Author: gordon
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Zen To Done: The Simple Productivity E-Book! | zen habits
Zen To Done: The Simple Productivity E-Book!
NEW: Buy the perfect companion to this best-selling productivity ebook: The Essential Motivation Handbook.
Zen To Done is a simple system to get you more organized and productive, and keep your life saner and less stressed, with a set of habits.
Zen To Done takes some of the best aspects of a few popular productivity systems (GTD, Stephen Covey and others) and combines them with the mandate of simplicity. It makes things as simple as possible, and no more.
Buy the ZTD system in a handy e-book, with additional material, resources and forms:
Reader testimonial: “I had always dabbled in trying to establish some sort of productivity habits, but GTD and everything similar seemed too intensive to realistically implement. ZTD and its simplicity make perfect sense to me.” Christopher
What is ZTD?
Simply put, ZTD teaches you:
- The key habits needed to be productive, organized, and simplified … and no more than that.
- How to implement these key habits … tips on forming a habit.
- How to organize these habits into a simple system that will keep everything in your life in its place.
- How to simplify what you need to do.
- Minimal ZTD. Also includes an even simpler version called Minimal ZTD.
Hundreds of readers have written to me with comments about how ZTD has changed their lives, made them more organized and less stressed, and has worked better than other productivity systems. It’s definitely worth a try.
Why buy the e-book?
A number of reasons:- It’s handy. All the articles are gathered in one easy-to-read e-book, making it easy to print stuff out, read it on any computer, or take it with you.
- There’s more material. This ebook includes the essential productivity concepts written about here on Zen Habits, and more, from an FAQ to a practical application of ZTD in my everyday life to resources to forms and more. More on this stuff below.
- Forms. I decided to give a sample of how you could set up ZTD with some simple forms. Of course, ZTD is flexible … you don’t need to use these forms, but I thought they’d be useful.
- Resources. Links to articles and tools are available in the e-book.
- FAQ. A number of readers had questions/comments about ZTD that I thought I’d answer in the e-book. I think this will be a useful feature.
- Snazzy new look. The e-book was designed by James Wondrack, and he did a great job.
Pricing: To keep the book affordable, I’m pricing it at $9.50 … less than $10 for something that can improve your life right away … and again, with author tech support! 🙂
Buy the ZTD e-book now:
Reader testimonial: “I’d say that the minimalist system is a safe first step. The beauty is, of course, that it needn’t be just a first step: it works as it is and some people don’t need to go any further.” Jeff
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1 Why ZTD?
2 Overview – What is it?
3 Minimal ZTD – the simpler alternative
4 Forming the 10 Habits
5 Habit 1: Collect
6 Habit 2: Process
7 Habit 3: Plan
8 Habit 4: Do
9 Habit 5: Simple, trusted system
10 Habit 6: Organize
11 Habit 7: Review
12 Habit 8: Simplify
13 Habit 9: Routine
14 Habit 10: Find Your Passion
15 A Day with Zen To Done
16 ZTD FAQ
17 ResourcesNEW: Buy the perfect companion to this best-selling productivity ebook: The Essential Motivation Handbook.
Other ebooks:
BECOME AN AFFILIATE:
If you’re a blogger and you’re interested in becoming an affiliate, you can earn 50% of each sale of this e-book by selling it on your blog. It’s easy and it can be a nice source of side income for you. Sign up here!
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Why can’t Europe get to a billion? « PEG on Tech
Hi! Aaaaand, we’re back. I shut down this blog first when I began writing more regularly for Business Insider, and then when I worked full time on the launch of my startup, Card.biz, backed by Kima Ventures. Now that we’ve launched our beta, I’m starting PEG on Tech up again.
When I was in New York last week, I had a drink with a prominent entrepreneur who asked me why so few European startups manage to get above a billion dollars in value. In fact, the list is very short: Vente Privée, Betfair, Skype (if you can still consider it a European startup)…
The question caught me off guard, so I gave a bad, bumbling answer, but it got me to thinking. Usually us European entrepreneurs think about the question from the other angle: why is it so hard (?) to start a business here? We don’t usually think about the other side: why is it so hard for businesses to grow very large?
