BradBerens.com
Thoughts about where our real and digital worlds collide.

  • SHORT: Don’t Miss REDEF Original on Truth in Advertising

    From the “too long for a tweet” department: I just finished Adam Wray‘s powerful Fashion REDEFined original article “With Great Power: Seth Matlins on how Advertising can Shift Culture for the Better.” It’s about Seth Matlins‘ efforts to change how advertisements featuring too-skinny and Photoshopped models body shame girls and women (men too, by the way).…

  • What the NY Times missed about “Rizzoli & Isles”

    Earlier this week, New York Times TV critic Mike Hale reviewed the opening of the seventh and final season of the TNT original cop show, “Rizzoli & Isles.” Here’s a relevant snippet: On television, as in life, comfort food comes in all sorts of flavors. There’s the tart apple pie of “NCIS,” the solid corned…

  • TechfestNW: Daimler’s Ambitious Vision for Self-Driving Trucks

    I was reminded this week of a 1983 episode of the classic TV show “Knight Rider” featuring a self-driving truck named Goliath as the villain-of-the-week who battled heroes Michael Knight (played by a young David Hasselhoff) and K.I.T.T., a self-aware and self-driving Pontiac Trans Am. This boyhood memory clanged into my awareness because now, 33…

  • Where “Lucifer” on Fox goes off the rails

    “Lucifer,” the new midseason replacement show on Fox, doesn’t trust its audience. Episode #8 aired last night, and at this point the show is a basic police procedural with a celestial crisis (something bad will happen without Lucifer working as Hell’s CEO and main jailor) lurking vaguely in the background.  Tom Ellis is charming as…

  • First Thoughts on Amazon’s Echo and Alexa

    Based in large part on my friend Jeff Minsky’s enthusiast endorsement, I bought the Amazon Echo device that comes with its voice-activated, Siri-like, AI digital helper named Alexa.  “This is a no-brainer,” Jeff said.  “If nothing else it’s a terrific wireless speaker for under $200, and it does so much more.” I unboxed Echo on Wednesday,…

  • Don’t Miss Adam Grant’s new book “Originals”

    Of the many compliments that I can give to Adam Grant’s remarkable new book Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, a rare one is that I will have to read it again soon.  Grant is an unusual social scientist in that he’s also a terrific writer, a gem-cutting anecdote selector of real-life stories that illuminate…

  • My 2015 in Books

    This is the second year that I’ve kept a list of all the books I’ve finished, sharing that list on New Year’s Eve once I’ve realized that I won’t finish anything else before midnight.  I’ve read plus-or-minus 56 books this year (the +/- will make sense if you read on), not counting re-reads or partial…

  • A glimmer of hope for CBS’ “Supergirl”

    This TV season’s new “Supergirl” TV show confuses me. Over on the CW, producer Greg Berlanti has nailed both “Arrow” and “Flash,” but where those shows feel fresh and exciting “Supergirl” is forced and whiney. “Supergirl” oscillates between action and soap opera, rarely integrating the two. There’s too much talking among the characters but not…

  • On Meditation: a tweet drizzle in 11 brief parts

    On meditation: a tweet drizzle (1) #mindful OK, I get it. Morning mediation is important. It creates a shock absorber in my head for the day to come, gives me resources. (2) #mindful The chattering monkeys and skittering spiders of my thoughts need taming, stilling, calming, tranquilizing (3) #mindful Inner peace is probably beyond me,…

  • Don’t Call Them “Consumers”

    What you call people matters.  It tells them what you really think about them. Here’s an example: years ago my friend Jules shared how her Mom would call for her Dad in a never-changing escalation of urgency and decline of affection: “Sweetheart!” she’d trill, followed by, “Honey?” and then ending with “Bill!!”  The equation worked…