Back in 1996, when he was a beginner, Sela wrote the second-ever interactive ad banner (yeah, who remembers second) for Sony Games. HP had the first. In those days, banners worked. Also we walked uphill to the Internet mines and used dial-up modems – 14.4, baby! He then went on to do all sorts of advertising stuff before returning to the wonderful world of interactive – just in time for the dot com bubble to burst. Man, that was rough. But it’s all better. Really, we know what we’re doing now. Sela lives in Brooklyn and enjoys fish.
It’s not the actual rant that’s so interesting, it’s that this guy (a colonel!) got booted out of a NATO force for it. I think he should have been promoted to a 3-star general.
Using Facebook to Catch Scofflaw Drivers: Creepy big brother vibe aside, this FB page sure is fun to read. People seem particularly incensed by other drivers eating.
Writing well is simple, but simplicity is difficult. There’s help. This Orwell piece is perhaps the best thing ever written about writing. It’s as valid today as it was in 1946. Read it; it’s better than 6 writing courses at the New School. (I speak from experience)
If you don’t have time, these are the main points. Read them over and over, until they are irrevocably lodged in your psyche. Love them, live them, obey them.
Never us a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Exploding manhole covers. That’s one of my great irrational fears, or maybe not so irrational, since hundreds of them explode every year. And no, there’s no solution for them, but there is a learning software that predicts which ones will explode, developed by a team at Columbia. Now if someone would be so kind and make an app for that, I’ll gladly pay.