But it is, also, a fascinating question, first of all because some of us in Europe do want to build billion dollar businesses (even billion euro businesses) one day, and second of all, because it is connected to the first one: surely, if there was a “European Google”, the whole startup ecosystem would be healthier.
After thinking about this for a week, here’s what I think matters the most. Most of these aren’t new, but they helped clarify my thinking. I hope it does the same for you. I’ve ranked them from most to least politically incorrect.
- Fragmented market. This is the most obvious one. Particularly in the consumer web, getting to scale is much harder in Europe than in the US because people have different languages, but often also different cultures. Getting to Germany doesn’t just mean translating the site, although that can be a pain in the ass, but also scaling support, recruiting salespeople, maybe opening an office, etc. — and fending off the inevitable local competitors. If you want to sell to ad agencies, you often have to pitch both the European headquarters in Paris or London and to the local offices in various countries; if you want to recruit that rockstar Swedish developer, well, he almost certainly speaks good English as a second language, but is he going to want to move to Paris to interact only in English with other people who also speak English as a second language (and in the case of a Paris-based startup, poorly (sorry guys, but it’s the truth))? And so on down the line. Bottomline, while it takes all the effort in the world for a startup to go Europe-wide, by that time your US competitor has grown much faster, is global, and can pummel you. This is what happened to both web 1.0 portals and social networks, who are just no match for Facebook’s size and attendant network effects.
- Less exits. This is sort of a chicken and egg thing, but it’s the $10M and $100M exits that set the stage for the billion dollar exits. Because they give founders early liquidity so they can embark on more ambitious projects or fund more young upstarts, because they give founders and employees experience, because they make it a less daunting proposition to start your own company, because they give VCs “long tail” returns that help them raise more capital and pump more of it into startups. Why less exits? As I said before, there is no “European Google” to make acqui-hires at $10M a pop seemingly every other day with their sky-high stock (incidentally, it’s a shame that the EU startups that are big are not going public). What’s more, European media and software companies are really, well, afraid of the web. Part of it is legitimate — they got badly burned several times — but part of it is just neanderthalism. Look at the social gaming industry. Playfish (the one European big player) got acquired by… Electronic Arts, a Silicon Valley company! Even though the world’s biggest gaming conglomerate, Activision, is owned by Vivendi, a French company! And now Playdom just got bought by Disney. Both of these are really great deals. These companies are, like all in their sectors, presumably very profitable. These big companies are getting access to a market that is hugely growing, both in profits and “mindshare”, and the synergies from using their awesome brands for new social games are obvious. Euro media companies just completely dropped the ball, here.
- Europeans have less money. This is politically incorrect, but it’s true. We Europeans like to think of ourselves as basically equal to America in terms of development, importance, etc. (and morally superior, of course) but it’s just not the case. GDP per capita in the EU is $33,052 (source) versus $47,988 (source) in the US, and that doesn’t even factor in their much lower taxes. This has many consequences. People are more willing to spend money on new, risky (more on which below) things. Have more disposable income to buy books online. And, of course, are more valuable to advertisers, which in the consumer web world of dirt-cheap CPMs can make a huge difference — between life and death, or between mere viability and scale.
