Internet, futility of the

If we could somehow design the perfect iphone charging station and be done with it, the total volume of new content being developed for the Internet on a daily basis could be reduced by 30%.

Just a suggestion.

I read about this in the Edmonton Journal, of all places, so you know it's not exactly on the trending list on twitter but still-- Three Wolf Moon Shirt on amazon. The shirt itself is unexceptional. It's the extraordinary, crowdsourced comments meme that makes the link. I feel sorry for people who lived in the past.

Gadgetry and wifi wizardry and other things that end in "-ry"

James bought a new iPhone, which means I get his cast-off iPod touch. Up to this point, I've been sort of scornful of my friends who have one of either of these types of devices, but that was just because I was jealous. Now that I have one of my own I have become a disciple in less than 24 hours. Are you aware that you can get OREGON TRAIL for the iPod touch? And Bejeweled? And apps for updating Facebook and Twitter? This brings me almost untold satisfaction, as long as I am in a WiFi zone. I just want to climb through my monitor and disappear into the Internet. You know, like that X-Files episode.

Dear The Internet:

Pictures of your cat with a circuitboard/computer/monitor/mouse are not funny. Stop posting them. You suck.

From Wired, a crazy story about love, murder, obsession, and the military-- on the Internet.

News from the interweb

I didn't even know this, but yesterday, January 1st, was public domain day, the day when a new set of copyrighted works pass into the public domain. I LOVE the public domain!

Also, the Washington Post reports on the release of the new Wikia Search, a "transparent" search engine that will be editable by users.

in which I learn interesting things on the Internet

Today, I learned on the Internet that infertile North American and European couples' pregnancies are being outsourced to India. This is like something that would happen on Futurama, only real.

I also learned from the Internet that Bret McKenzie, of Flight of the Conchords, was in The Lord of the Rings. He was basically an extra, but his character has been lovingly named by the fans: Figwit, which stands for "Frodo is great... who IS that?" because of the way his appearance distracts from the heroic moment when Frodo agrees to carry the ring into Mordor. Heh. I love LOTR, the Internet, Wikipedia, fandorks, and the whole world really.

James and I just finished watching the first season of Flight of the Conchords' HBO show yesterday (I gave it to him for Christmas) and I have to say that it is AWESOME. It's a deadpan, hilarious, hipster gem with funny animal sweatshirts and musical interludes. You should rent it, if you can, or better yet, you should BUY it. And you should buy one for me. Because James has one, but it's at his house, and we don't live together, so I can only watch it at his house, or if I borrow it, instead of all the time as would be ideal.

I also saw some other things that were not as good as Flight of the Conchords: season 9 of The X-Files, which I finished yesterday, was good but the finale was disappointing, too epic in some ways and not epic enough in others; Battlestar Galactica: Razor, which was OK, but sort of like a longer version of one of the crappier episodes in the second season; No Country for Old Men, which baffled me because I've seen it in/at the top of so many film critics' Top 10 of 2007 lists and I didn't really get what all the fuss was about; and I Am Legend, which was pretty good in the sense that it fulfilled all my post-apocalyptic New York needs.

Linky monday, wacky news edition

Fark.com is trying to trademark the phrase "not safe for work".

Heh. The US House of Representatives is banned from editing certain Wikipedia articles.

Some nerd got Neil Gaiman to propose to his girlfriend for him.

I don't like Mondays

I have links a-plenty for you today, internets.

As I mentioned, I finished the last Harry Potter book, and in its honour, I have funny Asian Harry Potter franchise knock-offs including Harry Potter and the Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon and Harry Potter and the Filler of Big.

Inmates of a Philippines prison perform the Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance. I am so baffled by this. What happened to the classic "Jailhouse Rock"? There is also a LEGO version on youtube, but it's pretty boring--it doesn't have the same appeal.

From Bad Gods: Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks.

Another conceptual map of the web, this one modeled on the Tokyo subway system. (Earlier related links: A periodic table of the internet, map of online communities)

And finally: if you live with lazy roommates/spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends who also happen to be gamers, perhaps you can trick them into helping out more with chore wars, a website that uses RPG-style characters and XP for housework. I joined, but since I live alone, there is really no question: around Jocelyn Manor, I get ALL the XP, finish all the dish-washing quests, and do all the decorative-wall-decal-buying-contemplation.

I finished my capping exercise! All I have to do is pass this class I'm enrolled in, and I'm gonna gradumacate! I'm gonna make it after all!

Also, Kevin bit me

This is kind of interesting: The Periodic Table of the Internet.

I feel sick and want to go home, but my supervisor and my supervisor's supervisor are both on holidays--so who can give me leave to do so? No one. And so I remain. The title of this post refers to other reasons why I might be allowed to go home, especially if I were in elementary school.

Apparently, in spite of all the time and energy committed to security, the text of the last Harry Potter book was leaked online. It's available as a torrent--as a series of photographs of every page. I have to say, this obsession with getting the book 72 hours before everyone else baffles me. Just wait for it to come out! Don't you have other stuff to do? CUT YOUR HAIR! [Via BoingBoing, where I steal all my links, but I'm cool with it]

Also from BoingBoing: The math comic xkcd issued a challenge to readers based on this comic: to create real-life versions of the photo. The results are astounding. I love the attention to detail--the hands on chins!

