Archive for 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Facebook Really Puts The “FB” in “FBI”
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 14, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, October 14th, 2010But we can all sleep a little better knowing that yesterday’s paranoid delusions are today’s ho-hum realities.
Remember a few years ago, when most people over 25 were just beginning to join Facebook, and this seemingly tinfoil hat paranoiac video (also below) was going around, trying to scare the bejeebus out of everyone by pointing out all of Facebook’s connections with the CIA, NSA, and the IAO’s Total Information Awareness program, as well as the details of its creepy privacy policies and user agreement details? Well, it’s not so tinfoil any more, is it. We’ve talked about privacy a lot before, and how both Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Eric Schmidt have already decided your privacy is a thing of the past, but until the EFF got their hands on some Homeland Security documents the other day, any Big Brother paranoia you might have experienced about your Facebook activities was still a little hypothetical. Well, now you can pretty much rest assured that your every move IS being catalogued, so relax. It’s too late now. Just don’t make casual observations about things that go boom in places where people might shop, or you’ll have the FBI crawling up your ass too. Or at least under your car. Read the rest of this entry »
Is Bob Dylan A Folk Nation “O.G.”?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 13, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010Researching gang signs on the internet may save your life, but it won’t prevent arthritis.
As I glance at the server reports for Dissociated Press, I occasionally get to see amusing patterns. Last week I noticed we were getting a fair amount of traffic for the phrase “folk gang signs”. Which perplexed me for a moment. It immediately conjured an image of Bob Dylan and Woodie Guthrie throwin’ gang signs or stackin’. But then I remembered there’s a massive coalition of gangs called Folk Nation, and it made a little more sense. Except, then I wondered… who the hell looks on the web for guides to gang signs? I mean, when they let you in the gang, they must show you all the secret hand signs, right? And by the time someone studies them, designs detailed graphics, and puts them on a website, well, if your gang is still using them, they’re not very good secret gang signs, right? So I figure maybe it’s the millions of members of the Scissor Gang Mafia. Which leads to a scary thought: what if all of those people were a real gang? If every stupid guy or girl between 3 and 30 that posed for their Facebook profile with pursed lips and a gangsta sign were part of a real organization, it would dwarf the US Military. So don’t tell them; the results would probably be scarier than the aging white guy angst of the tea party. So kids, keep researching those gang signs, if only to make sure you don’t get shot for accidently using your hands to say “Crips die and I love Justin Bieber”. Who is, by the way, a confirmed SGM member. And remember. Gang signing may not be Cerebral Palsy, but it does cause Arthritis.
End Of Ze World Creator Jason Windsor: Alan Smithee Of The Internet
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on October 12, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010There should be a term for people that accidentally create disposable viral content and then prefer not to take credit for it. Then I wouldn’t have to spend an hour of my life watching Gröûp X stick man videos.
