MySpace suckers

The same day I read about Robert Murdoch's grandiose plans for the social hangout MySpace in Wired, I run across a story on a mythical website about a couple teenage girls in Jacksonville Florida who lured an older man to an apartment building and robbed him at gunpoint. He later removed details about his salary and the type of car he drives from his profile. Smart.

Ten things programmers might want to know about marketers

Seth Godin, author of such celebrated titles as "All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World" and "Free Prize Inside : The Next Big Marketing Idea" offers up a few words of advice to those of the tech persuasion who find themselves knee deep in the world of marketing.

Ten things programmers might want to know about marketers

My personal favourite is #5: People often prefer things that are inelegant, arcane or even broken. Except when they don't.

Is This Man Drunk?

I saw this on the BBC news after the April bombings in Daha, Egypt. The clip of Bush giving a statement is 1 minute and 48 seconds in. Drunk. As. A. Skunk. (requires Real Player).

Toronto Photo of the Day

Sam Javanrouh posts a photo a day, mostly of Toronto, where he lives. A nice daily dose of imagery.

Cross-posted at fridgebuzz.com

Categories: Toronto, Photography

Net Neutrality Rocketboom Style

Today's rocketboom has an excellent and non-technical explanation of the issue of net neutrality (for more detailed info see wikipedia's entry). If you have heard this term, but don't know what it means, this is a must see. If you haven't heard of the term, but care about the potential for a telco oligopoly to dictate what you access and how you use the net, this is still a must see.

If your head is in the sand, then go about your daily business, but don't come crying when your favourite You Tube video seems to be loading very slowly.

Crosspost from webwalker.ca

Island Utopia Managed Online

Merging an online commuinity with a survivor-style timeshare.
Basically - You pay between $220 to $665 and include food, accommodation, a donation to local villages, and an island "passport." This allows you to visit the island for 1 to 3 weeks a year and also to vote online about island management decisions throughout the year. Cool idea, although who has to build/maintain the toilets? 'We'll let next week do it'

-Shawn

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0623/p01s04-woap.html

SLAPP Down

The fabulously warmhearted and utterly ungreedy folks at the Toronto Port Authority, in their infinite and unquestionable wisdom, have decided to sue the hemp pants and flowers right off Community Air. Claiming defamation caused by a memo published on CommunityAir.org, TPA is seeking millions.

Lawyers for this blog advise me to shut the hell up and keep my pippie comments to myself. As I don't have millions of dollars lying around waiting to defend my constitution rights to free speech I must happily concur.

Buy my Powerbook Please!

Fastest G4 Powerbook 1.67 GHz 15" Widescreen

Specs:
- 15.2" TFT active-matrix display (1280x854)
- 1.67 GHz PowerPC G4 Processor; 512K level 2 cache
- 1.5 GB DDR RAM (1x512MB of PC2700 + 1x1GB of PC3200)
- 80.0 GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive (5400-rpm)
- Slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD+-RW/CD-RW)
- ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM
- Backlit illuminated Keyboard and ambient light sensor.

Ports include:
Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 400 & 800, two USB 2.0, audio line in, headphone out, PC Card/CardBus slot, DVI and S-video outputs, DVI to VGA adapter included, AirPort Extreme (802.11g), and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR., Original OS Disks included (Upgraded to 10.4.6 via apple software update)

Softwares include:
- iLife 06
- Firefox (Best Browser)
- Adium (IM Client)
- VLC (video player)
- Cyberduck (FTP Client)

Price: (Reasonably Negotiable)
$1599.00 without Extended Applecare (Still has 2 Months of Standard Applecare)
$1699.00 with Extended Applecare (Adds 2 Years on top. $399+tax value)

*Free Laptop Sleeve if Payed in Cash!

The BumpTop User Interface

More Here

A Comcast Technician Asleep on My Couch

That's Gotta Hurt

Imagine if that Dell laptop had actually been in someone's lap!