- Europeans are cowards. This is a harsh way to put it, but bear with me. When discussing why Europe lags the US in entrepreneurship, people often discuss “culture,” and from the entrepreneur’s perspective: less encouragement of risk-taking, a taboo on money-making, on success, on empire-building. All of this is correct. But if you want risk-taking entrepreneurs, you need risk-taking consumers. This is one of the ideas of economist Amar Bhidé’s book The Venturesome Economy. He points out that American consumers are more willing to just try things. Part of it is more disposable after-tax income, but part of it, I suspect, is just culture. Bhidé takes the example of the iPod. Today we’ve forgotten that for several years after it was introduced, the iPod was not the smash it we now know it to be, but simply a middling product — not a dud, exactly, but not doing particularly well. It wasn’t a great product. And during that time, Apple refined it and refined it until it blew up and Changed Music Forever™. Even assuming a European company had had the balls and the talent to come out with something like the first generation iPod, they would’ve killed it after a year because nobody would’ve bought it. Forget the risk-taking entrepreneurs — you’ll find crazy people (a category of which I proudly count myself) everywhere –, if you want an economy of innovation, you need risk-taking customers. You need at least enough, a small critical mass, of people who will try things, even if they’re not perfect, either because they’re new, or simply just for the hell of it. The most common question I get at a cocktail party in France when I describe some new service like Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare is “Why would I use it?”, at which point I have to bite my tongue not to say “Why the fuck not! It’s free! Try it! You might not like it but why do you need a reason just to TRY it!” By default, Europeans distrust “what’s new” while it appeals to Americans. This is a gross overgeneralization of course but I think in aggregate it holds true. I think this lack of a “venturesome European consumer” is the most non-obvious, important reason why Europe has a third-rate (sorry) innovation economy. The problem is that it also sounds like the hardest to solve.
What do you guys think? Why is Europe behind? Did I get some of these wrong? Are there some other reasons you can think of?
Photo: “Barcelona” by Flickr user MorBCN (CC)
This entry was posted on
July 28, 2010 at 14:34 and is filed under Uncategorized.Tags: amar bhidé, betfair, entrepreneurship, europe, skype, startups, the venturesome economy, vente privée
I broadly agree…also money is on the whole less important in Europe as a primary driver.
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Get Started With Tumblr | Webmonkey
Do you miss the days when blogging seemed simple and exciting? Have you ever stared at the blank text input field in WordPress until you began to fill with dread?
While WordPress, Movable Type and similar blogging engines certainly make it easy to set up a blog with a robust content management system, sometimes the software itself is overkill. Sometimes you just want to post a picture or a quick snippet of text and be done with it.
That’s more or less the thinking that inspired Tumblr, a dead simple blogging system that makes it easy to post a quick note, an image, a link or a YouTube video and then get on with your real life.
It’s an incredibly easy-to-use publishing system, but that ease comes at a cost. Tumblr is also very simple by design, and it lacks many of the features bloggers might be familiar with. Still, many view Tumblr’s lack of extra features as an asset, arguing that things like comments or an integrated search tool only complicate a clean interface. In fact, Tumblr is quite different from blogging. It’s a side-step, a subculture with its own verb: tumbling.
To start tumbling, follow our guide. We’ll run through the basics and then get into the heavier stuff, like custom themes, custom URLs and comments.
Contents
Setting Up Tumblr
We could explain it all to you with some fancy metaphors and whatnot, but the truth is it’s far easier to just create a Tumblr account and experience it for yourself.
Head over to the site at Tumblr.com, create an account, pick a theme and dive in.
By default, Tumblr handles seven different types of posts — links, conversations, photos, quotes, audio clips, videos and of course a “traditional” text-only blog post. Each type of content gets its own input screen, and each of these input screens has its own icon in the Tumblr dashboard.
Tumblr will give you your own URL to start, something like:
http://yourname.tumblr.com. If that doesn’t work for you, you can set your tumblelog to redirect to your own URL. Read on, we cover this topic later.Using Tumblr
Here’s how the workflow happens:
- Find an image, video, link or quote you want to share.
- Go to your Tumblr dashboard and click on the appropriate type of post.
- Add anything extra you want (attribution links are nice).
- Done!
That’s really all there is too it.
Use Bookmarklets
Rather than having to log in to Tumblr every time you want to post, you can jump straight to the posting interfaces using simple bookmarklets in your browser’s address bar. Just drag all the different post type icons at the top of the Tumblr dashboard to your browser bookmarks bar and you’re ready to go.
Tricking out Tumblr
Use Your Own URL
The most obvious thing you might want to do customize is the URL. It’s nice of Tumblr to host for you, but if you have your own domain name already, why not use it?