The internet generates a lot of phenomena that calls for new terminology. I think we need a term for useless and disposable media that becomes virulently popular, but that the creator prefers to be distanced from. Sort of like an Alan Smithee of Flash animation. The other day the now-antiquated End Of Ze World animation resurfaced, and as a result, I got a little curious about who created it, and if there was any followup. A logical place to look for this sort of thing is of course KnowYourMeme.com, but unfortunately, they didn’t. Know their meme, that is. They have a slightly confusing entry that references Jason Windsor, his alleged Facebook group, and the band “Gröûp X”. It was immediately evident that the Facebook page was not in fact Jason Windsor’s, so I started searching. Who is this Jason Windsor? Who created the darn animation? And who is this Gröûp X? Well, after a wikiphiliac hour or so of digging, I think I’ve pieced it together. In spite of the fact that someone even went as far as registering the domain EndOfWorld.net to plead for the creator to come forth, and in spite of dozens of sources that credit Gröûp X, it turns it out it wasn’t that hard to get the facts straight. It turns out that the confusion stems from nerdy google-impaired webtards emphatically repeating on comment threads everywhere that “omfg u r so stupid stfu its by group x just watch bang bang bang its so obvious“. By which they mean “if you watch the video Bang Bang Bang by Gröûp X the animation style and fake accent make it clear that they are by the same person”. Which is in fact wrong; End of The World was created by Jason Windsor, a young guy from California who then apparently got hired by Wieden + Kennedy to do some spots for “Nike Sphere”, which included Stupid T-Shirts , Autumn In New York , and Perfect Conditions. Windsor has since kept a low profile, not wanting, I suppose, to be famous for a goofy animation he did as a teen. And the band Gröûp X? If you watch a few of their fan-produced videos, you can quickly see where the confusion would arise. What’s interesting is that the band and Jason Windsor have one thing in common aside from their fake accents and stick-man animations: neither especially wants to be known by name for what they’ve done. The Wikipedia page about Gröûp X says that “mentioning their true identities or nationalities is generally frowned upon by fans and band alike“. Which is probably just as well. The video clips and prank call recordings are kind of quirkily amusing, but the whole phenomena suddenly loses its charm when you read about (don’t do it!) what they’re really like. Clips below. Read the rest of this entry »
Losing Touch With User Expectations
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 11, 2010 by admin in Technology
Monday, October 11th, 2010Do you ever find yourself touching touchscreens that aren’t touch sensitive?
The other day, a friend handed me their Blackberry and asked me to call up Google Maps. After fussing with the device for a moment, I mentally cursed its lousy touch-sensitive interface, until I realized it wasn’t touch sensitive. I would’ve felt pretty stupid, but I see this kind of thing all the time, whether it’s someone trying to touch an LCD monitor to do something, or spastically backspacing on Google trying to get the right Instant Google/Google Autocomplete result instead of just typing what they’re looking for. I’ve already shared my thoughts on Google Instant, and the more I’m exposed to it, the more strongly I feel that Google shouldn’t impose this kind of “improvement” on me until they develop it to the point that they actually know what I’m thinking, which would eliminate the need for me altogether. In any case, I fear that because of smart phones, self-serve kiosks, and the iPad, we may briefly have to suffer these occasional human malfunctions. Personally, I’m prepared to wait; I’ve been quietly rolling my fingertips on my lifeless and uncaring work surfaces for years as I wait for the kind of tactile holographics that were featured in Iron Man 2 (video also below). This kind of interface may not be far away, but the best I’ve seen so far is a bit primitive; check out this clip from last year about touchable holographics being developed at Tokyo University. So what do we have available? Well, back in the world of two dimensions, there are really amazing tools for designers like Wacom’s Cintiq, and for education, there are tools like Hitachi’s StarBoard, and for business, the somewhat more limited Smart Podium, but these are all still pretty pricey. I think that as consumers, we may have to wait a bit for all of our devices to be more pervasively touch sensitive. One of the last products to be touted as consumer-oriented was Microsoft Surface, but the platform was made public way back in 2006, and I still don’t have any friends with touch-sensitive coffee tables. Perhaps because – as this hilarious video about Surface points out – why use a compact device like an iPhone to get maps and directions, when you can use a device the size of a small car? More video below. Read the rest of this entry »
Juggalos For Jesus
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 10, 2010 by admin in Music
Sunday, October 10th, 2010The Revelation that Insane Clown Posse are secret messengers of God may be the Genesis of a new era of Jack Chick Juggalos.
 The evangelizing was plain as day in Volume 1 of The Pendulum  |
If you think hatchet-wielding clowns are scary, you’ve obviously never met a Christian hatchet-wielding clown. That raps. And likes wrestling. Well, that’s what you’re likely to find in whatever remains of Insane Clown Posse’s fan base after they recently revealed that yes, they’re on a mission to bring the Lord’s message to today’s troubled youth . Or, as they like to refer to them, Juggalos. If you’re not familiar with Juggalos, they’re sort of like the recent generation’s answer to Kiss fans, but with hatchets. And Faygo
