Lemmy Caution, etc

February 27, 2009

Dear readers, I want your help! I want a gigantic list of names that are awesome like Lemmy Caution.


I mean the name itself, not necessarily the character. So Dick Dastardly works, too. Oh man, I really should have made this post a few days ago when I heard a real person's name that worked well, but now I forget who it was. So bonus points if they're real names, folks!

(World's Strongest Man fans: Magnús Ver Magnússon almost works, but that's a whole different kind of awesome. I'd like to stick with Lemmy Caution-style names for now.)

Comment away, please...


DO NOT tell me about a crappy trend when I'm sick, Internet!

February 26, 2009

I'm sick. I'm not quite sure what I've got, but I think it's like a mega-cold or something. I'm also really pissed off. This I can blame very specifically on the rising popularity of datamoshing.

First, I hate that name.

Second, the "effect":
  • is incredibly easy to recreate
  • is incredibly hard to control
  • looks like a video compression error
  • IS a video compression error
  • makes me think about numerous messed up downloaded video files that I REALLY wanted to watch
  • makes me think about numerous messed up video editing projects on my less-than-data-reliable computer from a few years ago
  • has not been used well yet (except for maybe a few uses by Takeshi Murata)
  • has already been used to death in Chairlift's Evident Utensil video
  • has already been used to death in Kanye's Welcome To Heartbreak video (Really, do any trends survive Kanye's golden touch/kiss of death?)
Now don't get me wrong... I will admit that the effect has potential (or perhaps had potential, since I'm declaring that it's now been killed). I'm a huge fan of glitchiness of all kinds. I've participated in some glitchy electronic music scenes. I've watched satellite TV during thunder storms for hours just for the glitches. I love light leaks in photography. But this.... this datamoshing... I can't get into. Something just seems totally wrong about it.

I guess some of my anger might also come from fear... Fear that I'm becoming an old man... Fear that kids these days have such completely different ideas of aesthetics from me...



Then again, it truly is a shit effect. Even bad chroma-keying would be better!


BTW#1: I was originally going to complain about Kanye more in this piece, but I decided that I have more than enough on Kanye for a separate post. Maybe a whole series of posts. We'll see.

BTW#2: Sorry for the previous diary-like post. As I said, I'm ill.


Childhood memory or a dream?

February 25, 2009

I was just listening to the Stan Freberg cover of Sh-Boom (found in a Sh-Boom mega post - 37 versions!), and towards the end, the main guy (Stan?) is yelling "Stellaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Now, I recognize this reference (Streetcar Named Desire, right?) through second- and third-hand knowledge only, but it brings back a very fond memory. I remember being at the beach with my family for a couple weeks, and I was hanging out with this girl whose name I've forgotten. We did a whole lot of floating around in inner tubes, and every now and then the current would start to drag one of us off a bit. We'd jokingly start yelling "Stellaaaaaaa!" Looking back on this, I realize that her and I were getting along swimmingly (pun TOTALLY intended) and spending loads of time together for those two weeks. And we had loads of fun.


But who was she? As a kid at that age (12? 13?), I pretty much only hung out with guys, I think. Girls were either uninteresting, or they were a source of great nervousness if they were cute. Also, at the beach, I pretty much only hung out with this one dude, Jon. We were both socially awkward and dorky. So, this is why I question the accuracy of this memory... Why was I hanging out with a girl? Where was Jon? How would I have even met this girl?

Finally, there's the fact that the song that brought back this "memory" is Sh-Boom (Life Could Be A Dream).


Open letter to Hulu's content providers

February 19, 2009

[I don't care if this is a hot topic on the internet right now. I need to get this out there. I've already sent this to the four content providers listed in Hulu's About page (NBC, MGM, Sony, WB), and this is my (very poor) attempt to spread this to Hulu's other content providers. I'm lazy.]


Content provider for Hulu:

I recently read about how you asked Hulu to stop letting Boxee play Hulu content, and I'm very displeased. I can only guess at the reasons because you have not actually provided any. Maybe you were thinking that you licensed this stuff to be played on computers only. Maybe you think you're losing control of your content. Maybe you think that because you didn't expect this to happen, it must be wrong. I don't know. You haven't said. But what you HAVE said, to me and to everyone else that was WILLINGLY WATCHING YOUR CONTENT AND YOUR ADS, is that we're not important and you don't like us. I'm hurt. I'm disappointed.

