The blog of Manhattan!

Check out Gawker — a very cool new blog, devoted to chatty, catty gossip about Manhattan! I love this stuff … more proof of the interesting small publishing-biz possibilities that flow out of blogging. They find tons of excellent tidbits of New York life, such as this bit from the New York Observer:

Drunken Shopping
The gift shop at the Times Square W has developed an ingenious new retail strategy: ensure that your shoppers are drunk when they enter the store by putting it next to the bar. Then allow—even encourage—your customers to continue downing cocktails once inside, as the inhibition leads to promiscuous AmEx Centurion Card use. Most of the customers are male and tend to buy things for women—the ones they’re dating, the ones they’re sleeping with, the cocktail waitresses, the sales associates. Anyone, really. But women do it, too. “We have a Fabien Baron snowboard,” says sales associate Caitlin Sheehan, “and a drunk woman came stumbling out of the bathroom one night and asked if it’s a belt—and it’s so totally not.”

(This item courtesy Boing Boing!)


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Bio:

I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.

Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!

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Recent Entries

The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map

Should automobile software be open-sourced?

My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”

Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”

Garry Kasparov, cyborg

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Clive Thompson's Tumblr
a bunch of stuff

January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are al­ready dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a mis­ery, then, be­cause an evil?
A. Cer­tain­ly.
M. Then those who have al­ready died, and those who have still got to die, are both mis­er­able?
A. So it ap­pears to me.
M. Then all are mis­er­able?
A. Ev­ery one.

January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM

One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009

)

January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM

BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.

January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM

“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)

January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM

I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.

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Collision Detection: A Blog by Clive Thompson