Just Say No To Extremists

Glenn Greenwald is a genius at cutting through the far right's bullshit. Now he seems to have some great contributing bloggers as well. This post by Hume's Ghost on why it's necessary to respond to the "eliminationist rhetoric" of right-wing extremists like Coulter and Malkin is chilling.

Coulter talks about "liberals" the way racists talk about blacks, the way the Nazis talked about Jews. Her "jokes" are predicated on the notion that the elimination of a set of humans are funny, her "jokes" are funny the way anti-Semetic "jokes" like this were funny, which is to say, they are not not funny. They are disgusting and deadly serious.

See also Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis.

The Geek Tool Round-Up

What tools do you use? What utilities do you find invaluable? What sites do you frequent the most?

Use the comments to you share your warez and enlighten us all on what the hip kids are up to.

The 10 Commandments

Something funny to start your week.

Life in Mass Advertising's Carcass

Just when I start to think that mass is dead and micro niche targeting is our inevitable future, you come across something that gives you pause. For me that was Sony Bravia's Bouncy Balls spot, which features the spectacular imagery of 250,000 colourful bouncy balls gamboling down a steep San Francisco street. The simplicity of the idea and execution is, in my opinion, brilliant. What a blast to work on this shoot and the behind the scenes footage shows it.

The notion of owning a concept like "Colour" (or "Color" for the Americans) is inspiring and the commercial delivers it well, but does the product? As beautiful an ad as this is (especially with the José González music) will it overpromise the product?

I have been thinking a lot lately that when an inspiring ad like this is created does it beg for a backlash when the product doesn't live up to an unrealistic expectation? I don't know enough about LCD TVs to make that judgment of whether Bravia delivers or not, but I am just wondering if we are headed for a time where great ads for bad products simply don't work. The blogosphere and the "consumer as broadcaster" is pretty quick to spot something overhyped. While I realize that not everyone is checking sites like engadget for a (hopefully) less biased opinion than Sony, I still wonder is the trademark holder of the brand just another voice in the wind about their own products? In fact, are they actually much less than that because of the natural bias of the company trying to sell you their product?

Cross-post from webwalker

United Nations Army

Senator Palpatine International security experts will be proposing the formation of the Grand Army of the Republic a rapid reaction force at the United Nations tomorrow. The 15,000 strong organization will be charged with squashing Jedi forces offering "a rapid, comprehensive, internationally legitimate response to crisis".

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Down Is The New Up

New Radiohead song, premiered at the Hummingbird Centre last week...

Geek Ball

I don't know why, but I have had the idea of a once a year charity big deal event, but for geeks.

Here is how I imagine it:

A large-scale event held somewhere like the Ontario Science Centre or perhaps the new MaRS collaboration centre. It would be a charity event, perhaps to benefit literacy, education, PCs for the poor, Net Neutrality perhaps. Attempt to get sponsorships from pro-geek companies to do product displays, demos, etc. But really it is just a big party full of geeks. The idea isn't fleshed out enough, since I wouldn't want it to become like a traditionl ball or a conference with speakers or anything. Just a chance for geeks to dress up (either formal or outlandish) get together and just goof around for a good cause, but there needs to be more to it, cause geeks usually like to do things as well as chat with other geeks.

The only similar thing I found was the Geek Prom, which isn't quite the same thing.

Any ideas please comment.

iNovel?

Book packed with online bonus features billed as 'iNovel'

TORONTO (CP) - Imagine a paperback book that also exists like a blog, allowing you to interact with its characters and their creator.

Hot Springs is the title of a new "interactive novel" published by McArthur & Company in Toronto. The so-called iNovel, as it's called on the cover, is a marriage between book and the Internet that embraces characteristics of each.

"One of the interesting things about having a website and the book itself is it blurs the reality line pretty well," says Steve Zio, author of the book and creator of its online companion, www.hotspringsnovel.com.

The book's 23 chapters direct you to optional web links that include songs, paintings, sketches (all accredited to the book's characters), an interactive map, photographs - even contributions from artistically inclined readers who wish to contact Zio or his characters. All of this works like bonus features on a DVD.

The rest of the story is here

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