Pimp My Wry.

Writer Proposes An Award System To Pay HuffPost Bloggers

It's. About. Time.

Michelle Haimoff, Huffington Post blogger and author of "Secret New York," considers the approximate $10M/year HP receives in ad revenues and proposes a way for the top site to reward writers:

To my knowledge, no one has ever proposed a way for The Huffington Post to pay its writers, so that's what I'm going to do. The great thing about Arianna is that even if she has no interest in ever paying her bloggers, The Huffington Post will publish this article. Arianna might even comment on it. I don't expect my proposal to be perfect, but it's a way to get the dialogue started. I hope that whoever is not in favor of this payment structure takes the time to come up with something better. ...

I propose that The Huffington Post commit to spending 20% of its revenue rewarding bloggers. For 2009, this would be $2 million.

Not all bloggers will be rewarded. There are 4,000 bloggers that contribute to the site, and this structure only rewards those who contribute the most to the site's business and editorial goals.

$2 million a year is $166,666 a month.

Every month authors of the 200 articles that receive the highest number of page views would receive $250 bonuses.

Every month authors of the 200 articles that result in the most time spent on the site would receive $250 bonuses.

Every month authors of the 200 articles that are of the highest editorial quality would receive $250 bonuses.

Read the details of her proposal here. 

Brushes Helps iPhone Users Find Their Inner Monet

It's no secret that I love my iPhone. And it's only fair that since I've made fun of a couple of iPhone applications in the past (here and here), I acknowledge an app that I think is very, very cool: Brushes.

Brushes allows users to finger-paint using their iPhones. Yeah, yeah, I know, it sounds kind of hokey — childish even — until you get a load of what artist Jorge Colombo did.

Colombo landed the June 1 cover of The New Yorker by finger-painting a detailed Times Square scene on his iPhone using just the application.  It took him an hour to create his scene, but it'll only take you a few seconds to watch the video below and see how he did it. (FYI, the video was recorded using another iPhone app called Brushes Viewer):

Who Will Update Your Facebook Status When You're Dead?

Have you ever wondered who will come to your funeral? 

Sure, you have.

You've pictured your best friend  or lover draped over your casket or urn, crying to a soundtrack that you've recorded in your head (or already burned on a CD). You've seen, clear as day but in the space between your ears, members of your family all dressed up and rehashing your life over photo albums and trays of a neighbor's homemade baked ziti. You've pictured the look on your niece's face after she's just been told by the man reading your will that you've left her the necklace or watch she'd commented on a million times. You've even imagined the look on your mother's face as she goes through your dresser drawers looking for clothes to give to the poor, but discovers your sex toys first. And that's when you called your sister and made a pact that you'd get to one another's bedroom before anyone else.

Sigh. Good times.

If you're a famous person or even a mini-celebrity, maybe you've imagined a memorial service where people you don't even know would wait in line for hours in the rain (because it almost always rains on days important people are buried) just for the chance to tell everyone gathered in some magnificent hall with high ceilings and polished floors how you touched their lives just by being, you know, the fabulous person that you are.

But I'll bet you've rarely, if ever, given much thought to what would happen to your online life if you should drop dead, say, as you're reading this. 

What if you croak while on Second Life? How will all the avatars you've had sex with know you're dead, and not just offline cheating on them with a person you can actually touch?

If you're the only person who knows your top-secret and numerous login names and passwords, who will access your accounts after you die? What would happen to all the files you've stored on your iDisk? How will your Twitter friends know your new address — @deadnow? And — OH. MY. GOD. — who will update your Facebook status? What if, in a final act of irony, the last thing you ever wrote in a Facebook chat was "Nature calls! LOL! BRB!"?

The answer is that your virtual life after death would be in the hands of a very much alive and likely sleep-deprived social-network intern with access to the ultimate delete key.

You can't let that happen, right? Well, fear not! When you're 86'd, the creators of LegacyLocker.com, EternalSpace.com and other sites eager to cash on all things croak-y have got your 2.0 death covered.

According to a report published by CNN on Monday, "Legacy Locker allows users to set up a kind of online will, with beneficiaries that would receive the customer's account information and passwords after they die ... If someone contacts Legacy Locker to report a client's death, the service will send the customer four e-mails in 48 hours. If there's no response, Legacy Locker will then contact the people the client listed as verifiers in the event of his or her death."

EternalSpace.com works a bit differently. For now, its services are only offered through a few funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoriums. But to those who opt in, the site offers "virtual memorial pages full of videos, pictures and tributes." The people you leave behind "can choose from different headstones and bucolic landscape backgrounds — the mountain lake is a popular option — to create a customized online grave site," CNN reports. They can also "add 'tribute gifts' such as roses, candles, stuffed animals and other items, while mourners can access photos and videos in a 'Memory Book' and leave remembrances of their own."

