chartreuse (BETA) is often a very insightful blog. “Char” is a pretty sharp guy with short, smart posts about the “new media”. Today he explores the MySpace phenom and suggests that maybe we aren’t looking for hundreds of friends and people to connect to: “Maybe all the kids on MySpace aren
I assure you not everything I publish is a rant. I’m just feeling feisty lately… my latest target is television. A few people have described their experience with a month without TV and I’m following suit. My roommate and I had talked about dropping Comcast for months now because, frankly, that’s too much money to pay for a lot of crappy channels. In this day and age I should be able to pick and choose. Since nobody is offering the a-la-carte TV package we decided to opt out entirely. Besides, we’d rather waste away in front of the computer than the television…
But seriously, if we are to spend any time in front of a television we decided we’d rather be watching movies. After surfing IMDB one day I realized there are a ton of flicks out there that I just never got around to seeing. This is where Blockbuster Online comes in. I already threw 10 movies in our queue last night and I’m excited to start watching them (on our 52″ TV with 7.1 surround sound. Yay home theatre).
But the thing is, there are a ton of movies out there and I have no idea what they’re about or if they’re any good. This is where you guys come in. If you have any suggestions on movies that I must see, then leave a comment and I promise you I will. Joe is first in line with The Princess Bride. In fact, if you haven’t noticed, I set up a Movies page to document my experiences (most recent on the home page). So, help me out… What should I watch?
I’m pissed: “NO LIQUIDS OR GELS OF ANY KIND WILL BE PERMITTED IN CARRY-ON BAGGAGE. ITEMS MUST BE IN CHECKED BAGGAGE. This includes all beverages, shampoo, suntan lotion, creams, tooth paste, hair gel, and other items of similar consistency” (Link). I never check a bag, ever. I always put everything in the backpack and rolling luggage. There is no fucking way this is keeping us safer. Simple as that. The damned terrorists have won.
I can’t help but get a little political for a minute. I was discussing the primaries with a friend today. This individual was spending a bunch of time researching different candidates, peering deep into their websites and analyzing their plans and how they fit this person’s own beliefs, values, etc. The act, although commendable, is fruitless.
My main problem at that point in the conversation was the fact that we’re going to base decisions on information on a candidates website. Ideas are awesome. Everyone has them. Heck, anyone can have a plan too because, lets be honest, a plan is simply a bunch of ideas organized by priority and/or time. But to then trust this people and simply assume (or extrapolate) the notion that they’ll then execute these ideas… well, that’s just silly.
For starters, politicians have plenty of time to come up with ‘ideas’ and ‘plans’ before they’re elected. They don’t have too many responsibilities to take up their free time so they spend it brainstorming (and campaigning for a little bit, sure). While this may or may not be true I can picture a guy in a suit sitting at home doodling on his notepad with a picture of melting ice caps and a big fan trying to keep them cool. Then there are those in congress that run for re-election and win it something like 94% of the time. Incumbency is going to kill this country for one simple reason: these people are already politicians and don’t have time to sit around and doodle. Instead they have to go to meetings, lunches, and play golf with other politicians. The brainstorming process halts once you’re sworn in. If there’s no time for doodling do you believe for a second there’d be any room for ‘executing’ those ‘ideas’ from earlier? I rest my case…
Once in a blue moon you’ll find someone who really cares to do their job. The only problem being: they’re a freaking nut case. The only people who want to get out there and make changes are those who shouldn’t be allowed to make changes in the first place (or children for that matter). As Jon Stewart put it: the country ends up being run by extremeists because moderates have shit to do. Seriously, congress is full of old, incompentent morons. Remember the series of tubes? As an employee of the backbone of the internet, nothing scares me more than the government right now.
“Teens are extremely socially aware, but favour participation through their consumption choices, because they believe corporations are more effective agents of change than governments.” Link via Noah
Spot on. In fact, I’d get into politics if it weren’t so damned.. well, political.
