Stephen Tobolowsky on ‘Weekday’ Live

Yesterday, Stephen Tobolowsky went to Seattle, Washington to perform “The Tobolowsky Files” live at a fundraiser on Vashon Island. While in the area, he stopped by the Neptune Theatre for a live recording of ‘Weekday’ live on KUOW, Seattle’s premiere public radio station. I was sad that I could not make it out there, but thankfully, we can listen to his interview on ‘Weekday’ live right here.

I’ve been working on “The Tobolowsky Files” for two years now. For two years, I have tirelessly produced and edited each episode and promoted the show at every possible turn. It has consumed hundreds of hours of my life, and I have received essentially no financial compensation for it. But as I listened to the interview begin and heard the audience of hundreds cheering his name when “The Tobolowsky Files” was invoked…man, there is nothing like it.

Amazon’s Bold Tablet Play

Amazon announced FOUR new Kindles today, including the first-ever plausible iPad competitor. Pretty awesome stuff. Enough to get me excited, even though I probably won’t be springing for one given that I already own an iPad and a recent-generation Kindle. At $200 though, the Kindle Fire tablet is dangerously close to impulse buy territory.

In addition to the new hardware, Amazon also announced Amazon Silk, a cloud browser that has the ability to deliver blazing fast speeds. But the technology behind Silk gives Amazon a major advantage in the consumer retail and media space. Chris Espinosa breaks it down:

[W]hat this means is that Amazon will capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users. Every page they see, every link they follow, every click they make, every ad they see is going to be intermediated by one of the largest server farms on the planet. People who cringe at the privacy and data-mining implications of the Facebook Timeline ought to be just floored by the magnitude of Amazon’s opportunity here. Amazon now has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores your customers are shopping in and what prices they’re being offered there.

College Graduation Rates Are Still Terrible

Some sobering statistics via the NYTimes:

Currently, federal education statistics generally focus on first-time full-time students. But according to the [Complete College] report, about 4 of every 10 public college students attend part time — and no more than a quarter of part-time students ever graduate.

As a part-time student myself, I’m determined to be one of the few that makes it to the finish line.

Why did ‘Drive’ Fail to Connect with Audiences?

I loved Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive, and so did the rest of the film critic community. But the film has thus far failed to connect with audiences. Writers at Salon try to break down why:

People show up expecting a glossy sexy movie about a man driving a car, when in reality it’s basically a hyper-violent European art-house movie that offers little in the way of car chases or romance. That’s one way of thinking about it, but I honestly think the bigger problem is that this movie is too gut-churningly violent.

Facebook Removes Choice From Your Sharing Options

Farhad Manjoo, on the money as usual about Facebook’s new changes and, in particular, the “ticker” feature:

Zuckerberg calls this “frictionless” sharing. What he means is that I don’t have to bother with the “friction” of choosing to tell you that I like something. On Facebook, now, merely experiencing something is enough to trigger sharing. Once I sign up for Spotify’s Facebook app, my consent is assumed: When I listen, I share. The same goes for the many other apps that Facebook’s partners are launching. When I watch something on Netflix or Hulu, when I read something on the Daily, or when I play a game like Words With Friends, Facebook will tell my friends. Everyone I know on Facebook will now have a running log of my life.

This is a nightmare, but not for the reasons you might suspect. I don’t hate this new model because of its lack of “privacy,” or due to Facebook’s clear financial interest in collecting my personal information…My problem with “frictionless sharing” is much more basic: Facebook is killing taste.

Laura June also has a smart take on the matter.

The Economics of Business Insider

Felix Salmon reveals the stark truths about Henry Blodget’s online news machine:

[T]here’s reason to be concerned about what Blodget’s team has sacrificed along the way. It’s worth noting that venture-backed media companies can very much be in a race against time for growth. Investors want a return on their money and, given the economics of web news, that almost always requires exponential growth in uniques and pageviews.

See also Marco Arment’s analysis of Business Insider’s copy-and-pasting of his material.

Update: And Business Insider responds to Arment (with aplomb)!