Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Category: Long Reads

Stories that take a bit longer to get through.

  • Fitocracy Needs Improvement

    After seeing the xkcd comic about Fitocracy, I scoured the internet for invitations and was thrilled when I finally found one. Now that I’ve been using the site for a month or two, some of my enthusiasm has waned. The concept is excellent: Turning fitness into an RPG-style game is a brilliant idea, tapping into…

  • Warner Brothers and Trakt

    It’s no secret that Big Content is more than a little schizophrenic when it comes to technology, seeing death knells in the very disruptions that later become their lifeblood. In this vein, I saw the other day that Warner Brothers Australia has begun including shouts from Trakt users on their movie pages. Don’t get me…

  • A Post about Pens

    My mother will tell you that I began collecting pens, pencils, and the occasional highlighter or marker from an early age. As I got older, I stopped saving every corporate logo’d stick pen that crossed my path, instead filling mugs and cans with souvenir pens containing trains or animals that floated back and forth, pencils…

  • Snapshot of a Researcher: Dr. Soriano

    At least one person has told me her view of scientists was that they were all crazy white-haired men with accents. It got me thinking—I think that picture is close to a majority opinion. Indeed, if you do a Google image search for “scientist,” one of the first results is pretty much exactly that. As others…

  • Today in Netflix

    Yesterday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix would be moving in still another new direction, in a reversal of decision made only a few weeks prior. Qwikster, Hastings’ stillborn attempt to save his precipitously declining customer base by forcing them to cancel two subscriptions instead of one, will be resorbed by the original Netflix…

  • Social Networking Fatigue

    My thoughts on this began with a conversation I had with my friend Caitlyn where the two of us ranted that social networking is beginning to have more emphasis on the “working” and less on the “social.” Facebook is making all kinds of changes, prompting the usual outcry from people who don’t like different. I’m…

  • How to Engage with the Community

    I don’t consider myself a “blogger” or a “social media guru,” but I do enjoy sharing things with my friends and meeting new people online. I also don’t like when companies try to force buzz, such “retweet this message ten times to enter to win a prize.” Instead, I share things with people because I…

  • Netflix’s War on Customers

    It’s no secret that the big media “old guard” want absolute control over how we as individuals experience culture. Rather than viewing the internet and the technologies and services it enables as exciting new opportunities to eliminate the cost of distribution and reach a global audience, they have insisted on clinging to a scarcity-driven business…