Disqus - Latest Comments for jeffstern

Re: The Grateful Dead School of Business

jeffstern — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 17:06:50 -0000

I've always admired the business acumen of the Wu Tang Clan - though this is based on hearsay (I believe it was Nick Wild who told me about this back in college), I have no reason not to believe it (but no source to point you to). They looked at the system, saw that it was exploitative, and figured out a way to make it work for them anyway.
Once the Wu Tang Clan was first signed to a major label, each of the members quietly managed to get signed to different labels for their solo projects. That way, if Method Man's label started to push their weight around, he could just refuse to put out any more records for them while doing plenty of guest verses on other members' albums. And while this required a lot of trust among each other, this never seemed to present an issue. On the contrary, they seemed to welcome new members regularly. In this way they inverted the traditional power dynamic between label and artist.
Further, I think it really helped them musically - requiring that they stay active in a bunch of solo-duo-trio projects in between albums allowed for lots of exploration and creativity.

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate

jeffstern — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:22:53 -0000

Just started ReamDe, but most anticipation is for The Last Western by Thomas Klise, which I'm saving for vacation when I have more uninterrupted reading time.

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Volume 1: Freefall and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate

jeffstern — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 19:54:29 -0000

Misfits of Science

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win Two Graphic Novels and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate

jeffstern — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:15:44 -0000

The 3 that I tend to recommend are Derek Kirk Kim's Same Difference and Other Stories, Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison and V for Vendetta. As you can see from the list, I haven't been good at keeping up with more modern graphic novels.

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win Tupelo Hassman's Novel Girlchild and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate

jeffstern — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:48:43 -0000

Does Confederacy of Dunces count? If not, I'll go music and choose Bottomless Pit's Hammer of the Gods.

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win Lev Grossman's' Novels "The Magicians" and "The Magician King" and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate

jeffstern — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:58:14 -0000

Hitchikers guide series by Douglas Adams

Re: 5 Gifts of Being Highly Sensitive (World of Psychology)

jeffstern — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:55:36 -0000

Psychotherapy is one of the blogs I follow regularly. I liked this because I both identify with some of the things mentioned and know a lot of people who also would. I particularly liked the thought at the end, that we often use sensitive/introvert in a derogatory way in our culture, whereas in others it is a valued trait.

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate

jeffstern — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:01:13 -0000

David Foster Wallace

Re: http://bullmccabestrivia.com/post/11058962731

jeffstern — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:14:45 -0000

Her?

Re: Innovation in Education

jeffstern — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:57:01 -0000

I recently heard a presentation from a current private-school teacher who is looking to start a new niche middle school utilizing tech tools (blogs, microenterprise platforms). However, this founder-to-be is less excited about the tech and more passionate about changing the educational paradigm, as Mark mentioned - putting the entire curriculum through the lens of current events so that the lessons are relevant to daily life, and making 6th-8th grade a cumulative learning experience that culminates in a social entrepreneurship project (e.g. kiva). He's started describing his vision (heavy on curricular thoughts) at http://trianglearning.wordp...

Re: http://smsc.tumblr.com/post/1411697486

jeffstern — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:28:24 -0000

gonna miss this one too, but keep me on the list.

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win 14 Graphic Novels from Top Shelf Comix

jeffstern — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:10:23 -0000

The Abominable Charles Christopher (currently online only, I think, though a book collection is planned/coming) and Owly (also from Top Shelf)

Re: The 10 best tool collections for delicious users

jeffstern — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:14:45 -0000

Thank you! The twitter-to-delicious option will hopefully revitalize my relationship with delicious, which has really suffered in the last year or two.

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win the New Arcade Fire Album and Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small

jeffstern — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:58:24 -0000

aum fidelity

Re: Join the 31 Days to a Brand New Blog Challenge

jeffstern — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:30:53 -0000

Jeff Stern
http://jeffstern.wordpress....
@jeffreymstern

I've left this wordpress blog abandoned for far too long in favor of twitter and a few tumblrs. Which are great, but I would like to get back to regularly posting more serious thought pieces on my original "personal brand" blog.

Re: Some reasons why people go out of their way to create things on behalf of an institution:

jeffstern — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:49:51 -0000

Because it helped a friend or made me look knowledgeable/smart to friends/colleagues (e.g. writing a review, passing along a link, etc)

Re: http://bijansabet.com/post/578936240

jeffstern — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:45:00 -0000

kid tested, mother approved

Re: http://fiveorfewer.tumblr.com/post/572337769

jeffstern — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:57:04 -0000

Yes, I'm interpreting like Elizabeth. Creating meals with more than 5 ingredients is encouraged - the five or fewer comes in at the grocery store when you're buying things. So as long as your non-nutritive herbs and spices are actually what you think (rather than polysodium acsorbitate #5) when you look at the ingredient list, and they don't have tons of hidden preservatives, you should be fine.

Also, thanks for the mention of Wed hours at the farmer's market! I just went to their site and found that in addition to hours, they also list recipes from local chefs focused on local ingredients: http://www.durhamfarmersmar...

Re: http://fiveorfewer.tumblr.com/post/566442504

jeffstern — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:27:58 -0000

Oh, and it's mentioned in the "about" tab, but if you would like to participate in five or fewer, email me at jeffrey [dot] m [dot] stern [at] gmail {dot} com

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Win All Five Scott Pilgrim Books

jeffstern — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:59:31 -0000

I'd definitely choose Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison. But since that's both unlikely and unlikely to be done well, I'll go with The Question and Elfquest (c'mon, it's better than LOTR)

Re: Jeff Stern - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

jeffstern — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:56:32 -0000

Having finished this book, I very highly recommend it to business/tech people, highly recommend it to scifi people, and recommend it with reservations to lit people. Shortly after writing the post above, I found some cringeworthy and clunky writing, and really, Stephenson is somewhere in the realm of William Gibson and Philip K. Dick. I love them both, but primarily for their ideas and their storytelling, rather than the writing itself.

You're not going to find the beauty of DFW or Cormac, nor the punch of Hemingway or Raymond Carver. But it's solid, good storytelling and I don't think fans of Gregory McDonald or any mainstream thriller/myster writer would be disappointed.

Re: Experimonth 2010

jeffstern — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:37:38 -0000

Kristen,

Do your own if you like, or do a month with the rest of us! When everyone else was eating raw food in January '09, I knew I couldn't do it. Instead, I gave up fast food (a 3-5x/week habit at the time) for the month as my own mini-version.

If there's a particular goal that you want to try for a month, go ahead and suggest it. The 9 that I put up there are either derivative of the '09 selections or things that I really want to try. I'm also really interested to potentially try things I totally DON'T want to do, though, especially if they're important to other people.

Thanks!

Re: Largehearted Boy: Contest - Largehearted Housecleaning x4 - Win 100 CDs

jeffstern — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:35:09 -0000

The Major Works of John Coltrane edges out Daydream Nation.

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

jeffstern — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:22:24 -0000

Nice - reminds me of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Re: useum: The Institution: I am the voice of the...

jeffstern — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:25:48 -0000

Left out is the institution-bot, where the stream of communication is all (or mostly) focused on content that the institution has produced elsewhere. Perhaps this omission is intentional, as this practice is generally frowned upon and abandoned as the institution participates further in the medium (@idealist_org, @mckquarterly and @pitchforkmedia all seemed to start with 75%+ tweets announcing new blog posts, but now are more active participants in the twitter community)