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Feeling punky today - the usual post-Christmas let-down coupled with an adverse reaction to an excess of desserts plus a lack of sleep. Hope your day is much better. Not much on the web today - we’re getting to that point in the year where everyone’s busy writing Ten Best lists for the weekend. Anyway:

Goldman: Way, way back in the day, Newsweek commissioned the Maysles Brothers, who were famous documentary filmmakers, to do a promotional film for the magazine. They hung out with cameras around the offices, followed the whole editorial process. Toward the end of the film there was a scene of the Wallenda dinner, and the Wallies were just hammered. And they still used the film to promote the magazine. I was astonished.

 Thomas: Eventually they moved the dinners indoors, up to Top of the Week [the Newsweek dining room], as a way of keeping everybody from getting drunk and disappearing into the night.

 Hackett: It was also much cheaper.

 Goldman: Russ Chapell was a Nation writer when I arrived in ‘62, not long pre-Graham. He was the best newsmagazine writer I think I’ve ever known. He told me something early in my career. “This is a great job,” he said. “You can do it drunk.” And a lot of Newsweek people did.

It’s a look at the lost culture of the “Mad Men” era, and your liver hurts just reading about it. Reminds me of my first few months working in DC, before Deborah Howell shook up the newsroom culture; some reporters would go to lunch, come back hammered, and type a few words before giving up for the rest of the day.

TECH Heaven forfend a moment goes uninterrupted by the sudden intrusion of a text: here’s a watch that relays your iPhone alerts.

After only a few days of use, it quickly became clear that a smart watch would change how we use our smartphones. Almost immediately, the annoying habit of needing to incessantly pull the phone out of your pocket faded away. Granted, that ritual found itself instead replaced by looking at the watch.

Granted. If it brings back watches, that’s not bad thing. Right now when I take out my phone to check the time, I feel like it’s the 19th century, and I’m pulling out a timepiece on gold chain.

 The next step will be a smart earpiece that talks to your smart watch, which talks to your smart phone.

Then there’s this: you may have read the dire stories about Snapchat, which supposedly encourages sexting because its pictures self-destruct quickly. TechCrunch looked at the stories and the authors and the facts, and wrote:

There are two conclusions we can make. The first is that the same folks who serve you a round of tech news with your morning coffee and bagel are also in a Snapchat sexting ring. The second option is that the very same people who have repeatedly assumed that Snapchat is for sexting, and propagated that myth, don’t use Snapchat for sexting at all.

The idea that the self-destructing photo can’t be captured just means that some people will try very hard to work around it. This may bring back cameras, which have seen their popularity wither due to smart phones. In a year, then, the really hip people will have watches and cameras in addition to their smartphones. This will require fanny packs, but don’t worry: at first they will be used ironically in Brooklyn, and then Urban Outfitters will sell them as semi-ironic trend objects. Full-scale re-adaptation will continue nation-wide through 2015.

ART Some interesting “vintage” Radio Times seasonal covers. Another nice find from Brain Pickings, which has an unfortunate tendency to call everything “Stunning.” I mean, these are nice, but I'm not sitting here with my ears ringing, unable for form  coherent thoughs. 

TOASTY WARM From Smoko, purveyors of cute toast in many forms - really, they make USB sticks and pillows - comes heated typing gloves.

Put that down for next year’s gift list.

MOVIESThe list of rules for hacking movies. This is correct:

Hacking scenes will involve psychedelic user interfaces that look like something out of an early 1990s music video. Remember, hackers never use command lines. That is boring.

True. But the word “psychedelic” isn’t apt. Most movie that involve hacking usually feature some government GUI, which always has a shield and looks Official with lots of bevel-edge buttons. It’s never a standard prompt.

The list omits the cliche of every hacking movie: hacking is accomplished by typing very fast, and the success of the rapid typing is verified when the hacker says “we’re in.” Otherwise it is not a hacking movie.

Alright, I'm done. Time for another glug of Pepto-Bismol. Straight from the bottle. 

Short answer: probably. We'll get to that. First: This can’t be right. From today’s Strib:

DES MOINES, Iowa - The Midwest's first major snowstorm of the season was sweeping across several states early Thursday, shuttering schools, creating treacherous roadways and threatening to slow down one of the nation's busiest airports ahead of the holiday weekend.