If you think those sites are very stupid, If you're sure the concerns that'll survive you will require more from your loved ones than a single 140-character maximum post, be bigger and more important than even Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account, or if you're wondering why anyone would fork over $29.99/year to sign up with LegacyLocker.com when for less than one dollar he could buy a couple of pencils and pieces of paper, welcome to the club.

But, as the saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. And, just like the rest of us, every sucker has the right to die in his own glory, even if it's just imagined.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to write my Wikipedia biography. But I'll be right back. I hope.

Something Besides iFart Stinks At Apple

CNN's Jeanne Moos today presented a video report (below) on one of the latest iPhone applications to be rejected by Apple: Me So Holy. 

Me So Holy allows a user to pull a picture of himself (or anyone else) from his camera roll and paste it into a hollow outline of Jesus's face. It's a ridiculous app and, like so many others that are just as stupid but haven't been rejected, serves no other purpose than to attempt to make people laugh.

The thing is, some things just aren't funny to some people.

On the surface, it might be clear to you why Apple rejected the app, but in reality, it's not clear at all. 

According to the folks responsible for Me So Holy, the app was rejected because it "contains objectionable content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement" which states the following:

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

As stated, Apple claims it used "reasonable judgment" in its decision. But what criteria did Apple use when faced with the decision? Why would the company reject an app that is offensive to Christians, but accept an app called iGirl that is offensive to women? Isn't that evidence the company is being completely UNreasonable, not to mention unfair? I think so.

And Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails might agree with me.

Reznor recently submitted an app to Apple that was rejected, according to MSNBC, "possibly because it can stream a song [The Downward Spiral] that contains a single curse word — even though the song is for sale on iTunes. But, actually, we really don’t know why."

Reznor is, to say the least, miffed by the rejection, as evidenced in a rant he posted on his band's message board:

"The Downward Spiral,’ the album, is not available anywhere in the iPhone app. ... The song ‘The Downward Spiral’ I believe is in a podcast that can be streamed to the app. Thanks, Apple, for the clear description of the problem — as in, what do you want us to change to get past your stupid fucking standards? ... You can buy ‘The Downward Fucking Spiral’ on iTunes but you can’t allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. ... Hey Apple, I just got some spam about fucking hot Asian teens through your e-mail program. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone! Come on Apple, think your policies through and for fuck’s sake get your app approval scenario together."

He's got a legitimate beef.

It seems that Apple uses the famous Potter Stewart "I know it when I see it"  formulation when deciding what's offensive. (In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart tried to explain what is obscene by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it.) 

For example, as noted in Moos's report, Apple not long ago rejected an app called Baby Shaker. Yes, that's really its name, and it does exactly what you're thinking: One shake of your iPhone and a crying 'virtual' infant turns into a still baby with bright red X's on its eyes.

Just by seeing Baby Shaker in action one knows it's wrong. In fact, I'd guess that everybody with the exception of psychopaths knows it wrong. But Apple can't say the same about Me So Holy, especially in the face of iGirl and the hugely popular iFart app. 

So, yeah, something stinks.

What gives Apple? You have respect for Christians but not for women? You know it's bad to market a product that makes fun of Shaken Baby Syndrome, but you think it's great to sell another, iGirl, that allows users to shake their iPhone to see their iGirl stumble?

Once again, iPutOff.

Twitter? I Hardly Even Know Her!

I had been at a loss as to what to write about for days, and then, mere moments ago, as I was watching Judge Judy on Larry King, I made a typo in my address bar and it made me laugh and also laugh. I was just one letter off, but those are always the best typos. What I typed was: twatter.com.

Look, I’m not proud. I’m not highbrow or Ivy League or upper crust. I realize this. I revel in this. So understand that I do not expect this twatter business to win any comedy awards. But it’s been a long day. A day I have spent converting endless, ungodly amounts of pages written in Chicago style to Associated Press style, which, despite how glamorous and sexy that sounds, is neither. In my free time, I wrote a grad school paper (hi, I’m 37, GET ME THE HELL OUT OF GRAD SCHOOL) on the intricacies of group social work with teenagers. The gist? TEENAGERS SUCK.  (Though, to be fair, I think most people suck, which is why I’m considering becoming a crisis counselor for cats. Because, honestly, they’re all freakin’ drama queens, so the work would be plentiful. Their crises would be, like, “She bought me Lamb & Chicken Fancy Tasty Good Morsels, and she KNOWS I like Liver & Beef Yummy Swell Num Nums. I can’t fuckin’ stand living with that woman,” and “Every time I fall asleep against his leg, he eventually gets up. I mean, he gets ALL THE WAY UP. He sits back down, I fall asleep, and he GETS UP AGAIN AT SOME POINT. Can you write me a script for Xanax?”