I get it, as Publishing students we are expected to be ceaselessly loyal to dead trees we stamp ink on, er… I mean books. Why? Because of nostalgia or tradition or because we’re really stubborn. One of these, take your pick. And we’re supposed to be wary of Amazon because they challenge the book industry and we’re not sure if we can trust this giant behemoth of a company.
But I have fully embraced my Amazon overlords. Jeff Bezos, if you’re reading this on the off chance that you’re super self-obsessed and deep Google searching your name, I submit my life to you. You’ve taken my money and your robots know more about me through my shopping history than my own parents do, so you might as well have my life.
and my life
Sure there is a believable chance that the Anti-Christ will come out of Amazon, but I’m going to enjoy everything Amazon offers until then. Yes, I know that their work-life is supposed to be hell and the way they manipulate prices is shady but I have and will continue to use Amazon for the same reason I sheepishly use Uber: It is super convenient.
You know what’s more convenient than using precious carry-on bag space for books to read on the plane? Bringing one Kindle on the place. More convenient than packing boxes of my favorite books as I move from place to place? Having all my books on my Kindle. More convenient than having to actually leave your house and to interact with other humans beings to ultimately do something as private as reading a book in your room? My Kindle robots don’t judge me for all the terrible YA fantasy fiction I like to indulge in. Have you ever gotten a paper cut from book? I dare you to try to get one on a Kindle.
I’ve had a Kindle since they had bulky keyboards (and I was sad when they discontinued the model) and I’ve tried to go back to books partially because of guilt and partially because of nostalgia. But in the end, convenience outweighs anything else.This is why I put most things on Amazon Prime, stock my pantry with Amazon pantry, get my clothes from myhabit.com (one of Amazon’s fashion babies), and the moment AmazonFresh opens in my area I’m dropping my peapod account. If Amazon offered me all their services for free if I got a tattoo, I’d get tramp stamp. Because of symbolic purposes, of course.
So now that Amazon has introduced their sleek, lighter, cooler Kindle Oasis, I don’t care that it’s almost $300. I care that it looks like it’s going to make reading more convenient for me and give me more reasons to read more often, and isn’t that what’s going to save books? It doesn’t matter how many trees you kill so you can smell the “new book smell” or if you fill your shelves with books if you’re not really going to read them because everything else in your life is more convenient.
Dark circles. Bags under the eyes. Panda eyes. Whatever they’re called, we can all relate. Who hasn’t looked in the mirror and seen these gloomy facial features? It’s so easy to get dark circles these days; we’re all working hard. But just because we work hard, doesn’t mean we have to look like we work hard. Is it too much to ask for a bright and rosy complexion even though we feel the complete opposite of bright or rosy (dark and thorny?)?
Donate to this Kickstarter to get rid of AJ’s bags once and for all. Eye creams are expensive and zappy laser treatment is even more expensive, so AJ needs your help in raising funds to buy the most expensive eye creams and to drown her face in them. If that doesn’t work, the plastic surgeon can give her eye bag implants for all she cares. She’s just tired of being compared to a panda, cute as they can be.
AJ will graciously share her results with her donors so they can know which expensive cream works. For triple-digit donors, AJ will personally come to your home and dab some of the expensive eye creams under your eyes. Don’t worry, she’s very gentle.
You may not recognize his name, but once you hear his voice there’s a good chance you’ll recognize his voice.
His name is John Baily and he is a voice actor best known for voicing the insanely popular Honest Trailers from the Screen Junkies YouTube channel.
Screen Junkies is owned by Defy Media and has three main shows, The Screen Junkies Show, Movie Fights, and Honest Trailers, as well as other short clips also about television and movies. With their growing popularity and strong presence on YouTube, Screen Junkies recently collaborated with Kevin Smith and fully jumped on the YouTube Red train.
Honest Trailers is their most popular show, with over 300 million views. There is a new Honest Trailer every Tuesday, usually around noon. Each video tends to parody popular movies, television, and even game trailers. Their most recent video was a two-parter: Superman (1978) and Batman (1989) to coincide with the new Batman vs. Superman movie.
John Baily has that deep rumble of a voice that’s just perfect to utter the words, “In a world…” Since he joined the team in 2012, he has been the vocal representative of the Screen Junkies and Honest Trailer brand. Although at first he only narrated the videos, he started to take more of a role and become more than a voice with the growth of his popularity. Once in a while the trailer will pause so that Baily can add his own bit as part of the script.
