This article really has be freaked out. What the hell is wrong with this country? When did we loose our backbones? The people at the battle of Yrpes, and Vimy ridge would be disgusted at the lack of Canadian balls in standing up to pathetic american corporations, who are so far removed from reality, that they are running themselves right into the ground. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the first things I get asked when doing a website for a new company is if I know a great place around town to get business cards, and advertisements printed. Unfortunately, I don’t know anywhere around town, but I do know of some great resources online. It turns out that most of these companies offer affordable printing for most your needs. By affordable, I really mean, a hell of a lot cheaper than anything in my neck of the woods. I’m in the process of moving all of my needs to one of these companies, but I have heard great things about all of them around the internet. Check them out if you’re in need of some new business cards. Read the rest of this entry »
So, I consider myself a tech-saavy internet user. I read tons of blogs, spend most of my time on the internet, I even spend most of my spare time messing around with new web technologies. I love it. It’s exciting times for us geeks! But, i’m starting to get a little bit worried. Read the rest of this entry »
So, my shuffle officially died today… well not 100% dead, but the buttons no longer work for the audio player. I can still use it as a flash drive i guess. But this thing was rugged as hell. I put it though the wash three times accidentally. Dropped it down a flight of stairs 4-5 times, and even lost it in a couch for two weeks, a god knows nothing escapes that couch alive. Some how it lived through all that… but at my time of need (I started to jog again) the damn thing dies 3 days in. Grrrr….
I was hoping this shuffle would hold out until apple officially drops the iphone, but it looks like thats not going to happen.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately how music has changed over the years for me. In the beginning when I had my first job, I spent tons of money of cd’s. I’d say about 60% of the funds from my paper route went to buying new cd’s. Today, i’m lucky if I buy 5 albums a year. Sure, downloading has a lot to do with it. But, that’s not the point i’m trying to make here, and probably deserves a post on its own. Since the mp3 was created my music consumption process has changed. I don’t think I really appreciate Read the rest of this entry »
So, I stumbled on this documentary today, and I thought I would share it with you all. It’s called On Piracy and I’m downloading it right now. You should check it out. It’s free by the way, so that means the copright holder has given permission for everyone to download it. Check it out. Sounds likes its gonna be pretty good. Worst case scenario download it just to piss off your Internet Service Provider. We all know they hate downloaders… but what about legal downloaders? I’m willing to bet they feel the same way about them as they do pirates.
I’ve had it. There is an article over at wired magazine that talk about how the RIAA is trying to destroy open wifi networks. Essentially they’re trying to make users with the internet account responsbile for the bandwidth that passes through their wireless networks. THIS IS LUDACRIS. You should read some of the comments… Read the rest of this entry »
I’m in the middle of the hardest assignment I’ve had to do to this point in my academic career! Strangely, its not an obscure programming assignment, or an essay on some minute point of the political world…. it’s a film studies essay! WTF! So, my assignment has me watching a movie (I chose Psycho, by Hitchcock), and explain how it has positively, or negatively influenced the genre in which it is categorized. I thought it would be a cake walk, but then I realized i’d pretty much have to watch a ton of “slasher” films to even begin to answer the question. How uncool is that. Considering this is an intro class, I’m having a hard time figuring out how in the hell they can even begin to expect me to paint even the faintest picture of the influence it played. What do I look like? Robert Ebert? By the time this is assignment is done i’m going to look a lot more like Gene Siskel! ZING!
I’ve been keeping a nice little mental note to compare the news stories I’m seeing o
n Digg.com and other tech related news sites and I’ve noticed a two to three day disceptancy between the rates that news is being posted on traditional sites such as slashdot.org, or hardocp.com compared to digg. I save a ton of time when I rely on Digg to get my news. But, on the flip side it seems to have been cutting down my surf time! This is both a good and bad thing. The good is obviously the less amount of time it requires me to stay informed on a lot of news, but the bad news is that I spend less time on the internet when I want to kill some time. Usually in these time-wasting moments I tend to visit sites like slashdot to view some interesting stories, but lately every time I do I’ve been bombarded with “Old News”.
Part of me wonders if the digg philosophy is actually beneficial to the community or detremental. The more readers rely on digg, the greater the likelyhood that the the news world will quickly become monolithic and one-sided. We run the risk of elemenating the differing view points and opinions of those writing the news. Can company’s like slashdot survive much longer? Sure the audience, and readership is servrely different from the Digg demographic, but ultimately the news articles are the same. It’s in the comments that we notice the differences. Quite Frankly, I don’t go to a news site for the comments… just to get the news.
Maybe I’m just a news junkie who feels an obsessive need to be up to date all the time, but, I would guess that a majority of the people who want news would spend their valuable time at the sites that are being most frequently updated. Not, those which are based on an almost archiac form of editing, and moderation. In the fast paced world in which we live the quicker users get results the more satisfied they will feel with each visit. Sure digg has its downfalls, but I believe they pale in comparision to their closest competitors. Afterall, they’ve created a new model from scratch. A model that puts the publishing/editorial power into the hands of the users. Something that had never before been accomplished, or quite possibly never before been thought of. To steal a terribly over used quote that was uttered back in 1546, and was made popular by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Cat’s Cradle. “Rome ne fut pas faite toute en un jour.”, or “ Rome was not made in one day…”. Imagine the possibilities in other forms of media. Man! I would no longer have to watch Leaf (Toronto’s hockey team) updates every single day on Sportscenter. I believe all of Canada is with me on that…except for of course those living in centre of the universe (Toronto, for those international readers)! I can’t wait until I can select what types of news I want to watch instead of the types of news the media (read 80 year old men) is forcing down my throat.
It’s official, digg is my number one source of information! And, until something comes along that gives me more flexibility in what I’m viewing, and how quickly I can get updates, I don’t see any changes in the forseeable future.
