Recent examples of my writing.
Congress Braces for Battle Over Cybersecurity Bill
At The Daily Beast.
Our networks and social tools are used as both as conduits and targets for attack by criminals and hackers. Perhaps inevitably, they've become the latest battleground for the tensions between civil liberties and national security. We want to ensure our ability to cripple criminal activity while preventing intrusions into our personal privacy. We want the government in the criminals' business, but not our own.
Drawing a line between privacy and security is never easy. It is far more difficult when the line is being drawn on Capitol Hill--particularly right now.
'Gee Whiz, a Space Fair!': A Trip Back to 1969
At The Atlantic.
A little north of Los Angeles, just outside Oxnard, is the naval air station at Point Mugu. Farther north than much of the rest of Southern California's robust military presence, Naval Base Ventura County (as it's now known) was built during World War II as an anti-aircraft training center and evolved, after the war, into a missile development facility. This role spurred the aerospace and defense industries to set up shop in Oxnard, helping to give the base the sort of presence in the community that is unique to such installations, the military factory town.
In 1960, the base launched the Space Fair at Point Mugu. It's hard to imagine a two word combination that could spur as much enthusiasm in a twelve year-old boy. Space. Fair. And that was basically the point.
The 'Cliffs Notes Web' Has Won
At The Atlantic. Featured on Daily Dish.
We trained ourselves to quickly scan and evaluate links, a tendency perfected and exploited by Twitter. Brevity is fashionable -- the ever-hip Awl's Twitter feed, for example, goes out of its way to be terse. This is the gateway web now: blurb, link. Sometimes combined, sometimes not.
What makes Pinterest unique is that the blurbs are images. The front page of Pinterest is an old-fashioned link blog using pictures instead of words. It's not a blog platform; it's image Twitter.
What BuzzFeed's New Politics Team Is Doing Right
At Mediaite. Featured at Poynter.
One month ago, people chuckled at Ben Smith's bizarre move, one that they snarkily assumed would take him from the world of competitive politics to a world of competitive YouTube clips. Instead, he's unveiled a different, compelling way to cover a political campaign - and other media outlets are figuring out how they can catch up.
Why Did Hollywood Earn Less in 2011 Than 2010? Hint: The Movies
At Mediaite. Featured at Shortformblog.
Slate's Dave Weigel noted that 2011's box office earnings are on pace to be $1 billion below 2010's. Which made me wonder: is there a correlation between the quality of this year's movies and the reduced earnings?
Yes, there is.
Santa's Christmas Eve Workload, Calculated
At The Atlantic. Featured by The Economist, Five Thirty Eight, The Wall Street Journal, Freakonomics, the Washington Post's Wonkblog, Buzzfeed, Oprah.com, Southern California Public Radio, Daily Dish, and New York magazine.
It is stipulated that Santa Claus exists. Further, that he spends the night of December 24th circling the globe in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. That he gains access to the homes of children that celebrate Christmas children, and that he gives them presents. And that he does this in the dark, unseen.
Granted, it seems... impractical. Over the course of one night, St. Nick has to stop by the home of every Christian child in the world. Of which there are a lot.
I decided to figure out how many.