• The Pow! Bang! Bam! Plan to Save Marvel, Starring B-List Heroes
  Marvel sold the rights to X-Men and Spider-man, then they were bought out by Disney, and now they’re making even more money than before. Why’s that?

  There were also people at Disney who expressed doubts about Marvel’s film strategy. Says Iger: “I remember someone [saying] on the Disney side, ‘Don’t you want to do Avengers first, and introduce Thor and Captain America in that, and then if they work bring them out afterward?’ ” Feige was adamant that this would be a mistake. He wanted audiences to get to know Thor and Captain America on their own before combining them with Iron Man and the Hulk. Disney was persuaded. Feige was relieved. He had enough things to worry about.

• Autograph Fakery: Two Firms Monopolize a Lucrative Business
  In order to sell memorabilia nowadays, especially autographs, the article must be authenticated. Unfortunately, it looks like the business of authentication is fake! I think the people who run the businesses know this, but will keep at it as the money keeps rolling in.

  In 2007, a Philadelphia Fox News crew attended a memorabilia show at which JSA set up a booth to evaluate autographs, including those produced by baseball player Sal Bando, who was sitting just a few tables away.

  A Fox artist forged Bando’s signature with minimal practice; JSA approved it without incident.

  “That was a former employee of mine,” Spence says of the Bando auditor. “I believe he was caught off-guard. I wasn’t in the building at the time. They sort of blindsided him with the whole thing.

• George R.R. Martin: The Rolling Stone Interview
  I haven’t watched Game of Thrones nor read the Song of Ice & Fire series, but George R. R. Martin is very popular right now so I thought it would be interesting to learn more about him.

  We got into that fight on Beauty and the Beast. The Beast killed people. That was the point of the character. He was a beast. But CBS didn’t want blood, or for the beast to kill people. They wanted us to show him picking up someone and throwing them across the room, and then they would get up and run away. Oh, my God, horrible monster! [Laughs] It was ludicrous. The character had to remain likable.

• Emerging adults need time to grow up
  There has been a lot written about the “emerging adults” in the 20-29 y/o range, but this author argues that a lot of what has been said is not entirely true and doesn’t take into account changing societal norms

  Emerging adults enter the workplace seeking what I call identity-based work, meaning a job that will be a source of self-fulfillment and make the most of their talents and interests. They want a job that they will look forward to doing when they get up each morning.

  You might think that this is not a realistic expectation for work, and you are right. But keep in mind it was their parents’ generation, the Baby Boomers, who invented the idea that work should be fun. No one had ever thought so before. Baby Boomers rejected the traditional assumption that work was a dreary but unavoidable part of the human condition. They declared that they didn’t want to spend their lives simply slaving away – and their children grew up in this new world, assuming that work should be meaningful and self-fulfilling. Now that those children are emerging adults, their Baby Boomer parents and employers grumble at their presumptuousness.

• The Life of a Stolen Phone: For the Smartphone Industry, Theft Is a Part of the Business Model
  It’s not entirely surprising that phone manufacturers and carriers WANT you to lose your phone so they can sell you another one. It’s also not surprising that they would work to keep this business model continuing. But I am surprised how this article claims that smartphone theft is so common.

  It takes three people to commit the perfect smartphone robbery. Two of them identify a distracted, vulnerable person — usually a woman, police say — with a phone in tow. The third one carries a gun. He’s the “safety” or “trigger man,” whose role is to intervene only if the victim puts up a fight. In most robbery stakeouts, the trigger man stands by and watches while the other two ambush their victim and run. That lowers the risk, and raises the payoff: If the thieves are caught, they’ll be charged with petty theft rather than armed robbery.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: movies, pocket, scam