#Anime She even has doughnuts!
Anime
Bruce Clement asks why you blog
Internet
Bruce Clement, a new friend of mine on The Twitters, recently asked his followers why they blog. This is my attempt at an answer!
Having opened a dialogue about battery oddities under Linux, Bruce Clement and I started following each other a few days ago. He's an IT professional hailing from across the pond in New Zealand who's Twitter profile description is eerily familiar to mine:
Software developer. Internet branding. Linux user. No I can’t fix your computer. Can’t design decent looking websites either.
Swap out "internet branding" with "anime fan" or something equally less productive, and his profile sounds just like mine ;).
Here I go, attempting an answer to his post!
While I'd like to say I blog because I have valuable insights, am participating in citizen journalism that's bringing down corrupt governments and institutions, that I'm entertaining and informative, that Dave Winer insulted me into doing it, or that I'm being held captive on a space station and being forced to do so with a phaser pointed at me, I'd be full of nonsense if I claimed to be.
There are secondary reasons aplenty:
- It helps me remember things
- Blogging gives me a virtual record of what I’ve found interesting and procedures I’ve come up with to do things over time. The former is fun for nostalgic reasons, the latter is helpful and may as well be online instead of sitting in some random text file somewhere!
- It keeps me in contact with people
- I’m a terribly shy and antisocial person in public, but blogging keeps me in contact with people from all over the place, some of whom only know me because they happened to see something in a search engine or a tweet. Sometimes they even reward me with coffee :)
- It lets people know they’re right and I’m wrong
- As the internet meme goes, everyone’s entitled to my opinion. Trolls love my opinion because it gives them fodder to justify their existence, and people who agree with me leave nice comments!
- It’s great for downtime
- I’m not really into gaming and am a fairly solitary person, so blogging is just a natural fit. If I were entertaining and a good writer, it’d fit me even more.
- It makes me look legit
- There is nothing, nothing more valuable to a person’s reputation than having a well stocked weblog or blog or website or whatever it is people call them. I read it in Fortune or Time or Newsweek or something.
- It legitimises activities
- If I were satisfied with being a passive consumer I’d spend all day watching anime, messing around with programming languages and operating systems that are outdated or seldom used outside fan circles, and I’d have no qualms about it. Somehow writing about doing things helps to legitimise them, even if they’re still entirely pointless.
Ultimately though, I blog primarily for two simple reasons: I'm being held captive on a space station and its operators claim they'll throw me out an airlock if I don't produce material that helps them to understand the inner workings of the early 21st century male nerd mind. Also, I just find it a terribly fun thing to do. :)
#Anime Ijima-sensei in three screenshots
Anime
Like buttons, Facebookers the new AOLers
Internet
For someone who doesn't use it any more, he sure talks about them Facebooks a lot!
That like button thing
I jumped off the Facebook ship a couple of months ago and haven't looked back, but I still read news reports about it if only to indulge in a little schadenfreude. From Techi.com:
Sunday, Facebook rolled out a change in the functionality of the Facebook "Like" button on websites across the Internet, essentially giving it the same basic functionality as the "Share" button. The only difference is that pushing the Like button doesn’t open up a new window or give you any way to edit what you’re posting to your wall.
For someone who's already started to forget about Facebook and how it operates, this didn't seem like so much of a big deal upon cursory inspection. Of course, one need only see the effects of such a change to see its far more insidious than the official PR would have you believe.
[T]he process removes a person’s ability to edit or personalize what they want posted to their wall.
Facebook knows exactly what they’re doing. This is a classic “bait ‘n switch” move that was well planned and executed perfectly all the way down to the exact day that it was launched.
No kidding.
That AOL thing
matthew.w.simpson left a comment on News.com about Gawker's latest site redesign that includes Facebook like links, but not Twitter or any other social network.
Says a lot about the audience that make Gawker sites popular… Facebook users are getting the reputation that AOL users had in the nineties.
Aw snap! The test will come when we start to see Facebook Groups appearing in advertising instead of a generic EARLs. Oh, wait, they already do.
The future thing
It's fairly obvious to me as an outside observer now that Facebook is doing its best to remain as sticky and relevant to people as possible, at least until their IPO so the founders can cash in. As long as they make small, incremental changes they'll be able to get away with anything. What I can't stop thinking about is, what can they get away with next?
I've talked about my issues with Google lately, but sometimes it helps to put their efforts into perspective. I feel threatened by Google predominantly for legal reasons; they perpetuate the idea that your data should be in the cloud with online services and that they'll Do No Evil, but that's not to say law enforcement armed with increasingly draconian legislation couldn't forcibly compel them to part with information. It wouldn't matter if Google is angelic and vehemently opposes such action, they're not above the law. This is the same issue I have with IPv6, though I'd better not mention that again or I'll have people ironically accusing me of "not researching enough". Go figure ;)
My fear from Facebook is their more incidious nature. Whereas Google has repeatedly demonstrated their inability to foster any kind of meaningful social network system outside Brasil that could also take advantage of people's browsing habits (what a horrifying prospect), Facebook's efforts are focused like a laser beam. They really are scary in their own right, and I want nothing to do with them.
Ultimately what will save us from them isn't people writing whinging posts like this, or more "open" networks like Diaspora, but the fickle nature of internet users. Facebook will be stale and boring eventually, and people will move away from it to the next Flavour of The Day.
Abandoned tank engine
AnnexeThis post originally appeared on the Annexe.
Gorgeous Sailor V fanart
Annexe
Abbey Road, in a box
Annexe
747 cutout
AnnexeThis post originally appeared on the Annexe.
