The Cop-out Youtube Video Post!
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Culture, Web, video, youtube
I can’t help but chuckle mildly to myself about people stereotypically hating having to sit through slide shows and here I am forcing videos onto people… nevertheless here goes!
I link to Bill Hicks videos all the time, for me he is one of the greatest ever comedians. I recently stumbled-upon this interview clip of him discussing his worst ever gig; very amusing.
The second clip is of the Soviet crooner Eduard Khil. This has essentially became the latest internet meme thanks in part to it featuring on the Colbert Report.
Tags: bill hicks, Clip Show, Colbert Report, comedy, Meme, Trololo, video, Web, youtube
Facebook Groups
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Media, Rant, Web, opinion
I’ve never been too much of a fan of social network sites but neither do I have any particular objection to them; that said I am rather fond of twitter. Facebook is the arguably the largest social network site online at the current time, and I myself am a member. The main reason for this membership is that Facebook does seem to be the easiest way to contact real-world friends online; e-mail for personal communication appears to be all but dead. People use Facebook for all sorts of reasons, mine is basically a communication tool for people I actually know, and its also in someways a bit of a blog.
Anyway, the one thing that has always annoyed me with Facebook is the prevalence of the Facebook group. These groups allow people that are not “friends” with each other on the site the ability to communicate with each other in a mini-forum based on a shared topic of interest. These groups generally to fall in two categories: Banal Statements or Extreme Views. The Banal, for example: “Can this sausage roll get more fans than Cheryl Cole”, can get tiresome but are bearable, and then their are extreme groups such as “Bring back the hangman for acts of terrorism, treason, murder, paedophilia” and “Lock Jon Venables up for Life and Throw Away the Key”. The posts on the pages are just are no more charming than the titles themselves, for example one person wrote on the latter group:
“kill the bastard very slowly so he can feel the pain that little boy felt when he didnt give a fuck what he and his mate was doing to poor james, torchure the bastards and then kill them slowly causing them every bit of pain possible like they caused james let the public know the new names, see how long they last on the streets rip james they will get what they derserve evenually”
The most shocking thing about Facebook is not that these groups exist, but its finding out how many of your friends hold these sort of views and are actively trying to recruit others to join. I’m of course not saying that people shouldn’t be able to have a debate on such topics as capital punishment but the prevalence of extreme views on Facebook is startling; and this isn’t something that is a new phenomenon to Facebook, I remember discussing it a few years ago with my sixth-form sociology teacher.
Last week I read a opinion piece in the Guardian making this sort of point and it was this prompted me to write this little rambling piece, but its certainly worth mentioning. I recommend you have a little look at the article; because from what I can see, on the whole, itsn’t too face from the truth “Facebook groups are the new lynch mobs: These reactionary campaigners confuse the concept of ‘justice’ with ‘vigilante vengeance’”
Tags: Banal, blog, Cheryl Cole, Daily Mail, Extreme, Facebook, Groups, Jon Venables, opinion, Social networks, Twitter
Twitter Update Post
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Web, blog
I must apologise for that horrendous twitter update post, I’ve only just seen it.
It initially seems like a great idea to have a weekly round-up of your tweets as a blogpost, but it just doesn’t work in practice. If you’d like to see my twitter updates feel free to go to my twitter page: Twitter.com/unluckydip. It’s mostly banal statements held together with the occasional gem and sometimes the odd interesting retweet.
Having seen the weekly update post I’m scrapping it immediately, I may very well setup something to go in its place; which should be of at least some use, soon.
Tags: Automatic, Awful, blog, Retweet, Tweet, Twitter, update, Wordpress
Death Metal Rooster
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Web, video
The posting of this probably brings down the tone of my blog (if there is one at all), but I can’t help but like some of the stupid things you can find online. I found this via one of my favourite podcasts diggnation.
Tags: Culture, Diggnation, Heavy Metal, Internet, Podcast, Rooster, video
Twitter: The New Telegraph?
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Culture, Media, Technology, Web, blogging
Well howdy, this here blog seems to have got a bit dusty.
This is not due to any lack of things to post, I’d argue it’s due to a mixture of workload and twitter, but alas I’m back, for a while. Seeing as I’ve blamed twitter, and I’m currently doing work based on it, I’m just gonna share a blogpost on the subject of twitter that I’ve recently read by Nicholas Carr. I don’t know much about him, but I have read his book “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google” and I can firmly recommend it.
In his blog post, originally posted 18/03/07, He addresses the assertion that Twitter is simply the remediation of the telegraph, he states:
Only on the length of each message is a limit imposed. Because there’s no charge to send a message and no protocol governing the frequency of posting, you can send as many tweets as you want. The telegraph required you to stop and ask yourself: Is this worth it? Twitter says: Everything’s worth it! (If you’re sending or receiving tweets on your cell phone, though, you best have an all-you-can eat messaging plan; Twitter is, among other things, a killer app for the wireless oligopoly.) You can also send each tweet to as large an audience as you want, and the recipients are free to read it via mobile phone, instant messaging, RSS, or web site. Twitter unbundles the blog, fragments the fragment. It broadcasts the text message, turns SMS into a mass medium.
It’s a great little read, he also briefly covers post modernism in relation to twitter so I recommend you go over and read the whole thing over at his thoroughly interesting blog.
Sociological Images
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Culture, Image, Web, blog
As like many other internet dwellers, I’m always coming across interesting sites, I often bookmark them and re-visit them rarely. However, since finding it a few weeks ago there’s blog I’ve started looking at regularly called “Sociological Images“, it’s produced by the American magazine Contexts:
Contexts is a quarterly magazine that makes sociology interesting and relevant to anyone interested in how society operates.
Anyway, wether your interested in sociology or not, the blog is very interesting and takes an unintimidating look at the topic, here are a couple Gender based examples from the blog:
Edit: While I’m on the topic, just come across this PR Nugget via Plashingvole/Feministing:
“This dance itself was a successful event.”
–West Contra Costa Unified School District spokesman Marin Trujillo looks on the bright side after the brutal gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside of her high school’s homecoming dance.”
Tags: blog, Context, Disney, Gender, Halloween, Princess, Sites, Sociology, Sterotype, Web
