Archive for August, 2008
Micro-blogging growing up?
The term ‘Web 2.0′ seems to have reached its apex. By this, I mean that the new internet appears to have well established its ground roots. One way to tell this is happening is the relative explosion of open source forums of these popular applications. Specifically, lacroni.ca and Sweetcron, steroid-enhanced versions of Twitter and a pseudo-ish Netvibes, respectively.
Since its release, July 13, 2006, Twitter has shown the idea of micro-blogging to be very welcome. But, as with any popular idea, it was copied and cloned - sometimes for the better, but usually the worse. Intentional or not, these have proven to be independant feature-testers for the ever evolving micro-blogging community. Pownce, the most successful post-Twitter service, was founded by Leah Culver, Daniel Burka and the internet god known as Kevin Rose, the father of Digg. It was renowned for its contextual media formatting as well as its threading ability - something Twitter should have (but still has not) started out with. Along with that, the Digg team brought an extremely loyal community, that community was then very compliant with the aforementioned technological advantage it already had over Twitter - the basic idea of threading.
As said in a previous article, the popularity of social networks can lead to its eventual standardization, as was the case with MySpace and, later, Facebook. The difference here is that after MySpace’s apparent ‘prime’ my favorite acronym came to be; RSS. Although the following system used in Twitter, or in any other micro-blogging service does not use RSS (directly), but as a following/ (Real Simple) Syndication system, RSS did seem to popularize the idea.
So where are we now? Micro-blogging has proven itself as one of the distinctive aspects of Web 2.0. The only problem, is, well, no matter how secure a server may be, private corporate data should never, and will never, leave the office - in server form or not. That is the problem with all online services - being online, rather, online in servers not of your own. Companies and groups and clubs and communities will be able to create and manage their own social groups. With more control and less server-overloads, as are so famous on Twitter.com.
As for Sweetcron? Lifestreaming appeared not long ago, not even a year. My favorite one is, most cleverly titled Lifestream.fm. With so many social communities, how can anyone keep track of a single person? The answer to that is called lifestreaming, FriendFeed was actually one of the first, Lifestream.fm is just the nicest looking one. The idea here is to just aggregate all of your information to one spot. In this case, security and serverload has never been much an issue, but the idea behind it, the self-aggregation, can be used in so many services.
And that is where this OSS comes in. This is why I get so damn excited about programs like lacroni.ca and Sweetcron. The popularity of such niche services show what people want to do with the technology, and now, OSS is going to let them do that.
Identi.cating the Twitter down-time
I admit, my initial impression of identi.ca was rather bland. Aesthetically, it was pretty bland and, at the time, I saw nothing really special about it. What I was looking for was purely the look and feel of the system… Identi.ca, or more specifically, Laconica - the open Micro-blogging tool behind it. This article is really more about the system, Laconica, than their canonical server, Identi.ca, but the name went really well with the pun. So what is this other than an apparent Twitter clone? And what makes this different than all of the others? Open Source Software. I was first excited and then rather down about the idea, and then I got happy again. Digg.com, the name in itself, and the popularity and community behind it. MySpace, as well, had the same namesake behind it. Besides Facebook, I think the name of Twitter has the strongest ‘label’ behind it. As it was for IM clients for me, where I chose MSN mainly because that was just the standard. Without installing seperate clients, I could not talk to other friends. As do users now have tools like Pidgin and meebo, RSS is allowing users to spread their content around thusly. Leo Laporte calls it the Network effect. More daunting, even, than the Leo effect. Laconica is taking that idea much deeper than some API. And here is how I mean;
- Identi.ca has its user base powered by Laconica. As Laconica is an OSS system, it is free to be used by any server with PHP support - so any web server. And yes, it is running on PHP. Twitter runs on Ruby on Rails, which along with its coding scheme (apparently, I dont know why, but this is what I hear), and with PHP they are seeing a lot more up-time, and is also a lot earier to install. Copy & Paste, yannow?
- It works backwards. Laconica is to, and does, work as a micro-blogging form of OpenID. OpenID works thusly, by letting a single username be used for multiple services. In the following diagram, the OpenID server (there are many) relays requests from a user toward the website. Laconica runs the same idea. Essentially, Laconica will lets you post in other Laconica micro-blogs with your user name from another Lacronica server. My identi.ca account could comment and subscribe to posts from my zeitgeister account. Different website, same program.
- It is self-hosted. One of the major reasons, or so I would assume, that companies and the like shy away from working this micro-blogging idea is that it is all on your own servers. It would be fantastic for niche communities, open for whoever you want, but also, wherein it necessary, entirely safe and private.
First and foremost, I am excited for the idea of this, I am excited for the OSS behind it all. But even moreso than that, I am excited about what can happen with this.
“You can’t beat meat, Simpson says”
Earlier this year, Jessica Simpson sported a T-shirt with the slogan “Real Girls Eat Meat.”
Some gossip bloggers thought the phrase was a knock towards music star Carrie Underwood, a vegetarian and former girlfriend of Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Tony Romo, who is now with Simpson.Jason, MacNiel. “Come on over.” (2008, August 22). 24 hours, p. 31.
I read this, either by fait or pure coincidence, a day after I said to my brother, “I wish I were famous, so I could call PETA a piece of crap.” Now, I do not assume those were Jessica’s intentions, but you can see a connection there.
Thing is, I just hate PETA. Last year in English we had to write an essay about the hilarious hipocrasy of PETA
and their dip-shit ad campaigns. In reponse to the old-as-of-now The Holocaust on your plate campaign. My premise? Pigs dont go to space.