The redirecting trick is pretty easy. Just head to your domain registrar’s control panel and follow the instructions to point the domain’s A-record (IP address) to 72.32.231.8.
Once that propagates (depending on your registrar, up to 72 hours) head back to the Tumblr dashboard and click click Customize. Under the URL settings, select “Use a custom domain name”, and enter your custom domain. Click “Save”, and your Tumblr page should now appear when you visit your own URL.
Adding comments
Part of Tumblr’s beauty is its simplicity, and part of that simplicity is the lack of comments. Tumblr has debated adding a comments feature, but so far, the service remains comment-free. For some, that’s a welcome relief. For others, it’s the one missing feature that stops them from using Tumblr.
Well, there may not be integrated comments right now, but adding in your own custom comment system isn’t too difficult. In fact if you use a JavaScript-based solution like Disqus, it’s dead simple.
All you need to do is sign up with Disqus, and look for the Tumblr button. Click that and Disqus will walk you through the very simple steps to getting everything set up.
There are of course some downsides to JavaScript comments — like your users who surf with JavaScript won’t see them — but for a quick and elegant solution, they fit the bill.
And Disqus isn’t the only option, there’s also Linebuzz, which allow your visitors to post inline with your own post, and Haloscan, which offers similar features.
Conclusion
After playing with Tumblr for a little while, you’ll hopefully regain some of the excitement that blogging used to provide.
If you’re looking to do more with Tumblr, here are some other ideas:
- Add your FriendFeed and Twitter streams
- Make Tumblr broadcast on to Facebook via RSS
- Grab your tumblelog’s RSS feed to pull your tiny Tumblr posts into your larger blog or some other existing CMS.
via webmonkey.com -
Should You Buy the iPad 2?
I was somewhat skeptical at first when the initial iPad was released. Not that Apple couldn’t use their marketing magic to sell a ton of devices, but that the tablet with a “limited” OS would be that useful. After getting my hands on the first iPad the day it was launched it took me about 15 minutes to convince myself to buy one and a couple of days to fit in my digital life and find the use for it.
The iPad is perfect for some things and not so good at others. Many tech journalists throw around this idea of the iPad being a consumption only device and that creating on it is difficult and/or useless. I sort of agree with this notion, but at the same time say that with a bluetooth keyboard I can be productive on the iPad. Apple made a point at their keynote that the iPad 2 is a consumption device as well as a creation device showing demos of Garage Band and iMovie, both being extremely impressive.
All that aside, with the iPad 2 release happening in a little over 24 hours at your local Apple Store, there are two questions that remain.
- Should I jump now and finally get myself a tablet like the iPad 2?
- Should I upgrade my months old iPad and get the iPad 2?
Let’s take a look at both situations seperately as they are quite different. Let me remind you I have owned the iPad since day one and have also not had the chance to see the new one in person, only video and photos.
Potential iPad owners
To the new tablet buyers out there I have to say that the options you are given for tablet based devices is pretty slim at the moment with the iPad 2 being the most affordable and approachable. To cut to the chase, I have to say that if you are a new tablet buyer and you have the money to get the new iPad 2 it seems like a no-brainer; get the iPad 2.
You have to remember though that Apple may or may not be upgrading the iPad again before the end of the year (this comes from John Gruber a known Apple pundit that tends to hit-the-head-on-the-nail when it comes to Apple rumors). The reason for this is for Apple to catch the holiday buyers and not put them in the position that they did this year by releasing a brand new iPad only two and a half months after Christmas. Yet, knowing this rumor, I still recommend buying the new iPad 2 as it is the best, most affordable tablet device on the market.
Old iPad owners looking to upgrade
Ahhh, the early adopters, innovators, and geeky types. My hat goes off to you for adopting a product that was somewhat questionable when first released. Now the question is, do you upgrade to the latest incarnation of the iPad or just plug along until the iPad 3 hits the market? This is a really tough call and it all comes down to three different talking points.

