In an interview Wednesday with CNBC, Matherson confirmed that Cloud was a not a real person.
“When we made the decision to use a pseudonym two years ago, it was a mistake,” Matherson said.
— Annie Nova “CEO of student loan marketplace LendEDU admits the name of the founder of a partner site is fake” CNBC
More and more Americans are socially poor. And yet it is very hard for the socially wealthy to even see this fact. It is the very nature of loneliness and social isolation to be invisible. We talk as if the lonely don’t exist.
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The British anthropologist Robin Dunbar observes that human societies exist on three levels: the clan (your family and close friends), the village (your local community) and the tribe (your larger group). In America today you would say that the clans have polarized, the villages have been decimated and the tribes have become weaponized.
That is, some highly educated families have helicopter parents while less fortunate families have absent parents. The middle ring cross-class associations of town and neighborhood have fallen apart. People try to compensate for the lack of intimate connection by placing their moral and emotional longings on their political, ethnic and other tribes, turning them viciously on each other.
— David Brooks “The blindness of social wealth” The New York Times
Do you think John McCain wanted, in that moment, to be the American son of the then-Commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater, in a war he, like many soldiers, had begun to have misgivings about? Do you think he wanted his job to be the personal representative of a foreign empire in hostile territory? Given his horrendous and painful injuries, do you think he wanted to be responsible for anyone or anything but nursing his own wounds?
The answer to that is no. No one would choose that. But choice or not, McCain believe he could make good from this, that he could rise to the occasion and that’s precisely what he did.
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And life is short. So if you want to be a writer, start writing (don’t tell yourself you have to finish something else first). If you want to help people, start helping people (don’t tell yourself you have to get rich first). If you want to be this or that, well, start—don’t chase another degree.
Because you never know if you’ll get another chance.
— Ryan Holiday
When you grow up amid instability, fear, and sadness, these feelings become your default setting, the known, and the safe. And it’s hard to leave them behind and enter the kingdom of self-love. It makes you feel naïve and unguarded, fully vulnerable to what the writer Sarah Manguso calls “the burden of hope.”
— Steve Almond “Why Is the Greatest Love of All Also the Hardest?” The New York Times
New York is a very livable city. But when you move away and become a visitor, the city seems to turn against you. It’s much more expensive (because you have to eat all your meals and pay for a place to sleep) and much more unfriendly.
— Nora Ephron
For thousands of people this will be the neighborhood they know best, the endpoint of their commutes, the place to buy groceries and go to the movies, maybe even live. And yet it’s hard to imagine that New York’s unruly body will ever fully absorb this company town, or come to love a high-rise, high-end elevated office park. Hudson Yards is an executive’s idea of a diverse city, a place without bargains, ugliness, friction, or decay. No pandemonium allowed.
Justin Davidson “Superhuman City” New York Magazine
I should confess that I once purchased a ticket just to get free parking at the theatre — I never saw the movie.
Last week a regulatory filing by MoviePass’s parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics, laid out just how fragile the business model is.
“MoviePass has experienced significant net losses since inception,” Helios and Matheson writes in its annual report.
On $10.4m in revenues, it reported an overall $150.8m net loss for last year, largely due to the costs of acquiring and financing MoviePass.
“MoviePass currently spends more to retain a subscriber than the revenue derived from that subscriber,” it said. “This results in a negative gross profit margin.”
— Tim Bradshaw “Binge watch cinema cheaply with MoviePass — while you still can” Financial Times
… I say mellow things like, ‘Well, at least we’re headed in the right direction.’ My husband says mellow things too, like ‘Well, we’ve never come this way before, so it might be interesting.’ And he’s right. It might be interesting. Except that it’s very dark outside, and the only thing I can see clearly is a sign that says we’re on Route 110 heading north through Fort Salonga. Wherever that is.
— Nora Ephron “Blind as a Bat”
A chief resident will advise a junior. “Learn to be fast now. You can learn to be good later.”
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The tortoise, on the other hand, proceeds deliberately, with no wasted movements, measuring twice, cutting once.
–Paul Kalanithi When Breath Becomes Air
The Metal Detector 