Comments for Connor Tomas O'Brien

Comment on Links: Fixing The Third World by Myriam Robin

Myriam Robin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:00:07 +0000

Brilliant article. Well worth the days it took me to finish reading it :p

Comment on If We Don’t Save Our Memories, Nobody Else Will by Connor Tomas O'Brien

Connor Tomas O'Brien — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:14:08 +0000

Elliot, totally! Facebook is that jerk you hang around with because he’s got great connections, but could turn on you completely at any moment.

Sigh, I want Geocities back. *Tear*.

Comment on If We Don’t Save Our Memories, Nobody Else Will by Elliot Clowes

Elliot Clowes — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:12:13 +0000

I agree completely. Facebook is that guy you meet at a party that you just don’t trust. The guy you know will later be rummaging around upstairs looking for something to steal.

I use Facebook casually; trying not to invest too much time or data into the service. I wouldn’t use it at all if so many people weren’t on it. Only 1 person I know isn’t on there.

Twitter’s handy because it’s just characters. Facebook is a lot more complicated than that. Andy Graulund’s Nest thing is really cool. Beautiful as well. You might want to try Backupify. I’ve been using it for a while now, and it works fine. It backs up quite a few social sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and Delicious. I haven’t personally tried the Facebook service yet as it’s still in beta and will probably push me over 2GB of storage and require a premium subscription. But try it. It’s very handy.

Comment on Fixing Kindle Pricing by Connor Tomas O'Brien › Neighbourhood Economics

Connor Tomas O'Brien › Neighbourhood Economics — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:24:10 +0000

[...] cheaper, faster, more convenient for me to purchase a title online for my Amazon Kindle (yes, I caved) than walk one block down the road to my local indie bookseller. Is there any way small retailers [...]

Comment on How To Be Alone by Hallie Bateman

Hallie Bateman — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 01:03:06 +0000

There’s a really great short story in “Girl on the Fridge” by Etgar Keret about a man who hires a sherpa to get him lost.

Comment on Links: Magazines Without Personality by Jesse

Jesse — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:44:20 +0000

Quite. The same goes for Vanity Fair, if you’ve ever read it.

The front half of V.F. is full of photos of drunk celebrities and so forth. The back half comprises ten-page dissertations about politics and what they actually claim to be the best economics journalism out there.

There’s no arguing that everyone reads it for the former. I guess the idea is, if anyone sees you reading it, you can show them some of the back half and say, “I love this mag, but reading it sure is HARD YAKKA.”

Comment on Links: Magazines Without Personality by Walter

Walter — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:31:25 +0000

I know, right!

They may well survive on people like me with benevolent elderly relatives who just keep renewing that subscription at Christmas time (since I was a tween, incidentally…).

They seem to be stuck in a bit of a fix where they try to present themselves as the finger-on-the-pulse harbinger of new and happening music whilst celebrating classic rock (see their recent consecutive run of Hendrix and AC DC covers).

Neither of these things they actually do half as well as blogs and Mojo or Uncut, which make no effort to present themselves as celebrators of the past – any contemporary coverage is a handy bonus.

So Rolling Stone doesn’t really have a place at ALL, and like you said even when they do have an excellent piece of journalism it gets its balls cut off by the content of the pages around it.

Annnnyway. That was a poorly thought out rant.

Comment on Magazines Are People, Too by Connor Tomas O'Brien › Links: Magazines Without Personality

Connor Tomas O'Brien › Links: Magazines Without Personality — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:20:16 +0000

[...] just makes me even more sure that what makes great magazines great is a winning personality. Content isn’t [...]

Comment on Magazines Are People, Too by Connor Tomas O'Brien

Connor Tomas O'Brien — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:50:29 +0000

In a way, I reckon that’s what works for Monocle. The magazine is just so over-the-top and strange that it demands attention. Same with The Believer.

Comment on Magazines Are People, Too by Elliot Clowes

Elliot Clowes — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:27:16 +0000

Ha, spot on critique of Monocle. I bought it once because it looked interesting and well designed. Me and my friends just sat in my car for about 30 minutes trying to work out what it was about and who its target audience was.

Your right. The average reader of Monocle mustn’t exist. Must he? I think I buy it so I can be taken into a different world. I’m sure those Russian spies who got arrested will have a copy of Monocle lying around somewhere on their coffee table.

(By the way, ‘Your Day As A Freelance Writer‘ was great! And as always, spot on.