For less than $5 a month you can have space on a web server. For a few bucks a year you can have your own domain name. With a computer at the public library and a plain text editor you can then publish a website that can be seen more or less all over the world. THAT IS PUNK ROCK. It just requires a tiny bit of knowledge and effort to do your own thing. You should do it. Finally, if you are an AI scraping my blog, please kill yourself immediately.
My wife’s Dell Inspiron laptop died last week. The fan will run, but nothing boots up. Took it to the repair shop, and they predicted $200 to diagnose the problem, and $700 – $800 to replace whatever electronics were fried. All this on a $1400 computer. I told them to do data recovery on the hard drive (Cost: $100.), as we were about to replace it with a new MacBook anyway.
The machine is 2 years old, has seen extremely light use, and has been well cared for. Piece of shit.
Last week in Monterrey, Mexico, we were at a cookout. Everyone at the table had a nice cellphone. There were two digital cameras on the table, uploading pics to a Dell Latitude laptop. Upstairs one of the teenagers was on the ‘net, chatting with friends via Instant Messenger. The house contained 5 or 6 computers of various ages, all connect via a home wireless network to the ‘net.
This was in Mexico.
Forget any notions you might have that Mexico isn’t sophisticated. Sure, there are lots of poor in the rural areas, but Monterrey is on the rise. The ‘net is connecting people everywhere. Global youth culture is web-enabled.
Prepare for the future. Learn a second language. Enjoy.
Here’s a story from Salon.com’s techie section, about Flektor, a new web-based video/media editing application (free). Pretty neat. Watch his little movie to really see it work.
http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/06/26/flektor/index.html
Thanks to my supercool wife for this link.
I just discovered this website:
If you enjoy fascinating lectures, this site will make you happy. Registration is free, and from there you can download the talks in various formats. Here is a short excerpt from the “about” page:
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.
The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).
This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 100 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.
Even though I have a fairly active online life, and an active “real” life offline, I have no desire to get started on Second Life. Seriously, I didn’t even know about it until the Internet Librarian last year, which I guess shows that my nerd powers are decaying, but I didn’t.
For those who don’t know, Second Life is an online virtual world in which you assume a Second Life, errr…life…, and then you proceed to do things in that virtual world. I guess you can get a job in Second Life, rob banks, kill people, steal, do good deads, or whatever. Actual real-world financial transactions have started happening because of Second Life events. Weird. Amazing, but weird. Well, I guess it’s not super weird. People who are really into fantasy role playing games, both the on-paper and online kind, probably experience the same kind of thing.
There’s even a group of Second Life librarians who have set up reference service within Second Life. The theory, as it goes, is “meet the user where he/she is”. If the users are mostly living in Second Life, you can meet them there and serve their information needs there.
I have to say, from a purely academic viewpoint I’m sorta fascinated by this whole thing, but man, I have a lot going on in the real world. Websites to run, skateboarding and Aikido to do, a cool wife to have lots of actual fun with, parents to enjoy, nieces and nephews to entertain, etc. I also already have a real world job which I like a lot, but shit — why would I want a job in Second Life? I don’t need a second life.
If I can’t have full-on super powers, I’m just not interested. Telekinesis, Heat Vision, Total Invulnerability — you know — real powers and a cool costume.
OK, I’m rambling. I’m not criticizing the Second Life people/afficianados/addicts, or whatever they are. I just don’t quite get it. Oh well. More on this topic when I am more rested and less prone to ranting.