And most importantly, I urge you to reconsider, and to embrace the future. You can and will fail if you refuse to embrace changing technology. Hulu is hands down THE BEST way to watch TV these days. You have a good thing going there! Don't ruin it by (to our eyes) crazy restrictions that insult your viewers! Please!

--j.m.


Fueling the fire I'm fighting: Twitter

February 13, 2009

I Hate You


Oh, Twitter. You're made of the very essence of Web 2.0: style, simplicity & hype...

I do hate you, Twitter. I hate hearing about you all the time. I hate how much of the (internet) world is now devoted to using you, talking about you (I know, I'm now guilty!), basing things off of you, serving you, worshiping you...

So, to deal with this hatred, I've been ignoring you. Not thinking about you. Skipping pretty much any article that has the word "Twitter" in it. But, alas, the within a week of each other, two (Amanda & Cody, unrelated) of my highly-respectable friends started using Twitter, and upon investigation, I noticed that a few other equally-respectable friends were using Twitter, too.

This made me pause.

After several talks with these friends - some involving Bynars - I didn't hate it as much. Still, it struck me as something I'd never want to use. Ever. But then, one late night, I (drunkenly) signed up for an account and immediately posted (or twittered) several times in 10 minutes. What had I started?!


Thoughts and Theories That Others Have Probably Already Made

I'm proud to say that I've barely used it since that first night. But, unfortunately, I've been thinking about it a lot. Here are some quick highlights, because I feel like I've been too long-winded already:

- It's so banal. And I think that's the thing with twitter: it encourages banality. It might not be possible to do anything except banality with twitter. The limits on post length make certain that most posts will be completely pointless and/or uninteresting. Why not just use a blog where you can keep your posts to less than 140 characters if you choose, or, when the occasion calls for it, extend your posts as long as necessary? If your immediate answer is simplicity, well, my immediate response is tumblr. (btw, I refuse 2 use txt spk 2 try to fit more words in 2 my posts.)

- Twitter automatically comes built in with a certain percentage of 'noise' (in a signal-to-noise type evaluation). The method of addressing twitters (twits?) to other people with the '@' symbol is easy, but also a detriment. To the best of my knowledge (and correct me if i'm wrong) these messages to other people get broadcast to everyone following your twitter stream. So, unless you actually enjoy seeing your friends say things like "@jorge123: hahaha yeah. u r right" all the time, you're out of luck, because you'll see loads of these even-more-banal-because-you're-not-involved-at-all conversations. A simple solution would be if Twitter let you control how you see these @SomeoneElse posts. I would love change the settings on a person-by-person basis. But, alas, Twitter is about simplicity, and this necessary functionality (as we'll see later) apparently doesn't make the cut.

- Perhaps my biggest complaint, even though it is not really an issue just yet: friend creep. In case you haven't heard this term, this is what happens when someone you don't know very well, like a co-worker or classmate, adds you as a friend on a social network. You begrudgingly accept, so as to not offend, and then you try ignore that person's posts. This is why "no one" uses Friendster anymore (sorry Vern)... This is why MySpace is out and Facebook is in... Although still in its infancy, Twitter is indeed a social network, and it will inevitably fall to the same fate at the hands of friend creep. And unless they institute some good filters soon (see previous paragraph), they'll meet that fate sooner than most social networks.

- I will credit Twitter with being a little interesting at times... for instance: the other day, when US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River here in NYC, news and info spread incredibly fast about it, at least in some part due to Twitter. In turn, I read about it on a blog less than an hour after it happened. Alright. Go Twitter, this time. But the chain-reaction speed it can have is not always good. Think, for instance, about how those "Steve Jobs is dead/dying" rumors spread so fast and so pervasively each time Steve does just about anything these days. Ugh. Great. Twitter is a speed-of-light sewing circle. Grand. (I should point out that the crash in the Hudson is the ONLY time I can think of Twitter actually being useful in this way. Hell, come to think of it, I don't even know if anything would have been different that day if Twitter didn't exist. I would have seen and read the same stuff.)

