This is how I assume _____ works

This week economics. I was prompted to my studies into world, Internet
and inane economics after catching up on some blog entries from www.guys-worldtour.blogspot.com

In one entry he refers to Venice and how full of fucking mask shops it
is. Yea I get it, carnivale and all...but...really in such a tourist
trap as Venice I doubt they have a fucking sex party every night of
the week (or so it isn't solely a sex party but feh)

So this is a basis for how economics must work in tourist ville, this
can however be transposed to pretty much every software vendor on the
Internet mostly on the app store. after yesterdays apple launch of new
iPods etc, they showed a couple of games in development one which
seemed to be a direct port of audiosurf from steam, and a fps Halo
clone. Seriously it looked the fucking same. Anyhoo luke economics
101...
Person A) hi do you sell masks
Vendor) No we do not
Person B) do you sell masks
Vendor) No we do not!
Person C) do you sell masks
Vendor) yes but as the sole supplier they are fucking expensive but to
keep your trade they are high quality.
(every fucking moron with half an idea sees the roaring mask trade)
Every other idiot) WE HAVE MASKS!, OMG MASKS, L@@K MASKS, MASKS MASKS
MASKS
Market gets flooded people get the fuck off.
A few years later only a few people carry masks but once again the are
expensive but now lower quality as they are too expensive to maintain.

This is it pretty much it, I assume I am right cos why would I be
wrong. Can't think of something original rip someone clever off and
flood your Market with shite.

Thanks, nothing funnier than that today. Suck it up.

Sent from my iPhone

early adopters

[DISCLAMER] before anyone reads this and gets offended by what I have written, note this; it was not written about anyone in particular, it is a rant so you can expect coarse language and opinion, note OPINION. If you feel like rallying against me, go ahead I will ignore it all. Also if you are one of my close friends then know I still love you all dearly and again I AM BLAMING MYSELF FOR MY PREDICAMENT. [/DISCLAMER]

Let me first put this into context. I am not angling this at a certain person or persons, this is something born of watching a twitter feed I filled by mistake (a recommendation of people but i see this is a mistake) I am not blaming anyone for what I have done but myself, I now know I shouldn't try to be one of the cool kids. Hell I never was at school, and even though the Internet has swung to my favour in the technological age, I should have known i wouldn't be one here either.

I am angry,

I am not angry for a cause, this is no political post, this is not a call to rally behind me. I am angry, depressed and without hope. But why? I thought i was past all of this, I am. This is not a long term thing this is just a fleeting feeling. And it stems from twitter. I am not rescinding my early post about twitter, i believe more of my friends should join the service. It would give me someone to talk to . I also believe it is a cause for good, trying to do right, and facebook has become bloated and useless. It is the next myspace. So why am I upset at twitter?

I am not an early adopter. I never have been, it took me a good year and a half of people nagging me about facebook to get into that, I tried twitter off my own back when everyone was still going on about Stephen Fry, a name which has now become a cliche, I did not pick it up early on by no means. I jumped on the band wagon, and why not? I am one of the great unwashed heard...or that's how I'm being made to feel.

The early adopters of twitter (of which on of my best friends is a part of I'm sorry to say but it is not you, you are very open and welcoming) and friend feed, and phreadz and all of these sites are doing everyone else a great service. I acknowledge this, they pick up new technology tell us if it is any good, and then we invest. It's been that way for a long time, in fashion and arts, they are trend setters, but as people looking in / up they are still unreachable. We can't be them.

Luckily they don't want us to be there either, if we were then where would they go, what would they do? They would be slumming it with the unpopular kids. This is why it makes me feel as depressed as I was in school, I was not popular in school, no one really liked me but the bizarre friends I had. Same in college etc (but this was also angst) I was sent to Coventry at university in my second year and I had a nervous breakdown. This has always been a problem for me, so i should have seen the signs.

I should have noticed that when I started "following" these people they were all talking about concepts and topics I was interested in, but when I joined in there was no response. Even if it was well wishing etc, it felt like whenever I used my voice I was being ignored. After a while I felt like i was merely squawking my name out loud. This is a common theme of my life most notably in university (a long story where I ended up ostracised by all but about four people in my second year).

It all began when my good friend sat down with me and recommended I follow some folk. All very well and good, I don't resent them in the slightest, best of intentions and all. This was fine for the first few hours possibly day, (hell it only happened Friday proof of how quickly the world of tech moves / influence). Actually no it began before that really.