So at this point I clearly lack confidence in anyone or anything trying to get my vote. It’s going to take a lot to convince me that you’re not too busy or a passionate moron (or unethical, or an adulterer, or any other stereotype). But wait, it’s my duty to vote, right? I mean, that’s what I’ve been told since elementary school government class. I guess I don’t appreciate the argument that I need to vote simply because people in Africa can’t. Any kid who’s been told to finish their dinner because kids in China are starving know where I’m coming from here. As a kid the “you need to vote” lecture ranks up there with “sharing is good”, you don’t really question it…
Interestingly enough I can name one good reason to not vote: you have no economic interest. At least, that’s what Steven Levitt (Freakonomics) serves up.
Why would an economist be embarrassed to be seen at the voting booth? Because voting exacts a cost – in time, effort, lost productivity – with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your “civic duty.” As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, “A rational individual should abstain from voting.” (NYTimes)
Fair enough. I’ve got another good reason: there’s no way you can really be informed enough to make a good decision. I don’t think any of us really understand all the issues enough to have an opinion one way or another (to make the best decision). This is why Scott calls himself a Ignorantselfishertarian. Then again, what are the most recent and pressing issues we need to tackle? The importance of same-sex marriage and it’s implications on society? Flag burning? Do I really need to spend time waiting in line to elect someone to vote on this crap?
I really like Scott Adams’ Pragmatic Party. I think the more realistic solution, though, is to wait a few more years for the ‘old guard’ to phase itself out of elected positions (in Castro fashion). Just imagine, in 10-20 years we’ll be dancing in the streets…
…if the country makes it that long.
Looking for some authentic word-of-mouth marketing? Check out this site for Snakes on a Plane.
Many weeks ago I got a new computer and in order to cut down on useless, bloated programs I vowed not to install AIM. This is like my vow to never touch MySpace. Unfortunately there are still people that I want to access on AIM… but I don’t want to ever use AIM. In fact, my screenname (since middle school) has been: devinhatesaim.
So, when I discovered Meebo a while back I was so excited! It’s a clean, simple, web-based instant message experience. Both of my buddy lists (GTalk, AIM) are combined and I have instant access to everyone. It’s great.
Meebo is a fun company, too. I love reading the blog and checking out the pictures from their events. This is certainly a fun, innovative group.
Which is why I was excited to see the meebo me widget this morning.
Load the widget onto your website (MySpace profile, blog, wherever) and visitors can instantly start chatting with you. Awesome! So, here’s mine for testing purposes, be sure to say hi.
People sometimes wonder what the motivation for blogging is. When I think about it, I’ve been doing this thing before ‘blogging’ was cool (on devdev.org, then BusinessBits) and I ask myself: Why keep doing it, Devin?
Money
I quickly snap back at myself “it’s all about the benjamins, baby!” I don’t mean to brag or anything but I just received my first TLA payment. It came to a grand total of $3.08. Now are things making more sense? I’m in it for the money…
Women
Oh, and the women. I’m convinced that Sara is my biggest fan (rightfully so). Joe visits sometimes too (yet never comments, jerk). Without all my adoring female fans out there I’d have little motivation to blog. Without that constant desire to impress them, you (the reader) would have missed out on so much. Like that one time I “broke” the story about Google’s SMS Terms of Service. Yeah, they can log your messages. Oh, or that one (actually 11) time I said MySpace sucks. Without my intellect and insight you may never have realized it…
Fame
Scrivs really put it best: “I’m fucking internet famous…” Seriously, I look at my number of subscribers and realize that 200 people have found this site a worthy read (every time I post I wonder why that number hasn’t yet dropped). Not to mention the hundreds of MySpace users that love me for writing about MySpace and thinking I can somehow fix their login. Oh, and the dozens of indians and O’Reilly employees that have visited my free FIRO-B tool and figured that reading my description of the scores is too much to grasp on their own. I’m really famous because these sample people decided to copy, paste their score, and leave a comment asking for my personal opinion. First, go take the assessment then come back and read on…
I’ve compiled all their questions and here it is: you all have personal needs including affection, control, and intimacy. Sometimes your numbers are high, signifying a high need. Sometimes they’re low, suggesting the opposite. Take the results with a grain of salt and then compare with friends, co-workers, peers. When you’ve done that go ahead and PayPal $5 to devin at devinreams dot com. That’s my consultancy fee. Thanks in advance!