At the end of every video John Baily reads out comments from previous videos, and that in itself has become a familiar and well-liked part of the Honest Trailer experience. It’s also a sneaky way to get a lot of comments on their videos, but never mind that. It’s hard to mind when you can hear John Baily say “My llama crashed into a cactus,” just because someone asked him to.
Honest Trailers are popular because they take all the things that movie-goers talk about, but visualize it into a parody trailer. The trailers are usually witty and will point out inconsistencies, clichés, and outside references. Not only has Honest Trailers evolved into a definite and reliable persona, so has John Baily. He’s not just the narrator anymore, he’s an integral part of the Honest Trailer experience. Not only that, the team behind Screen Junkies has expanded and the production quality of their videos has increased as they become one of the most popular YouTube channels. It’s a popularity that is hard to deny or even argue against; I dare anyone try to just watch one without getting sucked into a never ending queue of parody trailers.
Pubcast student Arige spoke about her love for books and TV for her upcoming podcast, Going Off Book.
How did you come to choose this topic for your podcast?
I was trying to think of something I could see myself talking about for more than a few minutes and realized I could combine two of my favorite things, books and TV shows, into one podcast. I watch so many shows at are based on comics or books that it seemed like a great place to start.
What makes your podcast different than others already out on the web?
I love books and I religiously record my favorite shows, so my enthusiasm for the topic sets my podcast apart.
What do you think will be the hardest and easiest parts of the podcast?
The most difficult part will be stopping myself from rambling on in total fangirl mode. I don’t want to talk too much about specific events in the books or shows (because, seriously, SPOILER ALERT) but I still want my listeners to understand why I like them.
The easiest part will be finding books and shows to talk about since there are so many to choose from.
What excites you the most about this podcast?
I love getting the chance to see books I have read come to life outside of my own mind. Sometimes a movie-length adaptation isn’t enough to bring an entire world to life, so TV shows give the books a better chance at being fully realized. Really, I’ll take any excuse to talk about my favorite books and TV shows, and I hope that in doing some research on this topic I’ll discover new favorites.
Do you see a long-term future for this podcast?
For the first few episodes, I would focus on books I’ve read and the shows that they are based on, but there are a ton of shows based on books I have not had a chance to read yet. For example, I watch The Shannara Chronicles and Pretty Little Liars but have not read the books they are based on. There are so many to choose from and new shows start every season, so there is definite long-term potential. I’m just not sure that long-term podcasting is in the works for me, what with all the shows I watch and books I read that demand my free time!
If you had to do another topic for a podcast, what would it be on?
Another podcast idea I had was a podcast about the oral tradition of storytelling. I thought it would be cool to explore the role stories such as folktales have played in things like education and entertainment. I grew up in a community that really valued oral storytelling as part of its culture, and these stories were used not only to teach morals and life lessons, but also to teach history.
K-Pop is gaining popularity in the U.S. and getting more media coverage through different platforms. FuseTV has recently started a weekly podcast, hosted by Jeff Benjamin and Tina Xu, Fuse staff members who have experience not only writing about K-Pop but also being a fan of it. Only in their second week, “K-Stop” is still trying to find its identity and the hosts are discovering their flow and chemistry with each other. From chart toppers to recent news, “K-Stop” does a good job of covering different areas of K-Pop within thirty minutes, and to their credit they do not shy away from criticism and controversy. K-Pop fans, new and veteran, will enjoy listening to Jeff and Tina talk about this week’s favorite songs and have opportunities to join in on the conversation through social media like Twitter. Jeff and Tina offer fair but personal views on the songs and artists; they also explain Korean terms in an easily understandable manner. Hopefully this new podcast will find its unique voice and blend of the two hosts and become a “must listen” for any international K-Pop fan.
Audio Review
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.@FuseTV’s new “K-Stop” #podcast is going to grow into a “must listen” for any #KPop fan
There are a lot of podcasts out there about every topic known to man. If you want to expand (or in some cases compress) your intellectual horizons, here are 10 podcasts you probably haven’t heard of. You definitely have not heard of #10 yet, but you will definitely want to listen.