But my hatred does not end purely at their lack of taste (which, considering the Vegan diet, I find ironic in the least) in these regards, the blatant hipocrasy makes me laugh my (unfortunately non-literal) ass off. The leader of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, is a damn insulin-dependant diabetic. Besides that, she is also ugly as a pug.
“I’m an insulin-dependent diabetic. Twice a day I take synthetically manufactured insulin that still contains some animal products — and I have no qualms about it … I’m not going to take the chance of killing myself by not taking insulin. I don’t see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals.”
Glamour, January 1990 (Consumer Freedom)
I pray I needn’t explain this? Okay, fine. The very thing she attention-whores herself again, insisting against the use of, she is using herself. It’s like being Jewish, but only on Chanukah’s (that is the actual spelling of it, I learned from a Jew) and on the Comedy Network. Believe you me, hers is not time I deem well wasted.
As you may see, my hatred of PETA is substantial and, in the least, semi-founded. You know the saying, and enemey of my enemy is my friend? Well, by that logic, I theoretically don’t have to despise/ mock Jessica as much now. Although, had you seen her video for Dukes of Hazzard, her fondness of meat would come as much a surprise as Morgan Freeman being a black man in his next movie.
All in all, mad props to Jessica Simpson. After the her sisters entire nose-job yes/ no debaucle, she is officially not the dumbest blonde (natural or non) in Hollywood.
Spoiler Alert: looks like Morgan Freeman is still black in his next (of many) movies, Thick as Thieves.
Sex still sells - even if it would break her in half
‘Dove’s “campaign for Real Beauty”-which proudly features “real” women of different shapes and sizes-has attracted international attention and scores several major advertising rewards to boot. But it turns out it may not sell that much product. A new study has concluded that traditional ads featuring rail-thin models had it right all along: yes, they make women feel worse about themselves, but such ads are still more likely to convince women to buy.’
Lunau, Kate. "Study finds real women don't sell." (2008 August). 24 hours, p. 34.
If I properly voiced by initial response to this article, it would sound like every-one’s favorite British detective was constipated. But is that not expected?
Even the most mentally defunct thins in the media are, well, intelligently placed. An example would be those annoying phishing e-mails. As retarded and pointless and retarded as we all see them, they get enough of a response to merit their reproduction. As is the case, it seems, for the talentless boy/girl/transgendered bubble-gum-pop bands - they do make money.
So, as much as mothers disagree, and fathers and sons pretend to disagree about the scantly clad, rail-thin models, they are still working. Back in the day when this amount of sexuality was seen as whoreific, they sold with these pseudo-plus size models. But, over years, the skin:clothing ratio steadily grew further apart, marketing anyone’s saw the monetary gain over this. The irony is that the less clothing a woman is wearing, the more you wish to buy.
That being said, I very much am a fan of Dove’s campaign, especially considering the risks. The gist of Capitalism is making more money, no? So besides the fact that I (attempt) to follow this Conservativeve mindset, I also give them mad props for going against what may be the most profitable.
So have Dove’s curvy models hurt its bottom line? The company doesn’t think so.
“We’ve achieved a healthy growth since the campaign launched in 2005,” says Dove Canada’s Alison Leung. She adds that Dove has the No. 1 body wash and bar in the county, and won’t be abandoning its “real woman” position any time soon.
I am not sure where they would stand if their profits were otherwise, but I also find it unfair to judge a company on something of that nature. As even a man, with a pervy nether-region, I applaud Dove for this campaign.
AI: Artifically Intelligent
In the wake of my fanfic-esque piece the other day, I thought I should go watch a good ol sci-fi again. At first, I saw none at the rental store, but low and behold, AI was there. Yipee!
Have asked me yesterday and I would have sworn I actually saw the entire movie before. I liked it and it was great. But take note of my strategic use of past-tenses in that sentence.
This thing is horrible.
The first bit was really cute, with the kid and his ‘mother’ and all that jazz. When the real son came back alive I was as surprised as when my poo this morning fell into the toilet, and didn’t actually bypass all laws of physics and start to fly and talk and write Shakespeare in 10 minutes. That is where it really went downhill. I though it was all sad and crap when she dropped her kid off in the forest with the creepy Teddy bear.
And then he met this damn… robot American Gladiator/ Mad Max crap-fest.
And then some retarded step-brother of Blade Runner up until he meets his ‘father’ and he gets mad and jumps out the building and gets pulled up the the Gigolo fucker.
And then when the dudes try to pick em up, they forget that David is a robot as well and magnets don’t effect him.
So he goes and drives his sub to the ‘Blue Fairy’ and sits there for 2000 years. And after 2000 years no building has been destroyed. Look at any of the shit from Ancient Greece and shit, that is a bit less than perfect condition, and only a bit more than 2000 years.
So these alien robot things revive his mom from a 2000 year old lock of hair that a creepy robot-teddy bear was carrying around.
I was actually yelling and swearing and mocking the movies sexuality, to the point that I decided, rather explicitly, why DVDs have holes in them.
It would seem that I am not the only one of this mentality. Although half the people I whined about this movie to called me an idiot and it was above my level of apparent intelligence, the other half (duh) agreed with me whole heatedly. Of that latter portion, David Schwartz (of Heckler Spray fame) actually had AI in his list of ‘The Eight Dullest Movies Of All TIme‘.
“This film was so mind-numbingly bad, we’ve spent the last 10 hours gnawing at my own hand to distract from the pain.”
And that makes me feel good, because the opinion of Internet polls is more important than those IRL chumps…