Recognition
There’s nothing better than waking up one morning and seeing that someone has linked to you. I was especially excited when my little (but bigger) brother put me in his blog. Look, now the circle is complete. The internet is great at making circles. I’ve even made a circle with Tom Peters! I guess I just really like it when people give credit when it’s due… which it’s not in my case… so I guess I just really like credit. In fact, I was left a comment the other day recognizing my blog and how cool it is. The comment instructed me to email him with my name and email… no, recognition doesn’t mean you have to know my name.
So, why the hell do you blog? Or why do you read them? Or mine? Feel free to answer any of those questions in the comments.
Update: Within 10 minutes I was ‘BlogTipped’ by Diane. See? There’s two reasons I blog right there…
I swear, any time that I decide I want to check out MySpace (only means of communication with some in-duh-viduals) it’s broken. I click a page, it says “error, under maintainance” I say “liar” and refresh and, wow, page magically loads. For being one of the most popular websites ever how the fuck is this acceptable? If someone is making a MySpace killer, for goodness sakes, email me and let’s fix this? (Check out this picture from my account settings)
I’ve been keeping another secret from you guys. I have a genius way to keep track of my ‘todo’ list. GMail is so powerful I don’t know if people really realize it. Thus, my mini-guide to making your own todo list in GMail. (Hmm, before posting this I realized someone else has done this same thing, but hey, I still thought of it and it’s still worth sharing).
Create a new ‘todo’ filter for your todo email address
Simply click “Create a filter” to the right of the search bar in GMail. The only field you need to define is the “To:” field which should be your email address with a +todo appended to the left side of the email address. In other words, [email protected] or even [email protected] (if you’re using Google for Domains). Click ‘Next Step’
Create a ‘todo’ label to tag all your todo items
This is simple, click the ‘Apply the label…’ check box and create a new label called ‘Todo’. You can also choose to do something like set the filter to ‘Skip the inbox’ in order to do some clever categorization. For example, all new todos will go straight into the archive as ‘unread’, thus you’ll have number next to the Todo label. You could use this to let you know how many total todo items you have. You could also use unread items to mean todos that haven’t been started. Or, they could represent the high priority todos you have. Anyway, those are just some ideas..
Send emails to yourself
Now if you ever need to add an item, just compose a new message to ‘Todo’ and off you go! What’s nice is I can now send items to my list from my cellphone and they’ll be available wherever.
If you live in Google products as much as I do (if I suddenly lost GMail and Calendar I’d probably be disconnected from my own life) then this is a great solution. Now I can see, at a glance, I have 5 “priority” Todos and they’re all right there with my email (a todo list in and of itself). I’ve tried a bunch of todo list products out there and this is, by far, the most convenient…
Hopefully this was useful to someone, let me know your thoughts or any other suggestions you have to tweak this…
Update: Be sure to use the RSS feed to it’s fullest potential as shown here.
Update 2 (6/28/08): Look into Remember the Milk as they have a great Firefox plugin to add your todo list to your Gmail page. I use RTM with my iPhone and Gmail and it’s a great way to have my todo lists all in one place.
The dipthongs over at the world’s shittiest website, MySpace, have had the site inoperable/down since 6:30PST, it is now over 5 hours later and nothing is fixed. Needless to say, my site has received a lot of visits/comments on MySpace downtime from kids wondering whats up. Who’s going to make the MySpace killer? Just import people’s profile and friends (reserve a spot for them by email address until they make it over) and transfer all that information, it’d be genuis. MySpace doesn’t deserve a second (or 22nd for those of you keeping track) chance…