TurboFool (Neither, really)

So, I finally took the plunge and upgraded WordPress to 2.7. Considering I haven’t updated my blog since, apparently, January, why did I care? Well, I decided to make more of an effort to USE the darn thing.

See, for one thing, I’ve started getting into Twitter. Besides that, I’ve been commenting a lot more on a lot of cool blogs, and it’d be nice if people followed my link back to my site not to find out that it, well, completely sucks. Plus, as long as I feel like I have comments worth making, I probably have blog posts worth writing. So if I’m going to start using it anyway, I might as well do it right and work from the latest (and incredibly awesome) version of WordPress.

Now with the upgrade came changes I knew I’d have to make. The version I had pre-dated tags, so I was using categories in their place (this change was why I held off so long in updating). So I had to tag and un-categorize all my posts and makes some changes to my layout. As well, my theme didn’t support widgets, the author’s web site is gone so there are no updates, and was way too thin for modern screens, so I tracked down a new one that I liked. I also tied in some of the main reasons I needed an update, which included my Google Reader shared list and my Twitter feed. This way even if I don’t have time to write entire blog posts, people can still keep tabs on what blog posts I find interesting or what I’m doing. I’m not entirely sure if or why anyone would care, but in case they do, I’ve got my bases covered.

There’s still a few adjustments that need to be made, of course. I need to update my blogroll (currently at the bottom) with more current sites of interest, and possibly rearrange elements of the page a bit. This theme seems to have a lot of the widgets built right into it, so I need to experiment with how, if at all, I can disable those and replace them with the widgets put wherever I want them. I also need my Out Campaign red A back, and need to find a good spot to emblazon it. I’m also thinking about tweaking the colors and/or fonts a bit, but that will take time. It’s been so long since I’ve done web design that the current standards are completely beyond my knowledge. I just don’t have the time to try to piece them together these days.

All-in-all I’m happy with the change, and I’m hoping the new look and new WordPress version and new focus will help me actually make some use of this blog for once, and maybe make me feel like I’m contributing to this world. Or just give me a place to fuck around a little. You know, whatever.

My five-year-old daughter goes to a preschool/daycare that wasn’t, when we signed up for it, outwardly religious. We were careful to ensure a place that wouldn’t impart any specific religious biases on her so we can do our best to give her a well-rounded view of religion.

Without our choice, though, she was eventually transferred to a new chapter of the organization that was located on the grounds of a Lutheran church. And since then she’s been coming home with lots of interesting new "knowledge." She won’t be there much longer.

Despite the encroachment on my daughter’s innocence, there is always humor to find in these circumstances, and this one’s great. Yesterday I picked her up and noticed some foam art pieces the kids had made in class of what is presumably God’s hands holding the earth. One child, however, apparently didn’t quite get the concept of how those hands are supposed to be positioned…

Those of us who have been permanently blinded by the Goatse phenomenon should find this reference all too familiar.

Don’t you love it when religion inadvertently imitates disgusting Internet porn fetishes?

I just read an article on Guardian Unlimited on how easily the author, as well as another more recent “software developer,” was able to win a “prestigious” award for his software… software which doesn’t actually exist.

I recommend you follow the link for the full details, but he merely submitted information about his software, DBXV, to the site, claiming an absurd amount of sales, they asked him to verify his statement, he essentially verified it by writing back the equivalent of “yep, it’s true,” and paid the cash for the plaque he was awarded. There was a big awards dinner which he declined to attend, and he was listed as a Million Dollar Guy. All with imaginary software.

The more recent case was someone else who won no less than 16 awards for a utility that consisted of nothing more than a TXT file renamed with a .exe extension. That’s it. It didn’t do a damn thing. But all the sites cared about was the publicity, and the hope that a link would be placed on their site to help generate ad revenue. The author of the page also noted that as with restaurant awards, they hope to get the winner to pay to advertise with the award-giver, not to mention get a few bucks out of them for a table at the award ceremony.

This got me thinking about some of my past experiences. Several of my old web sites won numerous awards through no effort of my own. It was almost every other week I was getting contacted regarding a new award my site had won. Wow, did I think my site must have been good in those days. I look back now and laugh at how naive I was, especially when I look at my poor design work. All those rewards always REQUIRED that I post the award link on my site. I never thought anything of it. It all seems so obvious now, though.