If that was the first, what did we have a few weeks ago? Was that not a “storm” because the snow fell at a consistent gentle pace, without the wind whipping it around? Possibly. But the Weather Channel called it Caesar - they name the storms now, you know. So it was the third storm. This means the one that moved through the Midwest was Winter Storm Event Draco. No one will call it that, except for the Weather Channel. Hurricanes are easier to name because they hit specific places. Coasts. Storms that lumber across vast swaths of the country do not need names.

CRIME TODAY A few highlights from the Crime Blotter.

Whereupon a drunk man got out said “I give up. Thish ice is too thick”: 

Recovered. A fish house stolen out of Isanti County was found in a parking lot on the 100 block of 83rd Avenue NE.

That’s got to be twenty packs, at least:

Theft. More than $2,300 worth of cigarettes were stolen from SuperAmerica, 5205 Vernon Av.

Can’t you just pour gravy over it, Felix?

Assistance. A woman called police to report that she left her apartment two hours prior to the call to take her pregnant sister to the hospital and she forgot she had left chicken cooking in the oven. The apartment was on the 5200 block of Bryantwood Drive. An officer and the apartment manager turned off the oven, opened windows and turned on a fan to air the apartment out.

Stay on the line and remain calm, sir; the police are on their way:

Animal complaint. The owner of Edward Jones Investments, 5159 Main St. E., called police to report that a squirrel came into the business when the door was opened. It exited through the door a short time later.

Edward Jones, by the way, was founded by Edward D. Jones in 1922. Wikipedia notes that this is not the Edward D. Jones who co-founded Dow Jones. There; you just learned something. 

One Adam-12, One Adam-12, see the man, tell him to get a life:

WACONIA TOWNSHIP NOV. 12

Traffic report. Someone reported there was mud on the road at County Road 30 and County Road 10.

RETAIL There are almost 400 Apple stores in the world. Giz did a piece on some bad behavior at Texas outlet, and subsequently received emails about shenanigans at other stores. Seems that some tech-repair employees look at people’s private information, and the jerks who have no regard for their jobs or responsibilities trash inventory for the fun of it.

There are—and will always be—miscreants in every job. Miners, lawyers, cooks, Geniuses—there's no industry that's immune to misbehavior. But when emails arrived in droves repeating the same naughty phenomena, you have to wonder why a company whose rep is as sterling as Apple's seems to have such a pattern of internal havoc. Employees lamented how the company's "culture has declined significantly," that the former "culture is definitely not there anymore." One former employee who had opened retail stores across North America and Asia claimed "The corruption within Apple goes straight to the top. That is why I left, I couldnt tolerate it anymore. Under Mr. Cook, Apple is fracturing from the inside out."

Uh huh. Before, when a Genius saw someone looking through a customer’s private information, he shouted “what are you doing? Steve would be appalled!” It’s likely this goes on, but how widespread is it? Unverified emails do not necessarily mean “a pattern of internal havoc.” That said, you should expect someone’s going to go through your drive, because the world abounds with poorly socialized nerds who regard all information as something to which they are automatically entitled. For the lulz, if nothing else.

So write a little script that automatically takes a picture of the user when opened, change the icon to a folder, name it “Private,” and present the evidence to the store manager.

For the lulz, if nothing else.

Late and short, that’s me. Okay:

TIS THE SEASON ETC The sad life of a Novelty Christmas Wreath.

ART This is, perhaps, the golden age of beer label design.

YIKES  Eagle tries to snatch a child. Video has swearing, so the usual rules apply against embedding. It’s here. Thanks, uploader, but “Chariots of Fire” was not the wisest soundtrack choice.

By the way: this is not a repeat from 1907, as they say on Fark. Except it is.

UPDATE: that was fast. Fakery revealed, here. 

ARCHITECTURE We were talking about architecture the other day. Well, I was. Here's another new project, the Velo - it  will no doubt be nice to live in, with Amenties and things, but lacks pizzazz:

The rain has passed, it’s twilight, and everyone’s home.

Got a press release on this one, down in the Mill district on the English side of the river. Starting to see a pattern?

