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In Spite of the Haters, Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop Worth $250m
How Goop's Haters Made Gwyneth Paltrow's Company Worth $250 Million: Inside the growth of the most controversial brand in the wellness industry. (archive)
On a Monday morning in November, students at Harvard Business School convened in their classroom to find Gwyneth Paltrow. She was sitting at one of their desks, fitting in not at all, using her phone, as they took their seats along with guests they brought to class that day — wives, mothers, boyfriends. Each seat filled, and some guests had to stand along the back wall and sit on the steps. The class was called the Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports. The students were there to interrogate Paltrow about Goop, her lifestyle-and-wellness e-commerce business, and to learn how to create a "sustainable competitive advantage," according to the class catalog.
She moved to the teacher's desk, where she sat down and crossed her legs. She talked about why she started the business, how she only ever wanted to be someone who recommended things. When she was in Italy, on the set of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," she'd ask someone on the crew about, say, where the best gelato was. When she was in London, on the set of "Shakespeare in Love," she asked a crew member where to find the best coffee; in Paris, she asked an extra where to find the best bikini wax; in Berlin, the massage you can't miss. She wasn't just curious. She was planning this the whole time. The first iteration of the company was only these lists — where to go and what to buy once you get there — via a newsletter she emailed out of her kitchen, the first one with recipes for turkey ragù and banana-nut muffins. One evening, at a party in London, one of the newsletter's recipients, a venture capitalist named Juliet de Baubigny, told her, "I love what you're doing with Goop." G.P., as she is called by nearly everyone in her employ, didn't even know what a venture capitalist was. She was using off-the-shelf newsletter software. But De Baubigny became a "godmother" to Paltrow, she said. She encouraged her vision and "gave permission" to start thinking about how to monetize it.
[...] G.P. didn't want to go broad. She wanted you to have what she had: the $795 G. Label trench coat and the $1,505 Betony Vernon S&M chain set. Why mass-market a lifestyle that lives in definitional opposition to the mass market? Goop's ethic was this: that having beautiful things sometimes costs money; finding beautiful things was sometimes a result of an immense privilege; but a lack of that privilege didn't mean you shouldn't have those things. Besides, just because some people cannot afford it doesn't mean that no one can and that no one should want it. If this bothered anyone, well, the newsletter content was free, and so were the recipes for turkey ragù and banana-nut muffins.
[...] A gynecologist and obstetrician in San Francisco named Jen Gunter, who also writes a column on reproductive health for The Times, has criticized Goop in about 30 blog posts on her website since 2015. A post she wrote last May — an open letter that she signed on behalf of "Science" — generated more than 800,000 page views. She was angry about all the bad advice she had seen from Goop in the last few years. She was angry that her own patients were worried they'd given themselves breast cancer by wearing underwire bras, thanks to an article by an osteopath who cited a much-debunked book published in 1995. Gunter cited many of Goop's greatest hits: "Tampons are not vaginal death sticks, vegetables with lectins are not killing us, vaginas don't need steaming, Epstein Barr virus (E.B.V.) does not cause every thyroid disease and for [expletive] sake no one needs to know their latex farmer; what they need to know is that the only thing between them and H.I.V. or gonorrhea is a few millimeters of latex, so glove that [expletive] up."
But something strange happened. Each of these pronouncements set off a series of blog posts and articles and tweets that linked directly to the site, driving up traffic. At Harvard, G.P. called these moments "cultural firestorms." "I can monetize those eyeballs," she told the students. Goop had learned to do a special kind of dark art: to corral the vitriol of the internet and the ever-present shall we call it cultural ambivalence about G.P. herself and turn them into cash. It's never clickbait, she told the class. "It's a cultural firestorm when it's about a woman's vagina." The room was silent. She then cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!" as if she were yodeling.
Who would hate on a pseudoscientific goop-peddling succubus with steam-cleaned nether regions (and an egg)?
Previously: NASA Disputes Origins of Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop "Healing Stickers"
Crazy Rich Asians
ASUS Android Go Phone for $110
ASUS' Android Go phone comes to the US for $110
The first Android Go phone to reach the US, the Alcatel 1X, was frankly lackluster between its not-even-720p screen and mediocre processing power. ASUS, however, is hoping to spice things up by launching the ZenFone Live (L1) in the US as a Best Buy exclusive. The unlocked handset costs slightly more than its rival at $110, but you're getting a lot more for your extra Hamilton. The ZenFone carries an 18:9 ratio, 5.5-inch 1,440 x 720 LCD screen, a speedier Snapdragon 425 processor and a heftier 3,000mAh battery, not to mention dual nano-SIM slots and a place for your microSD cards. This might be an ideal phone if you're a traveler who'd rather not risk their main device on a trip.
Venezuelan Pres. Maduro Claims Drone Assassination Attempt
Interview With Osama Bin Laden's Mother
What is QAnon?
