even stars, are safe. When Blackwater Bay ignited it carried a different lesson: The main character of Game of Thrones is Westeros itself. And, before all is said and done, it will suffer more than Ned’s neck ever did. I’ve read Andy Greenwald’s fantastic Grantland piece about Game of Thrones about eight times now, and every time I get more excited about the show coming back this Sunday. I’m going to read it again like 20 more times, and then possibly spend the whole episode shouting excitedly at my television. So there’s that.
Pop-upView Separately

In “Blackwater” I was finally flooded with big-screen bombast that merited the bluster of backstabbing brothers and know-it-all Martin readers alike. It was an unblinking glimpse of the savagery that had lurked beneath every alliance made and promise broken in the battle-scarred Seven Kingdoms. When Ned Stark lost his head it taught audiences that no one, not even stars, are safe. When Blackwater Bay ignited it carried a different lesson: The main character of Game of Thrones is Westeros itself. And, before all is said and done, it will suffer more than Ned’s neck ever did.

I’ve read Andy Greenwald’s fantastic Grantland piece about Game of Thrones about eight times now, and every time I get more excited about the show coming back this Sunday. I’m going to read it again like 20 more times, and then possibly spend the whole episode shouting excitedly at my television. So there’s that.

Rules are important. Civilians think of computers as really smart TVs. In truth they are terrifying scaffoldings held together by scotch tape, jittering a billion times a second like an over-caffeinated light switch. The only thing that makes everything work is the rules. There are so many rules that there are rules for making rules. Silicon Valley is good with this because without these standards nothing works. Your computer won’t talk to the other computer. Your pictures will all turn green. Your porn won’t load.
On the all-important Silicon Valley Handshake Protocol.

He had a BlackBerry 8700c, and I thought, like, “Why would a freshman in college need a cell phone that costs like $86/month? He must be important,” because the only other person I knew who had a BlackBerry was my ex-girlfriend’s dad who worked for Citibank (also important).

Not to be hyperbolic, but every single person who had a BlackBerry in 2006 was an important person. This was obvious because they needed to be equipped with push email on-the-go and needed to be able to send ten emails in three minutes with a QWERTY keyboard, and could either afford the plan or were given a BlackBerry by work. Other people who wanted smartphones but were not important had phones like the Motorola Q, which was so laggy that you could press the tile to open the Internet Explorer program, pee, and then come back and it would be almost ready for you to enter a URL. (I had that before I got a BlackBerry.)

One of the best phone reviews you’ll ever read, from David Shapiro.

(Via Taylor Lorenz)

Reader was made for absurdly ambitious readers. It’s designed for people like me—or, rather, for people like the person I used to be—that is, for people who really do intend to read everything. You might feel great when you reach Inbox Zero, but, believe me, it feels even better to reach Reader Zero: to scroll and scan until you’ve seen it all.
I miss you already, Google Reader.

Top