Fast Company

Today in McKay Coppins’s tweets

Jack Shafer says it’s ok to cover Donald Trump incessantly so here we go again. At a rally in Las Vegas last night, increasingly violent and deranged supporters of the luxuriously healthy demagogue yelled things like “light the motherfucker on fire” and “Sieg heil” as protesters were dragged out by either security thugs or just regular freelance thugs. Gawker‘s ace political newshound Sam Biddle broke the story, reporting on McKay Coppins‘s tweets. BuzzFeed was beaten to the scoop but managed to file 20 minutes later, with Michelle Broder Van Dyke reporting on McKay Coppins‘s tweets. Mic‘s Luke Brinker followed up this morning, reporting on McKay Coppins‘s tweets. And even those weary dinosaurs of print and TV managed to get in on the story, with the LA Times‘s Kurtis Lee and NBC‘s Benjy Sarlin somehow reporting on their own tweets, which is obviously why legacy media is losing.

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Because it’s too obvious if you call in sick.

The worst part of your company’s holiday party? The morning after. We invited some New York comedians to help us show the myriad of ways the morning after your holiday party can be uncomfortable — from not being able to make eye contact with your colleagues, to maybe hooking up with someone you can’t quite remember, to the accidental overshare, watch this video and use it as a cautionary tale!

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It’s not hard to see how a competitive culture and hypercritical management could encourage unethical behavior.

Can a company’s culture foster unethical behavior?

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Plenty . . .

When Eduardo’s roommate moved out of his New York City dorm room before the summer term was finished, Eduardo saw a business opportunity. Here was an empty bed in a city where hotel rooms typically cost more than $200 per night. Renting it on Airbnb made so much sense that it didn’t even seem unusual. “I figured that renting out dorm space would just be a thing to do,” he says.

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Missing deadlines is a bad habit that’s easy to fall into, but it hurts your professional reputation. Here’s how to change it.

I’ll be the first one to admit that in certain areas of my life, I have fallen into a pattern of lateness. In fact, as I type these very words, this piece is late, and I can almost feel my editor’s fingers stretching toward her keyboard to send me an all-too-kind email, the heart of which will be, “Yo Kelsey, get your ish together!” Missing deadlines is upsetting, frustrating, moronic, inconsiderate . . . and all too easy. I remember the tipping point in college. It’s 4 a.m., you’re hustling to finish a paper for your 8 a.m. class, and as the effects of the 4-Hour Energy you took at midnight begin to fade, the thought creeps in: “What would actually happen if I didn’t turn this in on time?” Unfortunately, you quickly realize the answer is most likely nothing. At worse, you’re down half a letter grade, and we all know how vital grades are (HAHA).

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J.J. Abrams’s take on Star Wars reboots the story for a new generation, but avoids over-flattering them.

The Star Wars franchise is the Shakespearean canon of pop culture. Regardless of artistic quality, it plays the same role as the bard’s best tales—exploring stories of good vs. evil in narratives that stay popular for many generations. The Force Awakens, though, is the first reboot made for the millennial generation. It’s not a classic old film that clings to tradition, but a new work that will speak to them. (Episodes I-III, being prequels with few of the same characters, are far removed from the originals.) Saying that, The Force Awakens could have been an irritating piece of cloying millennial pandering. But it’s not.

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Republican front-runner Donald Trump says America should shut down ISIS’ access to the Internet. But how?

During tonight’s Republican primary debate, world-class demagogue rhetorician and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said America should shut off ISIS’s access to the Internet. The terror network is disturbingly successful at spreading its propaganda and recruiting via social media. But how practical is Trump’s suggestion?

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Contrary to what the Republican candidate claimed in the debate, the FBI has approached tech companies for help circumventing encryption.

Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina claimed in Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate that the Obama Administration hasn’t asked big tech companies for help circumventing encryption in fighting terrorism—but the FBI and other federal agencies have done just that several times.

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The former Hewlett-Packard CEO apparently arranged for the agency to get the hardware it needed for post-9/11 wiretapping.

During Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate, candidate and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina proudly recalled getting a phone call from the National Security Agency shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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One term you’ll hear a lot in the world of TV writing is “breaking the story.” Master of None‘s Alan Yang breaks down how it’s done.

The opening credits on most TV shows often come with a side order of lies. The main offender is the “written-by” credit. It’s a suspiciously narrow designation that suggests one or possibly two story-artisans painstakingly handcrafted every plot-point, every turn, and every string of sparkling banter that make up the episode all on their own. Barring some exceptions, what actually happens is an entire writers room full of interlocking personality types forms like a comedy Voltron to pitch and polish ideas until one or two writers have enough material to go off and write up a draft. It’s a process that’s known as breaking a story, and it is incredibly difficult to do.

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