I have noticed a few dozen people in my facebook network to be taking part in this ‘25 things about you’ craze.
It goes something like this:
tag 25 people in a note,
say 25 things about yourself
those 25 people (if they are fuckwits) will say something about themselves
It’s kind of a self-indulgence thing, or only interesting if you want to bone the other person, or tell someone you want to bone something about you.
Michael was going to write an article on this, but actually say 25 things about himself, I suitably chastised him, and am putting this article in its place
I’ve seen a great many stories on slashdot about how amazing Obama is:
1. Obama loves his blackberry
2. Obama seems to be quite open about open source technologies
3. Obama has many advisors who are ‘academics’, Appiah once said of him in a recently documentary “he’s one of us”.
I have also seen on some men’s fashion blogs a critical analysis of his clothing style, some very penetrating thoughts on his sense of dress. Quite in line with the modern well-to-do male. Although, I wouldn’t know anything about that
Aquinas (or someone medieval) was right to believe that all actions contain an element of being good and bad; the proportion of which, depends, ultimately upon what the action is. We may draw good or positive consequences from evil, or horrific, or distressing acts and conversely, we may find unexpected and negative effects from what were intended to be good actions. That concludes my preamble.
In considering all the ‘fad’ things of the past few years, they seem to all point to some large global database that is accessible to all. It almost seems dictatorial in a way, but what seems more disturbing is that the forces of the free consumer has led to its wide proliferation, it is a ‘voting by feet’, if you would.
What kind of things do I refer to? Well, all sorts: iTunes, with its local area network capacities; Facebook, for being, well, Facebook-ey; Twitter, Linkdin, publically accessable RSS feeds. While the positives of these things are seemingly obvious, greater interconnectedness, the establishment of communities, interests and relations that are not constructed by geographical location but by shared interests, beliefs, or practices; breaking down of social barriers, particularly for the severely physically disabled (I am considering Second Life in particular); and, well, a more accessible face to contemporary technology.
This sounds all good right? Well, consider that each small ‘innovation’ does have an effect on privacy and the possibility of being monitored. The debate about policing the internet will inevitably rise (as it does in all sorts of other issues), a discussion which must be had. As people wholeheartedly embrace so many of these interesting innovations and dotcoms, we may find our rights and privacies slowly diminishing, and once this occurs, we have no-one to blame but ourselves. Perhaps a Leviathan appeal can be made: that the individual is at their most fundamental, stupid and ambivalent to the security and welfare of the whole such that an outside agency representing the manifold of individuals holds to protect all.
The fascination with the new should be seen with disdain and interest, while excess in either element may hinder us; a more critical use of the internet is crucial; the question is, how do we teach or foster this kind of attitude? I could assume that more familiar internet users (e.g. those who have been involved with or users of the web since the 1980’s or 90’s) have a native savvy about them; those who have grown up taking the internet, and new technologies for granted often have an uncritical acceptance of what it can do.
Google is an amazing tool to use; there are many instances when you want to know those varied and random things like what are the chemical constituents of paper, or how many films has Christopher Walken appeared in. There are, however, many people who have started to speak out against the ’spoon-feeding’ of information.
There is nothing inherently wrong with having instant access to search engines and large databases (if anything its pretty good); but, like libraries, the real skill is knowing how to use it properly. Know that internet sources are always sketchy and up for scrutiny. Even major journals are subject to hurrendous articles: consider for example, an article in The Lancet, whereby a link between Autism and the MMR vaccine was made.
Sometimes if you say something enough times, people might believe you. Sometimes, if someone you trust says something, or someone older, someone perceived as wider, or someone who says something convincingly, we may be prone to believing it. Be warned of a philistine ‘video’ generation. I am quite tired of people who are not willing to mine hard for their information. Then again, I suppose, when you think that all the information is on the first result of a search engine, you may feel that it is not worth or even conceivable that hard work is necessary anymore.
There is a sense in which people should learn how to be internet-savvy, more cynical, more critical, and most importantly, less lazy and more vigilant about their information.
This was a very moving song when I saw it live. Nightwish certainly have changed of late; and here is one of the ways: Marco getting more creatively involved…just imagine, he’s in Tarot, too!
I’ve been deling more into the open source. Okay; so maybe my main computer is a windows; but that is mainly to appease my patrons;; and I can’t change that just yet!
However…I’ve discovered such amazing innovations within my explorations:
Zotero – a reference manager
Google sync – firefox synchronises mine, Destre, and Sinistre’s computers together o we have the same passwords, history and favourites list (not that I enjoy Destre’s love of serialism, mind…)
Pidgin – a multiplatform messaging client!
I’m not sure if this counts as more than flirting, but I’m certainly not going steady with it yet!
At the moment I’m currently using the extra software. Says, I wonder how accurate is that is. As regards trying to capture am invoice and the way that they speak. Suppose this is one of the things that we do in a futuristic societyhowever I’m finding that the software is extremely annoying. . Do not character, I wonder how far I will go in terms of training it out to be accurate about what is, time will tell, let us hope this is the age of technology advancing to the future, and elevating us from our minority
Michael.
What I actually said:
Hello all, I’m currently using dictation software. I wonder how accurate it is in capturing my voice and the way that I speak. I suppose this is one of the things that we do in the futuristic society. However, I am finding that this software is extremely annoying. I wonder how far I will go in terms of it being accurate to my voice.
Time will tell, let us hope that this is the age of technology advancing to the future, and elevating us from our minority.
This is a fine song; it’s angry, its pumping, its orgiastic, its masculine, aggressive, its retro, and most of all, it’s Tarot (de re). For the Glory of Nothing may not necessarily be my most favourite of albums, but it is sufficiently dark, entertaining, and possibly (with the exception of some songs in Crows), the most aggressive of lyrics. It carries on from Stigmata, but forms a moment of Tarot’s development that makes it stand suis generis; this is the last pre-beard Tarot album of Marco.
In the Studio version; there is, what I see to be an allusion to the song Stigmata in the album of the same name, is Crawlspace a continuation of the mindset that is evoked in Stigmata, or a phase moving on from it? I’d be interested if it were.
