Eric Rothman
@ericmsandwich
Filmmaker, editor, animator, stationary bicycle rider, sandwich enthusiast. My work has won very few awards. I currently reside in Dayton, Ohio.
Eric Rothman
newhappystar.com
In 1985, Nike held a 24-hour shoe design contest. Nike was struggling. Their stock dropped 50%. They had to lay off people. Adidas, Converse, and Reebok were all selling more shoes. So in a panicked attempt to find creative talent, Nike held a shoe design contest. The winner was a corporate architect named Tinker Hatfield. “Two days after the... See more
It’s really just a question of financial security versus your psychic security, because of the time you afford yourself, or being on your own schedule. My energy gets really easily polluted by my environment, and if I’m in an environment that is really in opposition to myself for a very long time, it’s very hard for me to feel like I have the... See more
Cristine Brache • On holding yourself to a higher standard
Fantastic advice, for software builders:
Headline driven development
Here is a simple process for shipping software projects that works. First, decompose the project into a stream1 of headlines. Then pick an aggressive date to ship the first headline and work like hell to meet that date. Have everyone work only on one headline at a time– the
... See more
Something else happens in a world of superabundance, and an attention economy. Because you can’t find what you want, you start to dig yourself into very specific niches, and join sub-groups. Everyone atomizes into millions of groups connected by very specific interests. In more benign ways, it can be great – you find your fellow travelers, and I... See more
Ten (Big) Trends
Reminds me of Yuval Noah Harari’s, Sapiens, and his thesis about shared stories. Has the story of America been fractured into thousands of competing ones?
Also, I love the last sentence here, “…because you read this newsletter I’ve got your attention and we are a tiny polarized sub-group who know something others don’t, right?!” Phew, if that ain’t what makes a good newsletter!
I’m dying for someone I know to have the experience I had with this album, but I worry it’s not gonna happen. Like, you just have to sit and listen to all the words and feel all the music and do it a few times. Is anyone doing that anymore?
Anyways, it’s like a movie, like with a story that’s emotional and true (or at least feels true), and it’s artfully told, starting and ending in interesting places, and it’s vulnerable and observational and funny and heartbreaking. I literally laughed and cried and said things like, “holy shit” out loud to myself while listening to it. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. And the music is fucking amazing. There’s oboes.
“Well, I’m gonna get a lot of hell for saying this. I just want to put it out there. I know, I am. This is going to be a something that I might regret saying, but...I think one of the best things to cure self-doubt is just to go to really bad stuff. I’m talking about plays you hear about that are terrible–go to them. There’s shows on television... See more
Eric Rothman - Eric Rothman
How do we survive the media apocalypse? - Search Engine
pca.st
This is Ezra Klein expertly and precisely explaining how the business models of the news used to work, how they changed when the internet came around, and how it's all falling apart. Just wall-to-wall insight. We take it all for granted and it also seems completely obvious in retrospect. Him and PJ are also just charming and funny and fun to listen to.