interesting things
Top Obama aides were stunned by disclosures that the ex-aide and current campaign adviser is so active with firms lobbying the administration. James Warren reports.
via The Daily Beast – Latest Articles http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/22/obama-aides-pissed-off-about-anita-dunn.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
Romney insisted on the caduceus, associated with medicine, in his portrait, the artist tells Michael Daly.
via The Daily Beast – Latest Articles http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/22/the-symbol-mitt-romney-demanded-on-his-official-gubernatorial-portrait.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
A photograph of a 93-year-old Second World War veteran casting what will likely be his last ballot has captured the hearts of tens of thousands of Internet users.
via Yahoo! News – Latest News & Headlines http://news.yahoo.com/photo-second-world-war-veteran-casting-ballot-captures-082154483.html
The Single Most Important Object In The Global Economy (Slate)
Others argue it’s the shipping container.
Who Invented The Pallet?, The History of the Fork Truck, and Which Came First, the Pallet or the Fork Truck?. The modern shipping pallet (top and bottom deck, center stringer) was patented by a forklift company in 1939.
Pallets are a common source of materials for recycling and upcycling projects: Pallet House, bike rack, meditation chamber, lighting fixture.
Due to their sturdy construction, a pallet can be used many times. It is important to ensure a pallet is contaminant-free before using for a project.
via MetaFilter http://www.metafilter.com/121127/one-can-quickly-find-themselves-on-the-wrong-side-of-an-argument-at-a-materials-handling-convention
BuzzFeed, the social news website led by Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti, is opening a Los Angeles bureau to focus on viral-worthy Hollywood news. The bureau will be run by Richard Rushfield, the LA Times and Gawker veteran, and has already hired Kate Aurthur, formerly the TV editor at the LA Times and West Coast editor of the Daily Beast and Newsweek, as chief Los Angeles correspondent to write about film, TV and celebrities. Investigative reporter Michael Hastings, now covering the presidential campaign, will also be on the team. The bureau is expected to grow to a staff of 12, the Hollywood Reporter says.
The move adds another player to the crowded scrum of Hollywood news websites, and a well-trafficked one at that. BuzzFeed, which was launched in 2006 as a social news website that aggregates viral content and serves it to readers via search and social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, generated 16 million unique visitors in September, according to Comscore. The company, led by Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti, announced in January that it had raised $15.5 million in new funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with Lerer Ventures, Hearst Media, Softbank and RRE participating.
BuzzFeed’s editor in chief Ben Smith was recruited from Politico in December 2011 in a push for original content, starting first with a politics vertical.
“Richard and Kate are perfectly positioned to combine the best traditions of honest, lucid entertainment coverage with today’s changing web,” Smith says in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Michael Hastings will be invaluable in helping us shake the foundations of entertainment journalism in 2013 as we did with politics in 2012. It’s the right year to do this and there’s an audience primed and ready for first rate entertainment content built for the social web,â€
In an interview with THR, Rushfield says the plan is to combine viral-ready takes on big entertainment moments with serious reporting that will rival traditional outlets….”BuzzFeed has mastered creating real news for the social web, so the opportunity to expand that to Hollywood is exciting,” says Rushfield, who also has written for The New York Times and Gawker and recently penned a book about American Idol. “We want to create the kind of stories people will want to share and pass around.”
On his personal website, Rushfield posted tonight: “I had all but given up hope of being excited about things in this media world, but I am beyond thrilled about this opportunity. I have loved the mix they are pioneering of fun viral content combined with real gumshoe reporting and the chance to bring that to Hollywood is a dream. And what makes it kind of scarily good is that I’m joining a team of both really smart and really nice, decent people there. I didn’t know that could happen.”
Earlier this weekend Rushfield posted a Facebook photo of himself and a young baby outside Espresso Profeta in Westwood. So he’s got his hands full now.
Facebook profile photo of Rushfield
via LA Observed http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2012/10/buzzfeed_expands_into_hol.php
As the 2012 election cycle looks to be the most expensive in history, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg are the top donors in the presidential race, the Associated Press reported.
Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire, and his family gave a whopping $34.2 million to support GOP nominee Mitt Romney and Katzenberg, the DreamWorks Animation CEO, has contributed about $2.6 million to the effort to re-elect the president.
Other top donors to Romney’s efforts include three Texas money moguls: Owner of Contran Corp, a Dallas-based conglomerate, Harold Simmons, who gave $16 million; Head of Houston real estate empire Bob J. Perry, who gave $15.3 million; and the head of Dallas-based RTR Holdings Robert Rowling, who contributed $4.1 million. Fifth on the list is William Koch, who owns a Florida-based energy and mining business and has donated $3 million.Â
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/adelson-katzenberg-are-top-donors-20121019
Actor Tom Hanks was on ABC’s “Good Morning America†this morning, and promptly undid his reputation as one of the cleanest guys in Hollywood by dropping an F-bomb.
There were mic issues, so Hanks had to hold a handheld microphone for the interview, making it somewhat awkward from the start. After showing a clip from his new movie “Cloud Atlas†at 8:25 AM, Elizabeth Vargas asked Hanks to speak in the accent he used in the clip. “Most of it is swear words,†Hanks warned, “well if you say it in an accent like that they won’t notice,†Vargas replied.
Hanks, with the deep accent, said “I want people to fucking…†before catching what he said and generating an instant apology from Vargas.
“I am so sorry, I have slipped into a brand of acting, I have never done that before,†Hanks said. “I want to apologize to the kids in America that are watching right now, and let me say that the next time I am on ‘Good Morning America’ there will be a seven second delay.â€
After finishing the interview, Hanks looked to the camera, and channeled his inner Richard Nixon, quipping:
“Once again, my apologies to the people of the United States of America.â€
Video after the jump, via NowThis News
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
via TVNewser http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/tom-hanks-drops-f-bomb-on-good-morning-america_b150947
Tony Hsieh’s crazy urban experiment.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/magazine/what-happens-in-brooklyn-moves-to-vegas.html
In the gross-out comedy ‘That’s What She Said’, Heche plays a neurotic. By Lorenza Muñoz
via The Daily Beast – Latest Articles http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/19/anne-heche-s-crazy-new-movie-that-s-what-she-said.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
An investigation into the Secret Service prostitution scandal by the Department of Homeland Security contradicts the Secret Service director’s assertion before Congress that “this just is not part of our culture,†ABC News reports.
via Yahoo! News – Latest News & Headlines http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-contradicted-prostitution-scandal-223203205–abc-news-politics.html