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Surprising almost no one, Kanye West’s Yeezus has landed atop this week’s Billboard album sales chart. Still, with “only” 328,000 copies sold, some industry insiders are calling the album’s first week a failure, comparing Yeezus’ totals to the 339,000 copies Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories moved in its first week. While Kanye West probably doesn’t give a fuck what anyone who’s not him thinks (and where is that damn croissant?), Buzzfeed has a good defense of West’s sales, noting that Yeezus started at a disadvantage for a few reasons including, but not limited to, the lack of a hit advance single, proper presale, or even real album art.

It’s also worth noting that those 328,000 copies make for the third-largest debut sales week of 2013, putting West’s record behind only the aforementioned Random Access Memories and Justin Timberlake ...

Earlier this month, the Museum Of Contemporary Art launched The Art Of Punk, a documentary series that explores the roots of acts like Black Flag and Crass by examining the art surrounding each group. While the first episode of the series examining Black Flag’s iconic logo premiered earlier this month on MOCAtv, The A.V. Club has the premiere of the series’ third episode, which focuses on the art of Winston Smith and the music of the Dead Kennedys. The whole thing is below and interested parties can check out more of the series at MOCAtv’s YouTube page.

A reader writes...

DOMA has been struck down but that doesn’t ensure equal benefits for all same-sex married couples. Because federal agencies use different standards to determine who is married—some use a “place of residence” standard and others use a “place of celebration” standard—many SSM couples who are married in one state but residing in a state where same-sex marriage is prohibited won’t be eligible for many federal benefits. President Obama can change all of this at the stroke of a pen by issuing an executive order mandating a uniform place of celebration standard. This would mean that, effectively, everyone in the country would be able to get a federally recognized same-sex marriage and all attendant federal rights and responsibilities.

Here’s my Whitehouse.org petition asking the president to issue that executive order.

I'm just some nameless internet nobody, but I was hoping you could promote the petition.

Happy to help. The petition, once again, is here. I've already signed it. It's your turn.

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When "Low" by Cracker came out in 1993, the concept of a streaming service was years away. Making money and reaching an audience were somewhat synonymous, with the exception of kids recording radio plays onto cassette tapes. Now, when all you need is an e-mail address to access millions of songs spanning several decades, the profits are dwindling. 

Cracker's lead singer and songwriter, David Lowery, has posted his most recent statements from various media on The Trichordist, reporting a mere $16.89 profit from more than 1 million Pandora plays. He said that amount is less than he makes from selling a T-shirt. 

Lowery went on to specify that the $16.89 was his 40 percent cut as a songwriter, and he actually made a little more (but not much) in performer royalties. The artist also encouraged other songwriters to post their royalty statements in order to "show the ...

The living are only a species of the dead.

2007.

Denzel Washington in bespoke Leonard Logsdail 2.

firehose shared this story from Yo, Is This Racist?.

Word.

A new report by Gensler, the global workplace design and architecture firm, found that workers are spending more time in focus work but feel less effective at it than before.

In the last few years, increased collaboration is both intentional, encouraged by managers intent on fostering innovation and shared resources, and unintentional, partly the result of corporate cutbacks in office space during the recession. Much of the reduced space affected collaboration areas, which pushed conversations and collaboration into the general work spaces, said Hoskins. “Everything was squeezed” and so workers felt less able to focus, the Gensler survey of 2,035 knowledge workers shows.

Certainly other research has found open floor plans can make workers less productive and more likely to get sick.

So what are companies doing to create places where workers can concentrate on their tasks?  Intel’s Software and Services Group gives workers four hours of “think time” tracked on a group calendar so they can block out distractions and tune in on important problems or work.  Office furniture maker Steelcase has created a gathering space equipped with teleconferencing devices, information projections and a round table.

Gensler is encouraging balanced arrangements so workers can have a few different environments to use depending on the mode they’re in. One company put up a C-shaped pod in the middle of the desks with room for four or five people to sit and share. Others have created small meeting rooms “where you can take conversations to” so workers at their desks can focus, Hoskins said. Some even set up outdoor gathering places for informal meetings or break times together.

Or some just may go home to get quiet focused time, and then come into the office for meetings and social connections. Those who can choose where to work still spend about 70% of their time in the office, Gensler reported. Workers who can choose their environment are more satisfied with their job, and rate themselves as more effective, especially in their focus work.

You can follow Vickie on Twitter at @WorkingKind. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com. 

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Sunstroke for iOS just received a major update.¹ This is by-far the best way to read feeds from a Feed-a-Fever server.

The update is gorgeous and I love the re-imagining of the "Hot" category. While refresh isn't that speedy, browsing and interactions feel snappier to me.

