Anybody subscribe to Mental Floss? Looks like a pretty cool magazine:
mouthbreather got me a subscription a couple of years ago for my birthday and I’d cut off a toe before I’d let it lapse. Well, not really, but you get my drift. I like it a lot. The writers have a witty-yet-knowledgeable style similar to Cecil’s books.
Based on this thread, I picked up a copy. I’ve only gotten through half of it. It’s OK. You can see the contents online, and they’re relatively well-written. Basically, it’s for people who delight in really obscure trivia (did you know they’re building a 1,000 mile highway across Antarctica and that they don’t like tourists there?). The articles are written with in a jokey style that also influences their content (one of the questions is “what came first, the can or the can opener”) that some people may like, but is really like a bunch of high school valedictorians (you can tell I went to public school and wasn’t one because not only can I not spell it, but I couldn’t be bothered to look it up) who got high on pot and tried to make a magazine.
The one thing that really blows about it is the layout. Holy fuck is it awful.
My girlfriend, on the other hand, loves it.
I give it a content value of B- and a cost-to-content value of C.