- As it stands now, Twitter is a redundant service... A service that hasn't got a home... A service that is finding itself. From my point of view, it's main competitors (which were already somewhat redundant with each other) are Facebook, IM, tumblr and text-messaging:
  • Facebook essentially has the services Twitter provides already built in by way of one's status update and wall. Facebook is also a huge and powerful force, with an equally huge user base and financier base.
  • IM's away messages were most likely the inspiration for this particular service Facebook and Twitter offer. Facebook and Gmail (and so many others) have added IM-like chatting (and sometimes IM itself) to their own services, making IMing even more ubiquitous than it already was.
  • Tumblr is a relative lightweight when compared with Facebook and IMing, and perhaps even when compared to Twitter. But as I mentioned before, it, to me, seems like a much more practical implementation of Twitter's ideals. Short Twitter-like posts are encouraged, but not necessary. A post could also be just a photo. Or just a song. Or several paragraphs of text. But the interface is simple, as are references to other users. Compared to tumblr, Twitter is basically just text-messaging.
  • With growing popularity of smartphones (especially the iPhone) and, in turn, unlimited data plans, the line between text-messaging and IMing is blurring. The iPhones threaded text-messages is highly reminiscent of IMs. And smartphones' numerous IM applications let people IM from their phones instead of (or even in addition to) text-message.
- Related to the Facebook, IM, tumblr and text-messaging bit: I just want some of these to die off now. Reduce redundancy. Until smartphones (and thereby unlimited data plans) are more prevalent, text-messaging will not vanish. Facebook is too powerful right now to die. Tumblr is in its infancy and isn't causing as big a commotion as any of these other things did, as far as I can tell, so of these things, I'd say it's most likely to die. This would be unfortunate, as I think it's a better alternative than Twitter. As mentioned before, IMing is getting consumed by other services, so it seems to be the healthiest of all. Like the Ancients in the Stargate universe, it's transcended it's original medium and immortally thrives in a higher plane of existence. If Twitter does not die quickly, then this is the fate I wish for it. As far as I know, it can already be embedded into other things, so I just wish it would go and replace Facebook's statuses and walls.

For a while, Twitter's business model intrigued me (and is apparently a hot topic for many others, too). I have not read about it, though... merely speculated in my own head. At first, I assumed there was no business plan and they were just some folks who made this thing for fun. Then, when I realized how huge it was getting, I figured that there must be some sort of revenue-making planned. The first thing I thought of was ads. Maybe they'll take a cue from Google and have contextual ads along the side of the page. Maybe they'll piss me off and put the ads between the posts. But now, my current theory is that they're just looking to sell the service for a large chunk of money. I'm sure there are plenty of offers rolling in, and they're just holding out for a really big fish. As a fellow aspiring-web-entrepreneur (just you wait!), I honestly wish them luck with this plan (if it is actually their plan), and I hope they can sell Twitter before it starts losing its momentum (as I have stated (proved?) will happen).


The Power Of Love*
or perhaps...
Roads? Where We're Going, We Don't Need Roads*

In the end, though, as with most (all?) hot new technologies that I've initially resisted, I'll meet and/or date a cute girl who will cause me to warm up, because she'll use twitter all the time. First there was the cellphone, then MySpace, then text messaging... It's happened before, and it will happen again, no doubt.


(Thanks for reading this HUGE post, and please stay tuned for my next post about Twitter which will undoubtedly (judging by this article) be called 'Twitter' Is Synonymous With 'Banal.')


A friend of Iving's?

February 08, 2009



(Just the screencap today. If you want the video, I'm sure you can figure it out. But it's not worth it.)


animation:tng

February 07, 2009

I've had several conversations about various Star Treks recently. I'm feeling nostalgic:

(NOTE: These are supposed to be animated gifs, but Blogger isn't havin' it, I guess. So if you really want to see the animations, let me know and we'll figure something out.)






I think these all came from the animated gif board on 4chan. (WARNING: 4chan is one of the most offensive and NSFW sites ever. You need a strong mind and body to survive that website. I can't stress this enough. Sometimes you'll see funny things like these gifs. Sometimes you'll see horrible racism. Sometimes you'll see mutilated dead bodies. But most of the time you'll just see lots of porn. And this is the worst: Some of that porn will have funny but horrible racism involving mutilated dead bodies. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. You can not un-see something.)

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