1. Do you really need those cameras?
One thing that iPad 2 brings to the table is the front facing and rear facing “HD” cameras that allow users to Facetime and record up to 720p HD video. Many consumers were upset that the cameras weren’t available in the iPad 1, and in the normal Apple fashion “they have found a way” to put the cameras in the gen 2 device.
Personally, I think that the cameras may only be useful for something like Facetime. I can’t see myself actually shooting pictures and video on the thing and if you are a real Apple fanboy/girl you have a iPhone 4 to do that heavy lifting anyways.
2. Shear power of A5
When the iPad was first released it seemed that the device was extremely powerful and quick to launch apps and process information. After about a year of use though, it does seem that the iPad has lost some of its “smoking fast” luster. The A5 is a dual core chip and said to bring up to double the processing speed and 9 times video performance. If that is somthing that you need then maybe the iPad 2 is your ticket. But, just remember that the iPad 1 is no slouch; it streams video beautifully, plays full 3D games like Infinity Blade flawlessly, and browses the web quickly.
To be honest, I can’t imagine a small spec jump in processor speed will make an extreme amount of difference.
3. No screen upgrade
This may be the most disappointing part of the iPad 2 announcement; it is the identical screen from the iPad 1. I’m not saying that the iPad’s screen is bad, but after owning the iPhone 4 with the Retina Display, you really do notice the difference in pixel density. This is the exact reason that I may wait for the iPad 3 as I can imagine that they will finally upgrade the display.
Probably the reason that the iPad 2 ships with the same screen is to keep the cost down to the $499 starting price which is a good strategic move made by Apple.
Conclusion
For the first time iPad buyers out there that are on the fence, I say jump over it and get the iPad 2. Like I said before it is a no-brainer.
For the iPad 1 owners looking to upgrade it is a bit more complicated. If you are really in need of cameras, faster processing, and don’t care that the screen is exactly the same then you may be standing in line tomorrow at 5pm with the rest of the Apple fans. But, if you are happy with your current iPad and don’t see the point this incremental upgrade, you should save the money and wait for the redesign of the iPad 3.
via lifehack.org -
What I hate about the 4-hour work week …
This isn’t going to be the most eloquent post every, but i think there will be some validity to it.
Let’s look at the facts.
(1) Tim ferris is a PRINCETON grad….and yes I know we’ve all heard the myth that “brains don’t matter”…it runs rampant in the entreprenuerial world…but brains do help things along – think google – they are no slouches. Perhaps Tim can do things that other people simply can not do. Much in the same way that Shaq can write a “how to” on basketball.
(2) Tim GAMES THE SYSTEM. That’s his personality. He’s all about shortcuts. At the end of the day, do you want to look at your life and say – wow, I shortcut my way through life. Don’t believe me? He brags about winning a very well-respected martial arts tournament by manipulating his body weight and taking advantage of a loophole in the system that allows him to toss guys out of the ring. So you’ve got guys who dedicated their lives to this sport – and tim comes in – analyzes a weakness. A business lesson? Yes. A good way to live your life? Questionable.
(3) Tim values adventure. He’s an adventure seeker. And that’s cool. But not everyone is, some people like comfort, safety and security. Not because they are oppressed by the man, but because they like to sit by the fireplace with their wife and know that money will be coming in twice a month. Is this tim’s personal philosophy? no. But is it right for him to group everyone who thinks this way as a victim? no. Does he? Well, yea, sorta…
(4) Tim’s big message is this. LIFE IS A RACE. Screw the process – just get results following my “life hacks”. Work sucks. Don’t grow up. Don’t get a job. Don’t save – spend – because you might die. If you want a sports car get one – don’t worry about that because (insert smartly crafted, hard to refute arguement #94). Think you really want to work? Think again. Look at me. I dance tango, lift weights, and travel using an american express. I don’t answer emails because im too busy figuring out how to beat martial arts masters, don’t bother me – i’m too busy figuring out how to launch my book.
(5) Oh an finally, i hate to say it but his fortune is in a bunch of pills that don’t work. I used to wrestle back in high school, i watched kids as they popped his pills and then wondered where their money (and results) went. Seriously.