Mill & Main. Great views, judging from the website It uses materials common to the area, which is nice, but suffers from the blocky sameness that affects the genre these days. The large windows are nice, and I’m not saying they should all wear an oversized Mansard roof like the craptacular apartments of the late 60s and early 70s, but would it kill you to put a cornice on one of these guys? Back in college a bartender at the restaurant where I worked was an architecture major, and delighted in telling me how he shocked his teachers by putting “An (expletive) hipped roof” on a house for an assignment. So bourgeoise! That’s what it took to be a rebel: make your house look like a 1962 rambler.

Obviously you’re going to want the most floor-space the plot permits. But these designs seem to defeat the possibility of ornamentation - anything tacked on the severe surfaces would just look, well, tacked on, like an I-Beam welded to the side of the Seagrams Building to impart the idea of Miesian purity.

Still, the Seagrams is a pretty handsome building.

Back to column work; see you around.

Anyway: Instagram is getting flak for its new privacy statement. Apparently it’s different from the old one, which no one read. No ever reads the whole EULA; everyone who’s in their twenties today grew up learning to lie about reading legal documents. They might as well say “By clicking ‘I Agree’ you acknowledge that you read the entire 15,938 words document, including the part about the company not being liable if the software causes your computer to repeatedly dial the police and ask, in a flat robotic voice, if they have Prince Albert in the can.” Sure whatever I want to play the game, click.

Gizmodo says:

A new Instagram privacy policy goes into effect on January 16th, 2013. The service will now be sharing your data with its new owner Facebook. Get used to it.

 

Basically, Instagram has updated a few of the subhead sections of its policy to reflect the fact that it is a part of Facebook now. Instagram can now share information like cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data,with "with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of."

The Instagram blog says these changes will help them fight spam - there isn’t any at present, but there might be - and “detect system and reliability problems more quickly.” So all your data is going to Facebook, which will sift it and sell it and

The other part that’s caused some to stalk away in a huff? Instagram - meaning, Facebook - says they can use your photos for anything, if they want.Someone else got in trouble for this a while back; who was it? Pinterest? It’s a stupid move, easy to avoid. Have an agreement that makes sense to ordinary humans, and include something like this:

“Gosh no, we’d never use your pictures in any ad campaign without asking. That would be skeezy. If we did ask, and you said yes, we’d pay you. I mean, didn’t we just get a billion dollars from Facebook? Of course!”

Not to overquote Giz, but they’re on this with the usual finesse and incisive perspective you’ve come to expect:

Have you heard the news? Instagram just updated its terms of service, and is giving itself permission to sell the photos you take to advertisers. Lots of users are weeping, threatening to quit, and screaming about privacy.

Counterpoint: shut up.

He goes on to point out the obvious: it’s free, no one’s making you use it, and businesses need to make money, so if theylicense your photo to someone willing to pay money, it’ll keep the lights on. Because he knows that opinionated bossypants get attention, he tells you how to regard your work:

But there's a larger point to be made here. You shouldn't care about these pictures to begin with.

Counterpoint: shut up. Elaboration: shut up and sit down. Yes, the charm of Instagram, in part, comes from the stream of snaps that flow past, documenting people’s lives, the things they see, the desserts they feel compelled to share with the world, and so on. If you subscribe to your friends’ feeds, that’s what you will get. But if you subscribe to people who are very good, and have a style or recurring subject you like, it’s not a throwaway experience - and if you’re one of those

Realize that you're finally paying the price of admission for a seat you took years ago. And maybe be flattered that your life is visually interesting enough to consider whoring out to begin with.

There. You have been told. Now go back to taking pictures of your stupid feet.

I agree they’ve every right to do this, but surely there’s a nicer way to explain the free market to people.

Will this cause people to flee to Flickr? They just put out a great app with better filters than the Instagram app. Snapseed is one of my favorite new camera apps, and it’ll export to Flickr as well. (Google bought it, though, so it probably uploads your location so they can tell your browser on another computer to include an ad for the store you were standing next to, but did not enter.) (Kidding.) (Sort of.)

(Note: pictures from my Instagram feed, as well as one from my daughter’s.)

When it rained this weekend I found myself thinking A) finally, and B) stop it. the rain beat down the snow, and you have the sinking suspicion that last week’s storm was the sole ration we’ll get before Christmas. We need a fresh coat.

The drizzle also slickified (warning: not a word) the sidewalks, so every step was a potential cocyxx-shattering event unless the homeowner has strewn some grit. Which I did. That was my weekend accomplishment. Grit-strewing. Anyway:

MEANWHILE IN PUERTO RICO This . . . 