I reviewed Fever back in 2012. I moved back to Fever awhile ago because I don't mind running my own server.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which determines what states and jurisdictions are covered by Section 5, is invalid after less than 50 years of protecting African Americans and people of color. The currently covered areas are places that historically have disenfranchised people of color, or those for whom English is their second language. But Chief Justice John Roberts has ruled that the formula, which was last updated in the late 1960s-early 1970s, must be updated by Congress so that it covers areas that violate voting rights today. Chief Roberts, who's had a beef with the Voting Rights Act since the early 1980s, wrote in the majority opinion:

"In assessing the 'current need' for a preclearance system treating States differently from one another today, history since 1965  cannot be ignored. The Fifteenth Amendment is not designed to punish for the past; its purpose is to ensure a better future. To serve that purpose, Congress--if it is to divide the States--must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions. ... Congress did not use that record to fashion a coverage formula grounded in current conditions. It instead re-enacted a formula based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relation to the present day."

This is not a total loss for the Voting Rights Act. Section Five can still stand if Congress is able to fix the formula so that it covers areas they consider presently running afoul of voting rights. Meanwhile, here are the currently covered states worth watching now that this ruling affects:

• North Carolina: Republicans, who control both state legislative chambers and the governor's office, have proposed and/or passed bills that would require a narrow set of photo identification cards to vote, that would cut early voting, potentially penalize the parents of college students who vote away from their parents home, and would implement probably the strictest felony disenfranchisement law in the nation. None of these are law, but they would have had to pass federal preclearance review under Section 5. Almost 500,000 North Carolinians lack the ID needed to vote under the proposed law, a third of them African Americans. Hundreds of North Carolina citizens have been arrested over the past couple months while protesting these laws. 
• Virginia: Passed a voter ID bill that survived federal preclearance review last year, but then doubled down and passed an even stricter photo voter ID law this year, which had not yet been submitted for Section 5 review. Now it doesn't need to. Meanwhile, it's estimated up to 870,000 Virginians lack the ID needed to vote under the new law, a disproportionate number of whom are African Americans. 
• Alabama: Passed a photo voter ID law and a proof-of-citizenship voter registration law in 2011 that isn't scheduled to go into effect until 2014. It had been submitted for Section 5 review, but was withdrawn a month ago. Now it won't be reviewed for discriminatory effects. 
• Mississippi: No African American has won a statewide office in this state (nor in any of the states above)[CORRECTION: Virginia elected a black governor in 1986], and a voter ID bill it passed last year may make it harder for black candidates to get elected when those most likely to be disenfranchised by this law are African Americans. 

Other states like Texas and South Carolina, which Section 5 reviews blocked from passing racially discriminatory voting laws, could attempt to reinstate those laws. But as Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Law School, told Colorlines, it's not just the states we need to be worried about. 

"One of the most important pieces of Section 5 is that it prevents local efforts to discriminate in the allocation of local political power: districts for city council and county commission and local judicial offices that really affect the responsiveness of representation and justice in local democracies, in all of the kitchen-table issues that affect our lives most tangibly," said Levitt. "When Texas passes a discriminatory statewide law, there are lots of voices in the fight, but when a tiny municipality in southwest Texas does the same, it gets a lot less attention."

Civil rights groups that have fought both for the Voting Rights Act to be created, and to defend it in the decades after have expressed disappointment. Before the Supreme Court's ruling, Natasha Korgaonkar, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., the entity that argued the case, told Colorlines that they were "optimistic" that Section 5 would be upheld, and if not that Congress would have to "step in."

Meanwhile, Jotaka Eaddy, senior director of NAACP's voting rights program told Colorlines that the Court's decision "will not change our game plan." Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the civil rights law organization Advancement Project, called the decision "a huge loss" and that "the biggest harm is to the voters." Her organization's work would not be deterred though, she said.

"We will have to continue to do what we did in 2012 and bring our own affirmative cases," said Browne-Dianis. "We really will have to step up our efforts to do more affirmative litigation, which is a problem because the federal government has been an important player in stopping discrimination before it happens," through the Voting Rights Act.

Advancement Project and the NAACP have been embroiled in the civil rights struggle against North Carolina's proposed voter suppression laws. Browne-Dianis said that this decision "could hasten the changes that are being proposed in North Carolina to make it harder to vote."

In Texas, where the state filed its own challenge to Section 5 with the Supreme Court, Christina Sanders, state director of the Texas League of Young Voters Education Fund, said, "This [case] shows us that it is important, now more than ever, to educate our neighbors and communities about building local power to ensure that all votes are protected."

In Florida, where voter waiting lines for African Americans were the longest in the nation, laws that cut early voting were blocked by Section 5 challenges. Election law professor Dan Smith, of University of Florida, said that challenges to discriminatory laws, like the cuts to early voting that disproportionally impacted black voters, would be more difficult without Section 5. 

"We're only talking about five counties out of 67," that are covered by Section 5 in Florida. "But when you have [Section Five] as a vehicle you can challenge the entire state law because of the uniform election code. With respect to the voting rights issues in Florida it has been a major piece of legislation that has protected the rights of minorities and I fear for that leverage to be pulled away from voting rights activists."

Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program, and co-author of their recent report "If Section 5 Falls: New Voting Implications," told Colorlines that they will  be working with a coalition of voters, advocates and members of Congress to come up with new measures "that provide robust and ample protections for voters."

In association with Bloomberg Law

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 2004, Jon Stewart appeared on CNN's Crossfire and famously declared to hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala that the show was "hurting America." Soon after, CNN cancelled the show. But now nine years have passed and CNN clearly no longer cares who it hurts, because Crossfire is coming back.

CNN has announced it will revive the rancorous political program this fall, even cutting down Wolf Blitzer Reads People's Tweets To You by a half hour to make room in its schedule. The network's biggest problem in reviving Crossfire is how to avoid the original's reputation as a counterproductive shouting match. But fear not, because it's found an elegant solution: To reassure the public that the new Crossfire will be handled with the utmost of civility, CNN has secured that paragon of politeness, the gentleman's gentleman, Newt Gingrich.

Yes, Newt Gingrich, the former House ...

Unshackled from the tyranny of voting rights law, states around the South are speeding ahead to push through vote suppression "Voter ID" laws. Here's a quick rundown of which states are already off and running.

Jamie Zawinski wrote a fantastic rant about the demise of Google Reader. Go read it now and love the way he writes. But let's not jump so fast back into the synching mess that we got into in the Google Reader era of RSS.

We could be entering an era of low barriers to entry, competition, new ideas, innovation, and freedom from big tech companies. Things could get a lot better, right now, and keep getting better. Or, as Zawinski says, it could just be a more miserable version of what we're leaving behind.

To get better, we just have to give up on the idea of synching. That a special piece of software has to be written for every device you own, and that each of those apps needs to know what articles you've clicked on. That was the weakness in the old way of doing things. It made it ridiculously expensive to run an aggregator. It made it so that small companies or individuals couldn't experiment with a very simple technology. Why the largest of the tech companies came to dominate even though its heart wasn't in it. Because it took huge resources to run the central node in that network.

These days we can create beautiful software running in the web browser. It might not be 100 percent as elegant as what you get from an iOS app, but it comes without Apple's censorship and with no need to synch. If you use the same app everywhere, it can just store the information once in the same place it stores your subscriptions, and you're almost perfectly happy and RSS gets a chance to thrive.

It's still super expensive to run an aggregator, but we can make it easier, as users, by giving up this one thing.

Let's love the browser again, as we once did, and RSS can flourish again.

Evan Hansen at Medium asked if I would write a piece for them for the July 1 turn-over of the RSS market to the people. Who knows what's going to happen? I sure don't. But then I realized I have something to say at this juncture.

The last few years, as Google has come to dominate the RSS market, have been very bad for RSS, imho. I say that because a technology with tremendous potential for decentralizing news flow became one of the Internet's most singularly centralized technologies. We couldn't move in RSS-land because any change had to be implemented by Google. And their only ideas seemed to be how to most efficiently kill RSS, not to improve it, make it work better. As their involvement neared the end, all you would hear from the tech press were gloating cheers that RSS had died. Twitter was the new RSS. Never did they say how actively the other big tech companies had conspired to kill it.

If RSS had been a product, the advent of Twitter would have been its moment of greatest glory. Because it would have forced Twitter to remain open to competition. Twitter's business model might have been simplifying and rationalizing RSS, which RSS certainly needed, and they would have been entitled to get hugely rich for pulling that off.

Had RSS been a product, subscription would have become easy, not an increasingly complex maze of negative feedback, thanks to deliberate sidetracks from the leading browser vendors. If you doubt this, try clicking on this link, to an RSS feed, and see how hard it is to just view the contents of the file. In Chrome, Safari or Firefox there's no way to do it. In this one area apparently Microsoft wins the prize, and all they had to do is not screw with RSS, and let the browser render it as it would any other file. Whether Google, Apple or Mozilla actively wanted to kill RSS doesn't matter -- the net-effect was the same. How can you use it if you can't even click a link to begin the subscription process.

So now, here we are at a crossroads. There are lots of ways RSS could improve. The question is this -- will the tech industry learn how to cooperate on an open format, or will each of them play a game of winner-take-all, which will certainly result in none of them getting anything in return for all their efforts.

My company, Small Picture, is working on authoring tools to create new RSS feeds. I have a private on-the-side project, just me personally, to help foster the development of new river-of-news aggregators, commercial and open source.

I would love to see RSS achieve some of its great potential. There are still millions of feeds being actively updated every day. This is a treasure that we can build on, instead of watching the tech industry fight to kill it, once again.

Not sure whether I should be optimistic. But if the tech industry can turn this corner, then there's nothing we can't do. But having spent 40-plus years in this industry, I don't have much cause for optimism.