We landed on a comet today. Sure, you and I didn’t have anything to do with it — well, I, at least, didn’t have anything to do it it — but that’s OK. Sure, it was the European Space Agency and not the Americans, but we landed on a comet. Humanity did that. We did that.
We launched something into space 10 years ago, shot it around the earth a few times, Mars and then set it off on a course to catch up to this comet, this leftover from the universe’s creation.
And then our little science experiment, having made and matched the comet’s trajectory, dropped a clothes dryer full of equipment onto it and are talking with an appliance on a comet. I wonder if GE made it.
Oh, and has anyone seen Bruce Willis or Ben Affleck lately? They could be up there, ya know.
There’s a YouTube video titled “Everything Wrong With Armageddon In 14 Minutes Or Less.”
It is more than 16 minutes long.
And, someday, an alien culture will watch Armageddon. Just think on the stuff we’ve been beaming into outer space as our earliest socio-cultural first impressions.
Things to read … because reading always leaves a good impression.
I like the modifier here. As if to suggest that no other manager, nowhere, wants his employees to represent the company in a positive way, Salty Chick-fil-A manager makes list of forbidden words:
A Chick-fil-A manager is so irritated at his staff’s use of slang that he compiled a list of terms the employees are forbidden to use. The missive has gone viral in social media.
[…]
“You will speak properly when you walk through these doors,” he wrote. “You are a professional so speak professionally.”
I’m guessing … heavy print stock and laminate? What Pizza Hut’s Radical New Menu Actually Tastes Like:
On Nov. 19, Pizza Hut will essentially relaunch its entire brand, changing the food it serves, the way its ordered and even the company logo. There are 11 new signature pizzas, six new sauces, 10 new crust flavors and four drizzles — enough options to allow for 2 billion unique pizza combinations. For the company known for trencherman staples like Stuffed Crust, Meat Lover’s and Supreme, the new menu is the fast-food equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.
“It’s a fear of irrelevance,” says Darren Tristano, a food industry analyst at Technomic. “But the potential to negatively influence their current customer base is certainly there.”
It’s a risk Pizza Hut is willing to take, though they’re hedging bets by keeping those old favorites on the menu. Sales at the nation’s largest pizza chain have been dropping for two years, as Domino’s, Little Caesars and Papa John’s—the No. 2, 3 and 4 chains, respectively—have cut into Pizza Hut’s business.
As I tell my students on a regular basis, the “why” is almost always the most interesting part of any story: FSU postpones Jameis Winston hearing until Dec. 1.
This is big. In a tumultous period of advertising and what it means to newsrooms and media outlets, this is big: Half Of Automotive Advertising To Shift To Digital.
New rules for mobile journalism:
Although mobile publishing is quickly changing the rules of journalism, newspapers have been dangerously slow to adapt.
This has got to be fixed, because digital natives like BuzzFeed, Circa, Mic, Upworthy, Vice, Vocative and Vox are competing for – and in many cases winning over – the youthful readers coveted by publishers and advertisers.
As discussed previously here, nearly half of the digital page views at many newspapers are occurring on mobile devices. But editors and publishers have been slow to recognize that mobile publishing is as different from print-to-web publishing as television is from cave drawings.
Constrained screen real estate – like the new 1.5-inch Apple Watch – isn’t the only factor influencing the development of content for mobile devices. An even bigger issue is the limited amount of time that publishers can engage with readers.
And this may be bigger. As I also like to say, the only thing that has demonstrated a growth faster that web proliferation is the mobile penetration.
I bet Philae is up on that comet right now, just waiting on something to download to its iPad.