 . . . said something controversial about a local  publicist who was killed in a dodgy part of town. As the New York Times put it: “The outrage was in part because of fears over a growing crime wave on the island and a reaction to La Comay, a puppet version of the television program “TMZ” with gossipy segments about celebrities, politics and crime.”

I mention this only because the words “a puppet version of ‘TMZ’ ought to give everyone pause. It’s only a matter of time before it happens here.

WEB The internet moves too quickly and people who have to post all the time to juice the traffic burn out. Sometimes they move to Hawaii and start something else. Ah, but how do you get noticed? How do you cut through the blinding blizzard of PR chaff? Have the right friends. From the New York Times:

With friends — including Brian X. Chen, who now works at The New York Times — he came up with his own version of a gadget site. But instead of chasing down every tidbit of tech news, he built The Wirecutter, a recommendation site that posts six to 12 updates a month — not a day — and began publishing in partnership with The Awl, a federation of blogs founded by two other veterans of Gawker Media, Choire Sicha and Alex Balk.

That’ll help.

“Brian’s insight is that in a world of loudest and fastest, he has turned it down, doing it slow and doing it right,” Mr. Sicha said. “And by being consumer facing, he doesn’t have to have monster numbers. The people come ready to buy.”

Wasn’t Choire Sicha the person who used to make fun of people who said things like “consumer facing”? Anyway, Digg’s subhead is “Savoring the Slow Web,” so you know that’s going to be a thing. Slow web. Ahhh. Like slipping into a warm bath after a day in the frothy jacuzzi of work internet, which has pirhanas. We have Slow Food, Slow Reading, all kinds of Slow things that are better - deeper, more spiritual somehow - for being Slow. 

In case you’re curious, here’s one of those pages that makes one (1) recommendation. It makes about 30. There’s also a gift guide, with this humble apology on the site’s front page:

Sorry this is late. I sat around playing video games for a week instead of doing this gift guide. Here it is. It's so-so. BUT feel free to email me for gift ideas. Instead of making you rely on a generic list of stuff, I'll do custom recommendations for you if you just tell me your budget and something about your gift recipient.

That’s certainly the personal touch. If that’s the Slow Web, then yes, that’s great. Seems rather labor-intensive, though. If Amazon took the approach instead of having its massive cybernetic brain toss up recommendations based on clicks, it would have to hire hundreds of thousands of people.

There! Unemployment solved.

FASHION Finally, the opportunity to look like a Disney character. It’s easy for men to be Donald; just put on a hat and shirt and skip the pants. Different for the Princess line-up, though Just in time for Christmas, Harrods is here to help.

That’s about $81,000 Yank money. If you're wondering when the culture will get tired of revisiting the Disney Princesses, the answer is Never. 

ART If you’re an architect or interested in buildings, this may strike a chord.

Writing about modern architecture and modern photography for the Photographers' Gallery website, Hatherley says sites like Dezeen and Archdaily "provide little but glossy images of buildings that you will never visit, lovingly formed into photoshopped, freeze-dried glimmers of non-orthogonal perfection, in locations where the sun, of course, is always shining."

So? In related news, wedding photography rarely consists of people in burlap sacks standing out in the rain. As for “buildings that you will never visit,” I believe this falls into the category of “most buildings everywhere,” since architectural photography is the only way one gets to see these things. I’m not sure what the point is. We continue:

He adds: "In art, this approach to reproduction is dubious enough, but in architecture – where both physical experience and location in an actual place are so important – it’s often utterly disastrous, a handmaiden to an architectural culture that no longer has an interest in anything but its own image."

Ah, that’s why I bookmarked it. Now it comes back to me. A culture that no longer has an interest in anything but its own image. What’s the difference between the great buildings of yore and the goofy exhibitionist architecture of today? The former were built to please the patron - the Church, the State, the Company. Today the patron flatters the architect, comes bowing and scraping: will you please deign to design something for us?

The flip side: overly cautious developer architecture. Going up soon downtown:

We already have that building about ten times over. It looks like the old Lutheran Brotherhood building trying to emerge from one of the Target structures. If you don’t know the old LB building, it was a gem:

That’s a building that knows what it is. Then there’s this:

We have one of those already. It’s the Skyscape.

Don't get me wrong: I'll take them. I just wish there was a compromise between Safe and Obnoxious.