But it goes further. Back in 1999 I was nominated for a Young Artist Award for my guest role in an episode of Boy Meets World. At the time even I knew that seemed odd, but I was excited nonetheless. I had been nominated for an award; how cool is that? I had to rent a tux, and I had to pay for seats at the award ceremony. The voting was actually handled by, of all people, the nominees, themselves, as well as their agents. Huh? And no effort was made to differentiate who we were or what we were nominated for. Most of the work was guest roles or other parts that were hard to recognize, and no episode or even character names were given. Who the heck knew what I did in a single random episode of Boy Meets World? How could I possibly win? I did my best to figure out who the other nominees were and vote based on the ones I could honestly attest to, but for the most part I had to leave them blank. I doubt most voters made that much effort.

Anyway, the night of the award ceremony came, it was a semi-big to-do, my category was called, the nominees were listed, I pretended to think I had a shot, and guess what happened? I won! Yup, that’s right, I was voted the best male guest lead in a television sit-com for 1999… right alongside the other four nominees. A five-way tie. Who would have thought that in an awards ceremony voted on by ourselves and our agents that we would all tie? It was pathetic, it was a waste of time, and it never did a damn thing for me. But looking back, they sure made a mint off of all those tickets to the ceremony, now didn’t they?

I hate awards shows, and now I’m realizing more and more what a pointless waste they are, entirely designed for the benefit of the promoters of the awards. What a sad waste of all of our time.

btw, if you liked this post, as well as all of the other fine work on my site, please feel free to submit me to any of the fine web site awards sites on the ‘net. I’d be happy to display their worthless beautiful logos across the bottom of my page.

When I stumble upon things like this on the internet, I can’t help but continually wonder why we have television shows like America’s Got Talent, which are simply littered with people who clearly have NO talent in comparison to people like this. These kids are amazing. Where’s the TV show that scours the ‘net for people like this and gives them the credit they deserve? Why do we perpetually reward talentless hacks on television (and the radio, and, and nearly everywhere else) when there are people who truly deserve to be heralded out there?The whole thing leads me back to the realization that in a very real way, television’s days are numbered. No, I’m not saying TVs are going away, or that networks are in any immediate danger. But the internet is absorbing more and more of the average person’s entertainment time, and for now, at least, the democracy that social sites, voting, digging, stumbling, and so on has created on the ‘net makes it easier and easier for us to find the truly GOOD content as opposed to wading through the garbage the networks think we want. And for some people, that’s more enticing than the TV craps shoot.

The internet also further fragments the entertainment into smaller, more niche markets that fit specific interests better than the everything-to-everyone approach network television constantly tries and fails with. It also gives us more freedom to enjoy uncensored, unedited, material that connects with our interests that the average network would be afraid to or barred from airing due to nudity, sexuality, coarse language, or strong political stances. This is both a plus and a minus, though, as it also makes it harder to make truly good money off of it, since a smaller slice of the market will be interested in it, and therefore production values are forced to be much lower, and advertisers may stay away completely from supporting some entertainment that pushes the limits of what they feel their main customer base could handle.

It also runs a noticeable risks of dividing us EVEN MORE. Watered-down, politically-correct, corporate/FCC-controlled television is almost inarguably damaging to culture, but is a world of entertainment divided into niche groups in which people can say safely tucked away from anything that doesn’t interest them really foster any personal growth or respect for others? I know since picking my topics on StumbleUpon my knowledge of atheism has increased drastically, while simultaneously my exposure to religion has dropped off quite a bit. Does the fact that I think I chose the right side mean it’s really okay for me to lose that connection to what the rest of the world is thinking?

In the end, I don’t see us replacing our hour-long dramas, or even our half-hour sit-coms with internet equivalents, but the internet is becoming tighter and tighter competition, and is providing us with forms of entertainment people could barely dream of before. And how long before the networks DO shift to seeing this as a much heavier source of revenue? As it is, most television shows are available for download via iTunes (yeech) or other less restrictive services, and now even for free in many cases on the network’s web site. If done right, might we eventually see the networks using this as more and more of a primary revenue stream for these shows, as standard television slowly becomes the secondary target for the outdated, technophobic generations?