At the end of the day I think you need to, as michael suggests, figure out what you are really all about.
At the end of the day tim ferris is an advocate of SURFACE LEVEL THINKING – he’s just personally a very good salesman, and sharp as a knife.
The choice is yours…
Apologies for the vitriolic nature of this rant.
Didn’t intend for it to get like this.
Ciao
David ZThis @mcage guy really is pretty smart and passionate about being an entrepreneur…
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So, You Want to Be a Writer? Read This First.
So, You Want to Be a Writer? Read This First. 55 Comments
Written by Tim Ferriss
Topics: Language, Uncategorized
(Photo: Sybren A. Stüvel)Neil Strauss has written six New York Times bestsellers and is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine. From the standpoint of most aspiring writers, he’s reached the pinnacle of success.
That’s why I first sent him an e-mail in 2005.
I attached a draft book proposal and asked for his feedback, hat in hand. To my astonishment, he responded with words of encouragement, and that book proposal later became The 4-Hour Workweek.
We’ve since become good friends and — who would have imagined? — have even taken retreats together while on deadline. Our latest jam sessions took place in a beach cabin in Malibu. I was finishing The 4-Hour Body and Neil was wrapping up his latest opus, Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness.
Evenings were spent force-feeding Neil protein (that’s when he gained 10 pounds), drinking Cocoladas, and trading war stories from publishing and writing, also those about nasty class-mates asking “write my research paper for me” constantly back in the day.
Neil wrote one chapter in his new book about the trials and torture of editing. I almost died laughing (crying inside) when I read a draft, and I made him promise I could put it on this blog…
The bigger picture: Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead shares the insights and outtakes from Neil’s most amusing celebrity encounters, and it shows how to achieve rapport with the super-rich and super-famous. How do you make a connection with them and get them to open up? If you’re Neil, you shoot guns with Ludacris, get kidnapped by Courtney Love, go to church with Tom Cruise, make Lady Gaga cry, and go shopping for Pampers with Snoop Dogg.
I call the following chapter “So, You Want to Be a Writer?” because it covers one of the often-comical frustrations of writing professionally: copy editing. Though a critical part of the process, it is arguably the most maddening.
These are real examples.
Enter Neil Strauss
In a preview of weekend concerts for the New York Times, I wrote about a double bill by the groups the Friggs and Jackass. When I picked up the paper the next day, the preview just mentioned “two bands” and, although the description remained intact, the actual names of the groups were nowhere to be found in the story. Evidently, a copyeditor found their monikers obscene and simply removed them. It was just one example of the many challenges of writing about rock, hip-hop, and popular culture for the New York Times..
On another occasion, I wrote about a shady corner deli where “neighbors used to hear the sound of crack addicts having sex in exchange for free drugs.” When I looked at the paper the next day, the sentence had been changed to read in its entirety, “Neighbors used to hear the sound of crack addicts.”
Here are a few more examples of how decency standards are enforced at the paper of record.
Editing an article that quotes the Courtney Love lyric, “I’m eating you / I’m overfed” . . .
COPYEDITOR: We have to remove that quote.
What’s wrong with it?
COPYEDITOR: It’s about oral sex.
The whole article hinges on that lyric.
COPYEDITOR: If you want, I can run it past the news desk and see what they say.
Ten minutes later . . .
COPYEDITOR: The news desk says it’s about oral sex.
#
Editing a concert review in which singer Francis Dunnery describes himself as “complete scumbag white trash from the north of England” . . .
COPYEDITOR: We can’t use the word “scumbag.”
Why is that?
COPYEDITOR: Because it refers to a condom.
What’s wrong with condoms?
COPYEDITOR: It’s a family newspaper. You and I might like to talk about scumbags, but that’s on our own time.
#
Editing a Rage Against the Machine review . . .
COPYEDITOR: You write here that the band has lyrics attacking misogynists and homophobes.
Yes.