I just had a momentary near-heart-attack when a co-worker told me he is looking for a way to scan paper documents to PDFs... several, hundred-page-documents. Fortunately, the conversation ended with... "But the question remains, who's going to do it? And it ain't going to be you. Or me." AWESOME.

I love Wednesdays because they are one-liner days at Overheard in New York--so many posts! Well, I shouldn't say I love them. I hate them less than I otherwise might.

I feel pretty today, internets. It's so hot outside, I'm all disheveled, and my hair is messy. I feel wanton.

Today I learned about the tiny island nation of Mauritius, which is East of Madagascar. (For those of us who enjoy comparing the sizes of other things to the sizes of US states, it's "about the size of Rhode Island.") Apparently, Mauritius has the second-largest GDP in Africa, but more importantly, the whole island is a wireless broadband internets hotspot--or at least, that was the plan in 2005. I can't find any news about whether this ambitious goal has been met. I love that the Department of State entry linked above contains this sentence: "In recent years, information and communication technology (ICT) and seafood have emerged as important sectors of the economy, growing by an average of 40% last year." Information and communication technology and seafood are the future.

You don't see Rhode Island installing no universal wireless.

I am enjoying using bad grammar today--I'm not sure why. It will pass, though. It always does. Saying "internets" instead of "internet" is probably here to stay, though.

I'm in ur library, answering ur chat reference questions.

Visual aids

Who Participates and What People Are Doing Online [from Business Week]. An interesting visual representation of what age groups participate in what activities online. Apparently, 24-year-old grad students update their blogs while they are supposed to be working. Who knew?

how meta.

AttenTV turns Web surfing into eerie spectator sport [cnet news]. A new web service lets you watch as other people surf the web. And this is construed as entertainment. Uh-huh.

I am picturing someone watching me use the Internet. "uh-huh... she's consulting 19th-century literary biographies... wait, she's visiting Facebook again? Screw this. I'm going to watch TV."

PerpetuSpam: submit the name of someone you hate, and they will be spammed into perpetuity. This is using the power of the Internet to its full potential.

Say it with me: LINK BRIGAAAAADE!

Is it just me, or is the interweb getting boringer and boringer? And what's with adding "2.0" to everything? I'm sorry, but I don't think you can make a logo itself "Web 2.0." Anyway, onnnn to the links:

I am going to see the movie Sharkwater tonight, and I really thought I had invented the term "sharkumentary." No such luck.

A blog of photos not taken: unphotographable. I see things all the time that I am too scared or negligent to take pictures of. But to document them... sublime.

The Interweb: Executive Summary

Things which can be found on the interweb:

• Porn
• CSS hacks to make rounded corners
• cute baby animals
• Artsy pictures of beautiful, sulking women in various states of undress

Things which cannot be found on the interweb:

• Anything interesting

Looking foxy, and black-and-whitey

rockandroll2 profilepic, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

I am feeling even more rock and roll than usual. This shall be my new generic profile picture. We all have the right to take fifty photos of ourselves before we find one we like. Our online reputations are at stake, people! VOGUE!

Listening to: Billy Bragg, A New England.
"I don't want to change the world
I'm not looking for a new england
I'm just looking for another girl..."

Diegesis, vampires, and gummi bears

From the astonishing bowels of the interweb: a fairly pretty chandelier made of gummi bears. Gummi bears are a good choice for lighting because they are sort of luminescent. On the other hand, you could just eat them, because they are luminescently delicious.

Yesterday James pointed me in the direction of some interesting theoretical math related to the vampire population in Buffy. However, this whole supposition is based on the idea that every time a vampire kills a human, that human then becomes a vampire, which (at least within the diegesis of the show) is patently false, as established in the first episode. "To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It's like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly, they're just gonna kill you." I am linking to this article nonetheless, because I admire the amount of time and abstract thought that went in to it, but i think it constitutes a fairly radical interpretation of the text.

[Edited March 17 @ 11:11 AM to add: James: "I think the problem is that they have applied the zombie model to vampires." Jocelyn: "Exactly."]

weekend haiku
making scrambled eggs
and law and order c.i.
doth a weekend make.

Promiscuous girl...

metaspy: refreshes every 15 seconds with searches being performed by other internet users. Fewer people than I expected are searching for porn. More are searching for casinos, tennessee real estate, and "medieval times."

Someone who goes not understand how to use quotation marks in searches (aka phrase searching) is also searching for something like "great travel deals www.cheaptravel.com". Hmm. I wonder if any sites contain that exact text. It seems unlikely, does it not? Moron.

In my web design for usability class today we were debating whether it is always the web designer's obligation to build sites that meet users' needs and expectations to the greatest degree possible. I mean, there are a lot of morons around. I fear living in a world that has to be idiot-proofed because 5% of the population can't figure out how to use travel mugs (warning: contents may be hot), pedestrian crosswalks, and snack food packaging (To open: tear open). I am not calling for the return of eugenics or anything, but if these people can't figure life out, maybe it's for the best. I value the viability of the gene pool.

On another note, I am so crushing on the new Nelly Furtado album right now. Lame? Maybe. I care not. As I type this, I am doing a little bum-dance in my chair. Inspired by her, I am trying to be a "maneater," except other than wearing high heels I am not sure what that involves. I would hazard that blogging probably has nothing to do with it.