I was looking at this photo for ages before I realised the 747 hanging above… is a cutout! XD
iPad 2
Hardware
Because I'm a good little Apple slave, here are my thoughts.
Ruben you such fanboy lol !111eleven!11pretzel!1!!
First, Apple demonstrates once again they're the leader and everyone else is a follower… at least for now. Before the iPad, tablet computers were limited to heavy old laptops running desktop OSs with a thin layer of pen computing as an afterthought added to it. The CrunchPad JooJoo thing (that did more to damage Singapore's IT reputation overseas than anything in a long time) was perhaps a sign of things to come from at least a form factor perspective, but it was severely limited by design to be a web machine, conventional wisdom at the time dictating that its all anyone would want to do on a machine like that.
Fast forward to now, and every man and his dog is coming out with tablet computers either running a flavour of Android or webOS that uses Plastic Fantastic instead of metal. If I may be so snarky, I'm sure those manufacturers and Google was hotly awaiting the release of iPad 2 more than anyone else, so they can start figuring out ways to duplicate it.
Features
If they're out to duplicate features, this release shouldn't take them too much time. Or at least less than the entire year it took for Motorola to release the Zune or Xoom or whatever it is.
When I navigated to Apple.com this morning while getting ready for class, I was presented with a full screen graphic of an iPad 2… cover. For such an allegedly amazing new device, it struck me as odd that a so called "Smart Cover" would get so much advertising attention. It may be nice, but its a cover! I suppose its a "magical" and "revolutionary" cover ;).
Needless to say, heavily advertising a cover suggested to me that we were looking more at a 1.1 revision rather than a 2.0 product, otherwise they'd be hyping a ton of breakthrough new features.
Mugi, you don't use a pen with an iPad! Geez ;).
The dual core CPU is obviously a nice addition and will do doubt drastically improve performance, though I've always been wary of Apple's claims such as "nine times faster". The technical specifications don't list memory, though I'm assuming that's also been bumped up.
One of the criticisms I've heard from people with iPads is once they buy an iPhone 4, the screen is so much clearer and easy to read that going back to the iPad is a bit of a shock. When one considers the iPad is 1024×768 and a telephone is almost the same at 960×640, the fact the iPad 2 still has the same resolution is a tad disappointing. I suppose they have their reasons, to power such a high res screen you'd need pretty decent graphics that would either make it too expensive, too hot or use too much battery.
Cameras? Why? So people can video chat in the most unflattering way possible, or walk around taking pictures with a dinner tray as Andy Ihnatko so eloquently put it? I suppose cameras and HDMI will appease people who buy devices based on a features list.
The final word
You expected me to say The Bird is The Word? Really? You think I'd be that predictable and actually write in a post that The Bird is The Word? I'm as shocked as I am appalled. Hey, wait a minute.
Overall it looks like a solid update, and as much as I'd love one, I still won't be buying one. I just splurged on a refurbished Mac Pro, I won't be buying any new hardware for a LONG while yet. Besides my MacBook Pro, ThinkPad X40 and iPhone 4 are wonderful travel companions, so I don't need one. I'm also still a Palm fanboy, so I would actually really love one of their TouchPads. Don't tell anyone.
Links for 2011-03-03
InternetLinks shared from del.icio.us today:
- Wi-fi promise for Sydney trains and buses – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
- I'll believe it when I see it.
- How airlines use Twitter [infographic] – Holy Kaw!
- I thought airlines used Twitter to ignore their customers and dismiss negative PR… :P
- Code Pizza: Hut of the Geass by ~RyuseiHikari on deviantART
- "Support the rebellion! Support Pizza Hut!"
- LTA awards first two Downtown Line contracts
- Meanwhile, where tax dollars are being used to build forward thinking public transport infrastructure…
- FreeBSD's INTx Implementation
- IRQs are Yummy Cookies
- iiTrial: A green light to disconnect pirates – Telco/ISP – Technology – News – iTnews.com.au
- "Film industry granted path to cut infringer's net access." Be afraid.
- Claws Mail – the email client that bites!
- This looks like a really beautiful, lightweight alternative to Thunderbird.
- Alt Text: Not Everyone Subscribes to Apple’s Plans for Domination | Underwire | Wired.com
- Great satire ;)
- ABC The Drum – Liar, liar, shock jocks on fire
- Glad some people are finally working up the guts to call people like Alan Jones out. They're the Becks and Limbaughs of Aussie radio.
- Hipster Bingo by HipsterBingo on Etsy
- Hipsters have co-opted my style! Well at least some of it, I can count a few of these as being things I am/have/are! But I'm not a hipster, don't worry.
- Photos: Boeing 767-224/ER Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net
- The "UNITED" lettering on the 767 is far more balanced in this scheme than the 747.
- Photos: Boeing 747-422 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net
- I'm (clearly!) in the minority of people who think the combined United/Continental livery looks really classy, especially on this airframe. The titles are far too small on the 747 though.
- Taiwan’s contentious past: The KMT's original sin | The Economist
- A look into a darker chapter of Taiwanese and KMT history. Worth reading for the comments people have left.
- Share Free WP theme, SEO, personal experience and WE tips
- It's like looking into a time machine! For many years this was what Rubenerd.com looked like before I started using it as a blog. Except mine had green and pink as well ;)
- Subatomic Brainfreeze: Cost-cutting in Anime: How To and How Not To
- Lamenting the "demise" of anime quality… again?
- Coffee machine Icon | Download Office space icons | IconsPedia
- A cute little coffee machine icon
- IBM X40 ThinkPad Makes the 'Weight' Worthwhile — Datamation.com
- That headline is just awful ;)