What is QAnon? Explaining the bizarre rightwing conspiracy theory
On June 26, 2018, WikiLeaks publicly accused QAnon of "leading anti-establishment Trump voters to embrace regime change and neo-conservatism". QAnon had previously pushed for regime change in Iran. Two days later, the whistleblower organization shared an analysis by Internet Party president Suzie Dawson, claiming that QAnon's posting campaign is an "intelligence agency-backed psyop" aiming to "round up people that are otherwise dangerous to the Deep State (because they are genuinely opposed to it) usurp time & attention, & trick them into serving its aims".
Baked Multiple Times A Week
Okay, the subject isn't what the title line is going to make you think, LOL.
I've, for now, gotten out of the PC repair business and am instead pursuing two food jobs. The new one is mid-morning to mid-afternoon at a local bakery that just opened. I went in dressed to impress, thinking it was interview time--and instead was hired on the spot and spent 6 and a half hours (8 AM to 2:30 PM) baking and (wo)manning the front counter. They pay better than anything I've done before, too, and the clientele has enough money to plunk down $3.00 for a muffin without a second thought.
And you know what? I'm *good at this.* Never having made cinnamon rolls before, my first attempt came out, according to the manager, as almost the Platonic ideal. The cheese bread (this *is* Wisconsin, you know...) was likewise my first attempt, and it just flew off the shelves. Muffins came up huge and moist, full of blueberries. It's been all of one shift and the manager already wants me to tell her some whole-wheat recipes and maybe experiment with stevia for the health-conscious crowd.
My heart is singing. This might be a kind of happiness. I don't want to jinx it, and I'd still rather be doing pharmacology, but this is...nice, for now. Maybe it's a kind of last happiness before the country implodes on itself. Whatever it is I'm going to take it gratefully, even if it's short-lived. It feels so good to use these hands to create.
Got web server up: now I need time!
I've been given an old XP pc and have put (X)ubuntu on it in order to get a web-server running with the goal being to let family members sign in and download TV shows/movies/etc.
Have set it up according to a couple of sites (a mix of Ubuntu/apache etc sites) and am using ngrok to open up a tunnel (with the end goal being once it's running and accessible, i will go for the $5/mnth for the permanent address).
Have apache/mysql/php working (this is NEW territory for me, but i THINK it is working correctly) and have ngrok running, but i cannot connect from an external device (my tablet).
I THINK the problem is with firewall (ufw on ubuntu and the router firewall): have tried to get port 80 accessible through both , have allowed access through the router firewall for the web-server: my next plan is to completely stop ufw on the pc and just allow the router to run things.
Does anyone have advice/tips/help?
Gotta be at least a couple people familiar with running a web site around here :)
The New Yorker Sees Dead 60 Minutes Sexecposé, Ups the Ante
Les Moonves and CBS Face Allegations of Sexual Misconduct
Six women tell The New Yorker that CBS chief Les Moonves sexually harassed them
Leslie Moonves, current CEO of CBS
You can't kill what has already gone full #MeToo. You can only cauterize the wound with a CEO-sized resignation.
Previously: Law Firm Kills WaPost Exposé of 60 Minutes Producer
Now we need the exposé of the Amazon Post to see why they caved and missed their chance for a big scoop. From The New Yorker's article:
Fager has tried to keep the allegations about the treatment of women at “60 Minutes” from surfacing publicly. According to the Times, in 2015 Fager took over the writing of a book about “60 Minutes” after the original author, Richard Zoglin, began asking people about the subject. In April, as two Washington Post reporters, Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain, were reporting an article about the allegations of harassment at CBS News, including complaints about Fager and Rosen, lawyers retained by Fager threatened to sue the Post, and presented testimonials about Fager’s good character. “There was this ham-handed effort to make women at the show say Jeff was a wonderful person,” one producer said. “It was so obvious we were doing it with a gun to our heads.” Fager’s lawyers also attacked the professionalism of the two reporters. In the end, the paper published a story that included complaints of harassment against Charlie Rose from dozens of women, but not allegations about Fager or Rosen. In a statement, the Post said, “The reporting throughout was vigorous and sustained and fully supported by Post editors. Nothing that met our longstanding standards for publication was left out. Nor did outside pressures, legal or otherwise, determine what was published.” CBS employees told me that they were alarmed by the attempts to kill the reporting. “The hypocrisy of an investigative news program shutting down an investigative print story is incredible,” one told me.
Future of Stargate
Stargate SG-1’s Christopher Judge wants to make a Jaffa spinoff series
There’s been no official momentum on anything Stargate-related since the end of Origins (which has since been compiled into a film-style cut, combining all the webisodes), but it's worth noting Judge is still actively involved with the franchise in an official capacity as host of the Stargate Command streaming service’s Dialing Home interview series. So he’s certainly in proximity to the ears that would need to be bent about a new web project. Judge also wrote several episodes of SG-1 over the years, helping craft the mythology of the Jaffa from behind and in front of the camera. So he certainly has the know-how and skill set.
GateWorld has been a lot more active lately.