COPYEDITOR: Did the band say “homophobes”?
No, that’s my summary of the lyrics.
COPYEDITOR: We have a rule that “homophobes” is a word that can only be used by homosexuals in the newspaper.
Isn’t that a double standard?
COPYEDITOR: There’s also the case of the religious right. We don’t want to accuse anyone of having a clinical psychological condition that is the cause of their actions.
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Editing a review of the English group Laika . . .
Why did you remove the sentence where the singer’s talking about how men carry an assault weapon in their pants?
COPYEDITOR: Because it’s obscene and this is a family newspaper.
But there aren’t any obscene words there.
COPYEDITOR: It’s implied.
Come on. There were dead bodies on the front page of the paper the other day. That’s much more damaging to a child.
COPYEDITOR: You sound like you’re pissed off that we’re taking this out. But you can either stay pissed off or realize that we’ll never print something like this, so don’t even bother trying again.
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Editing an article in which country singer Steve Wariner recalls Garth Brooks signing autographs for “twenty-four hours straight without a pee break”…
COPYEDITOR: We’re going to have to send that to the news desk.
Because of the word “pee”?
COPYEDITOR: Yes, it’s scatological.
Ten minutes later . . .
COPYEDITOR: What do you want to say instead?
You mean the word pee is unacceptable?
COPYEDITOR: Let’s not argue about it.
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Editing an interview with Master P . . .
COPYEDITOR: Is there any reason why you wrote g-a-n-g-s-t-e-r?
Yes, because whenever I write gangsta, you change it to gangster.
COPYEDITOR: Well, Al [Siegal, New York Times standards editor] has okayed the use of the word gangsta. He found a precedent for it in a 1924 review. So you can use it now.
#
Editing the interview with Mike Tyson, in which he says, “We made the industry, but we have no control over the destiny of the music” . . .
COPYEDITOR: It’s not clear what the referent for “we” is.
It’s obviously African-American people.
COPYEDITOR: Okay, let’s change it to, “Speaking of black people, Mr. Tyson said, ‘We made the industry.’ ”
No, don’t do that.
COPYEDITOR: It needs a referent. It’s not grammatical.
It sounds racist. And my name’s on the article.
COPYEDITOR: Then give me another referent to use.
I don’t know.
COPYEDITOR: Well, who is he talking about if not black people?
Just anyone involved in the culture that rap comes from.
COPYEDITOR: Okay, then let’s make it, “Speaking of the rap world, he said, ‘We made the industry . . .’ ”
#
Editing a festival review of an Irish-themed musical festival with the sentence, “On the main stage, Hootie & the Blowfish—the very name of which evokes a sudden desire to yawn and move on to the next article—rigidly jammed through a version of ‘Black Magic Woman’ that seemed longer than the lines for the Portosans” . . .
COPYEDITOR: I just don’t think it works.
What’s wrong with it?
COPYEDITOR: The last few words.
They don’t make sense to you?
COPYEDITOR: The mandate here is not meaning and content, which is fine, but taste.
What if I said longer than the line at the Guinness tent?
COPYEDITOR: That’s fine.
But that’s perpetuating an Irish stereotype. Isn’t that worse?
COPYEDITOR: Maybe, but it’s acceptable.
Despite the copyeditors’ efforts, a few obscenities still made their way into articles, starting with the Eazy-E song “Nutz Onya Chin.” The word “pussy,” used as an insult, also ended up in the paper. No one seems to have noticed it yet, so if you’re the first person to successfully find it and e-mail me the article at manofstyle@gmail.com, you’ll win a well-worn copy of Lenny Bruce’s How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.
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Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead is out today. See his video trailer and more here.
Posted on March 15th, 2011
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CREDO Action
No backroom deals with Republican budget extremists!
With Planned Parenthood, NPR, the EPA all on the line, Democrats must stand their ground against the Republicans’ extremist budget wish list. But Democrats may already be compromising on these radical demands. Tell Democratic leaders: Don’t cave to Republican extremists on the budget.
via credoaction.com





