Damon Lindelof tries to write his Felina

[SPOILER ALERT: Breaking Bad series finale spoilers contained within]

Damon Lindelof takes the occasion of the Breaking Bad finale to try to make peace with people who've flogged him mercilessly on the internet for the finale of Lost.

I'm sick of myself for continuing to beat this particular drum, so I can't imagine how sick of it you are. If it's unpleasant and exhausting for me to keep defending the Lost finale, aren't you getting tired of hating it? And so … I, like Walter White, want out. To be free. And to grant you the same.

I'd like to make a pact, you and me. And here's your part: You acknowledge that I know how you feel about the ending of Lost. I got it. I heard you. I will think about your dissatisfaction always and forever. It will stay with me until I lie there on my back dying, camera pulling slowly upward whether it be a solitary dog or an entire SWAT team that comes to my side as I breathe my last breath.

And here's my part: I will finally stop talking about it. I'm not doing this because I feel entitled or above it -- I'm doing it because I accept that I will not change hearts nor minds. I will not convince you they weren't dead the whole time, nor resent you for believing they were despite my infinite declarations otherwise.

Fans hear Lindelof's request as they hold a gun on him, asking him to "Say it."  

"I want this," declares Lindelof. 

Fans toss the gun on the ground. "If you want this, do it yourself." 

In actuality, I'm more disappointed with the way Prometheus turned out. By the tie Lost's finale had rolled around, it was practically impossible to pull that one out of the hole it had dug itself.

Prometheus wasn't terrible, but it could have been amazing.

Say my name

My car has a feature in which I can ask it to play songs from a particular artist by voice. It works okay most of the time, though it's certainly still not as accurate as often as I'd like. Still, it's much safer for me to issue the voice command than to try to type out the artist name while driving. 

The other day I tried to cue up the latest album by Chvrches (so far I'm enjoying their synth pop sound). But because they use a v where the u is, I couldn't figure out how to pronounce their name. I tried saying "churches" but that only brought up dozens of results with the word "churches" in the name.  

Back when Jeff Bezos was trying to think of what to call this little online bookselling company he was going to start, he wanted a name that started with A because back then search engines alphabetized their results so having a name that began with A would put the company URL closer to the top of the page. 

I suspect more and more of our interaction with computers will be using voice, and thus the next generation naming hack that means the most for maximum discoverability may be having a name that can easily be pronounced and is unambiguously unique if you hear it phonetically. Worth considering before you choose some bizarre company name just because it's the shortest URL you can find that hasn't been snapped up already. 

The kicker is that Chvrches is pronounced exactly like "churches".  

How to watch Star Wars

I missed this when it first came out, but Machete Order is an impassioned argument for the proper order to watch the Star Wars movies.

Now I’d like to modify this into what I’ve named Machete Order on the off chance that this catches on because I’m a vain asshole.

Next time you want to introduce someone to Star Wars for the first time, watch the films with them in this order: IV, V, II, III, VI

Notice something? Yeah, Episode I is gone.

Episodes II and III aren’t exactly Shakespeare, but standing next to the complete and utter trainwreck that is Episode I, they sure look like it. At least, III does anyway.

I have not watched Episode 1 in a long time, it was indeed a dull piece of cinematic drama.

Still, I found it not just tedious but curious. At its core was a detailed examination of economics, of the power dynamics of insterstellar trade and politics, and thus it seemed miscast amidst the other Star Wars movies which centered more around two hero's journeys, one of the father, one of the son.

Why some words sound fat or skinny

In many languages, front vowels are used in words for small, thin, light things, and back vowels in words for big, fat, heavy things. It’s not always true, but it’s a tendency that you can see in the stressed vowels in words like little, teeny or itsy-bitsy (all front vowels) versus humongous or gargantuan (back vowels). Or in Spanish, chico (“small,” front vowel) versus gordo (“fat,” back vowel). Or French petit (front vowel) versus grand (back).

One marketing study at Loyola College created pairs of made-up product names that were identical except for having front or back vowels and asked participants to answer:

Which brand of laptop seems bigger, Detal or Dutal?

Which brand of vacuum cleaner seems heavier, Keffi or Kuffi?

Which brand of ketchup seems thicker, Nellen or Nullen?

In each case, the product named with back vowels (Dutal, Kuffi, Nullen) was chosen as the larger, heavier, thicker product.

Full story here, including why we tend to speak in high pitches to babies and some evidence that this is taken into account by companies naming ice cream flavors and crackers.

Freudian sext, err, slip

The pleasure of sexting lies precisely in its irreality, its origin and end in fantasy.  It’s not a pleasure that imitates “actual” sexuality, but a pleasure that ignores the constraints and conditions to which “actual” sexual activity is subjected, in every sense.  For one thing, sexting is a form of pleasure that transcends the spatial limitations of physical sex:  It’s hard to have sex with someone in another country, but it’s pretty easy to send them a picture of your penis.  It’s an activity in which desire orients action without the physical and ethical constraints of mutual presence.  It’s a pleasure oriented fundamentally toward the self – and like all auto-erotism, it’s most fundamentally a form of narcissism.  The pleasure of virtual sexuality isn’t about other people; it’s about the ideal sexual self that you can imagine for yourself if you don’t have to stop and account for all the ways in which you aren’t what you want to be.  Laplanche and Pontalis put it well:  “The ideal, one might say, of auto-erotism is ‘lips that kiss themselves.’  Here, in this apparently self-centered enjoyment, as in the deepest fantasy, in this discourse no longer addressed to anyone, all distinction between subject and object has been lost.”

This might be the longest article written about sexting that didn't crack a joke.  Perhaps in reading it we can all find some sympathy for Carlos Danger.