“Three high school kids from Northeast Pennsylvania mysteriously find themselves in Iorden, a land of dragons and elves, Orcs and kings.” If you enjoy playing Dungeons and Dragons and reading audiobooks, this is the podcast for you. You can follow the story from the very beginning and follow the characters (voiced by a full cast) through their adventures. Is it still considered “lesser known” when it received a nomination for Best Podcast by The Geekie Awards?
“Coffee is for closers.”
(Warning: Video contains offensive language)
So is coding. Coding is for closers. You can put all the fancy tags and brackets and internet jargon in a beautifully conducted melody of lines and instructions, but none of it will make anything if you don’t close!
The black slash and semi-colon are sadly underappreciated and undervalued. Let’s give them a little bit of recognition here:
/
;
Don’t forget these little, albeit very important, guys. Even the most experienced of html linguists can be wracked by anxiety and confusion when their seemingly perfect line of code doesn’t translate properly because they forgot or misplaced the two punctuation marks that make an unimpressed winky face: ;/
The best way to make sure these guys don’t get lost is to turn them into second nature. Continuously be conscious of putting in the closers until your fingers automatically reach for those keys when your brain realizes it’s coming to the end of the code. Then you can see your typed out creation in all of its glory.
I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a Redditor. I use Reddit religiously a few times a day, and I’m not quite a lurker as I have commented and even dared to share links. Obviously, I’m not your average expected Redditor, but Reddit has grown beyond the typical beard-neck Internet geek community it is often portrayed as.
I went back to November 26, 2005, one of its first popular days. Aside from the thumbnail previews and the many subreddits, the look is mostly the same. Even the little robot logo is still there. That early incarnation is much cleaner than the current version, but that’s simply because there just wasn’t as much content in 2005. Reddit is way bigger than it was then because the Internet is bigger now. As Reddit likes to claim, it is the “front page of the Internet.”
Screenshot of Reddit as it appeared in October of 2005.
Since the format is simple, it works on mobile devices, but the log-in box is so far to the right that you have to move the screen around.
Reddit now has a lot of content and relies on a combination of simplicity and variety for its design. It has taken up most of the white space it had before. Links are still ranked on the front page by popularity, but now they can be customized for each individual user based on what subreddits they are subscribed to. At the top, there is a bookmark bar of all the subreddits for easy access to all the various topics.
Reddit in its current incarnation.
The thumbnails give an idea of what kind of content to expect, along with the more descriptive titles. The right side has been filled up with options to make posts and ads from within Reddit. Despite its large user base, Reddit, for the most part, keeps away from large outside ads.
While the design of the website may not win any stylistic awards, Reddit’s design succeeds in keeping things simple while presenting as much information as possible. The core of Reddit has always been its content and community, on which it relies heavily.
For whatever reason, Reddit still has yet to create an official app and mobile access can be annoying because the text is so small. However, there are independent apps for Reddit—I use one called Bacon—but the sheer amount of content on Reddit makes it slightly unfavorable to mobile devices.
It’s difficult not to feel like an old person these days, especially on those weeknights I become a student.
I’m not a student most of the time; my identity is largely made up of what I do for work, or where I put my faith. I also hold fast to who I am to the different people in my life: family, friends, associates, lovers, enemies, and anyone in-between. I am a coworker for most of the day; a leader and friend on certain evenings and weekends; a sister and daughter when I’m on the phone. I am really only a student when I am in class, or on evenings I begrudgingly do my homework.
I don’t think it’s a terrible thing to be a student — nor do I expect other students to feel as disconnected as I do. It’s just that I have been so many other things.
Editor: For a few years I was the Senior Editor of a Korean Entertainment website. I started off as a writer, worked my way up to an editor, and was managing all the content on our website. Working in entertainment had a lot of perks: rubbing elbows and drinking with celebrities, trading in secrets, cameoing in Korean soap operas, appearing on BBC World News, and writing about fashion and gossip all day. There were still boring daily chores, like meetings and copyediting, but who likes to dwell on those memories?
Enemy: There’s a group of enraged fangirls out in the world who hate my very being and have sent me death threats — all because I had the gall to call out a boy band member who abused and impregnated his girlfriend. Even though the incident happened last year, they still occasionally tweet or write blogs about me.
“Engineering Expert”: I now work for an engineering firm as a marketing coordinator — a very ambiguous title, I know. Basically, I put together bid proposals for my company; I work with a bunch of civil engineers who can talk for hours about bridges and structures. And despite the fact that I’ve made it very clear I know nothing of civil engineering, my boss expects me to be an “engineering expert.”
