Linked List: December 24, 2013

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Unprofessionalism 

Allen Pike:

The behaviours that make us human are not professional. Honesty, frankness, humour, emotionality, embracing the moment, speaking up for what you believe, affection, sincerity. Quoting extremely offensive trolls. These are all things that will make some people love you and others hate you. When you get more attention, these aspects of your personality fuel the inevitable backlash. As your audience grows, the chance of any given action triggering criticism asymptotically approaches 100%.

‘Today, the Process Is Faster. It’s Your Brain, a Button, Then Millions of Reactions.’ 

Steve Martin, after a misquotation of a joke he tweeted was spread by Salon:

Then, Salon.com reported on the story and changed the wording of the tweet. They wrote: “It depends if you are in an African American restaurant or an Italian restaurant.” Clearly, this misquote implies that an African American restaurant can’t spell “lasagna” on the menu. And my name was attached to the misquoted tweet. Other websites, including TMZ.com picked up this incorrect version and for the next four days, and more, it continued to spread and I couldn’t get out of hell.

Winston Churchill once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” It’s a lot faster now.

Update: Credit for Churchill’s line goes to C.H. Spurgeon, back in 1859.