I think one thing that’s going to be absolutely necessary to this transition is better integration of television and internet for the typical user. Yes, HTPCs (home theater PCs) are slowly penetrating the market and let you use your computer on your television with relative ease, but they’re still far too intimidating to the mass market, who like to sit down in front of a television that doesn’t crash, doesn’t slow down, doesn’t require use of a mouse or multiple programs to do one thing. But the current efforts like AppleTV or even the Xbox 360 have a way to go before you can pull it all off. Services like Orb are getting closer, making all of your media as well as many Flash video sites available from nearly anywhere, including game consoles. But we need to reach the point where we can, with ease, access any of these internet video services from any television with the simplicity people are used to getting from normal television, while simultaneously gaining all of the benefits of network television on the computer.

Anyone else want to weigh in on this? Is television in danger? Are we on our way to a world where the internet and TV are interchangeable? Is the whole entertainment industry behind the times and at risk of being overshot by forms of entertainment they never saw coming? Is the freedom and democracy of the internet about to be ruined as the big corporations take notice and overrun it the same way they did television and radio? Will the average joe be able to soon feel comfortable accessing their entertainment from anywhere in ways only us geeks previously could? Where are we going? What is that strange mark on my hand?

There’s certain words that are commonly abbreviated in URLs to simplify matters. Images, in particular, have abbreviations for words like small (s, or sm), medium (m, or md, or med), large (l, or lg), thumbnail (th, or thumb, etc.), and other common attributes. One word in particular, though, is in desperate need of a change of abbreviation: standard. It’s very unnerving to stumble upon a photo of a beautiful woman in some pose (whether classy or anything but), and see “STD” in the URL at the top of the page.

Think before you abbreviate, people.

Apparently the followers of a group known as the “Creation Science [sic] Evangelism Ministries,” led by currently imprisoned tax evasionist Kent Hovind, have been sending false DMCA copyright takedown requests to YouTube on any and all videos that dare to suggest that creationism is anything but non-scientific garbage. Due to a loophole in the system, YouTube essentially just automatically deletes these videos with little or no effort to verify the claims.

Brian Sapient, of Rational Response Squad fame (I forgot to add them to my links section sooner, which I’ll do now), posted a video on YouTube about this issue and his account and video were promptly suspended by YouTube.

What gives, YouTube? Your entire business exists because of your community, and lately this debate has been a heavy part of it. You’ve now drawn lines and taken sides by accepting the false claims of the creationist movement that these videos somehow violate copyrights of their founder (the people in the videos in question refer to quotes of Ken Hovind’s, but quoting a person’s opinions has never been a violation of copyright). And you’re owned by Google, whose motto, I thought, was “Don’t be evil.” Are we meant to take this as a sign of who you do or not think is evil now?

Below I’ve posted a video, which clearly states it’s perfectly legal to do so, and which is NOT hosted on YouTube, which details the RRS’s issues and request. They are considering suing Creation Science [sic] Evangelism Ministries, and they have my full support. The Atheist community (as scattered as it is) has never tried to forcefully remove any of their claims for the internet via spurious methods such as these. We’ve merely used the tried and true methods of proving their claims are bullshit. It’s worked well throughout history, and although it’s a touch slower than other less honest methods, it generally has a longer-lasting effect.

I’m not going to lie and say this video is brilliant. But it is fun, there’s some genuine talent here, and it holds meaning to me.

The guy on left was Mike Nolasco. He was a member of the local Geek Squad and someone I considered a friend, although I hadn’t gotten to know him as well as I would have liked. I played poker at his house a couple of weeks ago (he and I were the final two, but he beat me in the end), and he was someone I enjoyed hanging around with. I had hoped to become a regular at his poker games, as the whole group of people he hangs out with is a lot of fun.

Mike passed away on Monday of an aortic aneurism. I only found out on Thursday, and needless to say, it was a shock. I’ve not really had to deal with the passing of a friend or coworker like this before, and it’s just kind of weird. His brother, Tim, works with me in the PC department, and I know him a lot better. I can’t imagine how he’s coping right now, which is why I feel bad even feeling bad. I barely knew the guy in comparison, so what right do I have to grieve?

So instead of wallowing or getting too far down, I’ve decided to spread some of this guy’s joy. The above video is obviously a highlight for him, and it’s just fun to watch. It’s only right that the fun he had be spread well beyond his local circle of friends, and what better place than the internet to take care of that? He deserves that much. Watch it and spread it on in his memory.