Eighty-eighter: I was born in 1988: The year of the Dragon. A pretty cool year to be born. When I first came to Emerson, I expected the majority of my classmates would be like me: young professionals who, after working a few years, decided to better their education by going to grad school. I was surprised to find out that most of the grad students in my program came straight from — or soon after — their undergraduate studies. I have been the oldest in all but one of my classes, but despite that, I usually look the youngest. I have the face of a millennial, the mind of a Generation X, and the soul of a Baby Boomer.
Escalator Elbow Extracted: There’s an escalator in South Korea that might still have a piece of me in it. I tripped walking up an escalator and my elbow got caught between the moving steps. There was blood everywhere. If you ask, I will happily show you my scar.
At this point, I’m in my last semester at Emerson — along with a few summer classes I am in denial over — and frankly, ready to shed my current graduate student title and exchange it for this “Master of Publishing and Writing” moniker I’ve been paying a lot of money to have. :]
But I have learned a lot, and I expect to keep learning more in this final semester. I am looking forward to learning more about the production side of electronic publishing — particularly the coding and ebook publishing side of things. Website hosting, WordPress widgeting-ing, and SEO-ing are also skills I would like to develop!
As old and disconnected as being a student makes me feel, I’m glad I was one. So please excuse me as I alter the phrasing a bit and say: “And that’s why I’m going to rock out of Emerson.”
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If “Gangnam Style” is the only thing you can think of when it comes to K-Pop, you need to listen to this podcast right now, right this minute. What used to be simply the pop genre of Korea has now become a worldwide cultural phenomenon. K-Pop is growing in popularity all over the world, and it’s not hard to hear why: It is so darn catchy. Jeff Benjamin and Tina Xu of Fuse TV chat about all current things of K-Pop, from the latest scandals to what’s hitting the charts.</p>
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Who doesn’t like Denzel Washington? Seriously, who? He is just a likable actor. Every week these comedians talk about how they believe Denzel Washington is the greatest actor of all time. This isn’t just a fanboy love-rant, though; these guys can dissect a film and tackle controversial topics like race and diversity (or lack there-of) in films.</p>
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Bless Garret, who has the most NPRish voice there could be. I could fall asleep to his soothing voice, especially when he starts bubbling out all those latin-rooted dinosaur names. This is a must-hear for anyone even remotely interested in dinosaurs. Ever week Garret and Sabrina cover recent news about dinosaurs (as ironic as that sounds) and dedicate each podcast to one special dinosaur. They’ll even narrate dinosaur comics for you.</p>
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Maybe this podcast isn’t “lesser known” for hockey fans, but for the rest of the world this is bound to be an introduction. Just like the name hints, the two podcast hosts are known for disagreeing with each other, which seems right. If there’s going to be a podcast about hockey with two guys, they better be fighting with each other. That’s why hockey fans watch hockey, for the fights. No? No one else occasionally look up “hockey brawls” on YouTube? Just me?</p>
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Too many cooks spoil the broth but that does not apply to a podcast about motorcycles! The podcasts has more than a handful of hosts so it can be hard to tell the voices apart, but who cares when they all seem to be having a good time? You may not be into old motorcycles and repairing them, but you never know when the apocalypse will start and you will need to jump start a a beat up bike to get away from the zombies. So do yourself a favor and pick up a few tricks.</p>
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If you play a drinking game where you take a shot whenever someone does a snort-laugh, you won’t make it to the end of the podcast. If you think the 90s were better just in every sense of the way and want to listen to some funny nerds geek out about Star Wars or the Predator, bust out your pods and prepare your best Ahh-nold impression.</p>
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There are a lot of things that can keep you up at night: thinking about your student loans, your neighbor with the squeaky bed frames, or a phantom itch that keeps moving around your body. Luckily for you and me, there’s “Sleep with Me” one of the few podcasts out there that wants you to sleep through it. There’s just something about that slow, sleepy voice that drawls like a lullaby to help you fall asleep.</p>
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10. AJ’s Podcast
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Remind me to come back and edit this list. I’m going to be doing a podcast and while I haven’t married an idea or theme yet, you just wait. Maybe I’ll do my own Irish history podcast (must do a lot of studying) or take my hand at making people fall asleep. Whatever it will be, I’ll make sure it’s worth your time.</p>
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