It is hard to be on twitter and try and keep up with the newest technology (as i tried to do to keep up with this blog) without falling into the category of an early adopter. In this category there are people you here about, other more influential and powerful than you, people amplifying cons, talks, sites and concepts. you end up trying to contact these people and not hearing a thing back (see above statement) so really it happened a few weeks ago. I started plugging in to twitter and the Internet really hard. I immersed myself in everything but I was seeing no pay off for my work and attention. I was pouring a lot of myself into this. I had nothing, and now it is really starting to hit me hard. Hence I am blaming myself for how I feel but I will still point the finger.

OK at this point I have had an hour or so to look back at what goes above, yeah it may seem a bit harsh, and more than anything a bit rushed and angry, and although I may not agree with the exact words I used up there I still hold the sentiment. If you aren't in the in crowd you are out, and unless you are brought in, then you are out.

I will still point the finger though, at no one in particular but the finger wags at you alllll.....

The prime example I can think of at this moment is the AudioBoo party. I have only just come into audio boo really. (as I said I'm not an early adopter) I get the concept and I like it, its a more personal micro blogging alternative. It requires some time investment on both sides but can really be worth it. But recently they had a party at their offices. Not a bad thing by itself, companies like this have parties all the time.

The worst part of this was, it was invite only, you got an "in" if you knew the right people or were the right people. And this is cool, companies have parties and guest lists like this all the time. But this is where the social media which had been adopted by the masses turned into something terrible. I and the twitter/audio boo/12seconds/blog-verse was flooded with stories, photos, sound bites, videos and amplification of the party. It looked like fun, it looked like a jolly good laugh, good for you.

But from the outside it felt like this.

"We are having so much fun here, everyone is so cool and awesome and there are people here you could never comprehend because you are not part of the technological set so you aren't invited. But look at how good it is!"

It feels like technological celebrity watching.

There are more examples but this is one I can bring to the front of my mind now.

If you have reached this part then thank you for reading. This is ranty and i know some people will be hurt by some of the comments here. The only thing I say is this...I AM BLAMING MYSELF FOR HOW I FEEL NOT YOU, BUT BE AWARE YOU ARE IN POSITIONS OF POWER DON'T MAKE ME QUOTE SPIDERMAN (power / responsibility) COS YOU KNOW I WILL.

Thanks for listening doc, is my hour up?

IAQ

Infrequently asked Questions

 

Ok this one might get a bit rambly so bare with me here…Soemtime I get really annoyed at websites. Especially those which offer to send me goods for money, I would name and shame but I really can’t be chewed, so here is the problem I have. Well couple of problems…

 

Firstly, why do these sites carry so many things that I want. I have now cycled three to four baskets on the www.thinkgeek.com and www.routeone.co.uk websites each, everytime I am clocking anywhere between 70-100 pounds of goods, each time different things…damn them. But the main gripe I have is not that I cannot afford such things, or that there are things which grab my eye, because if this was the case I would have not shown the restraint I do now. No the problem I have is “FAQ’s” (yes I do pronounce that FACKS / FAX).

 

It would seem that during the tenure of some webdesigners / technical support all they seemed to be doping was wasting their time idly browsing the internet looking for cool things and cycling through hundereds of potential shopping baskets on various websites…yeh and what if I do I don’t have to write FAQ’s, and that’s my point. Sometimes people you shouldn’t be allowed to write FAQ’s without actually collating the subject matter first or shall we call them Frequently Asked fucking Questions! Let’s break the phrase down here, so as to extract it’s full meaning…

·         Frequently: adverb, often; many times; at short intervals.

                  I don’t know about you but I think this implies that you get asked something a lot, many times over such as. “I no longer have access to my email account. Why can I no longer access your                       website”

·         Asked: Verb, to put a question to, to inquire of.

                  Kind of self explanatory…right?

·         Question Noun, a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply

                  This is the main part of a FAQ right, the actual questions. This is never much of a problem as FAQ’s generally only contains questions.

 

So there we have it a reasonably comprehensive breakdown of the definitions of a FAQ (courtesy of www.dictionary.com plus I can highly recommend the iPhone app from the same site). With such a simple definition you’d think it would be hard to screw up an FAQ. Wrong, apparently it is surprisingly easy, and a lot of places contain the incomprehensible IAQ, or Infrequently Asked Questions. These beasts lurk in the darkest recesses of the internet, fabled mythical beasts which are becoming more and more real. It’s easy to fall into a ravine if you are walking with your eyes closed, and it seems many sales teams / web designers have forgotten to wake up. The main one I noticed (And one for which I paraphrased my question earlier for the “Frequently” example) is www.facebook.com (as if you need the link).

 

A while back my email provider, Lycos, went under as a search engine and took everything with them. Lycos was not my main mail account by any means, it was my spam account (I have at least four email accounts all used for different things…) and as thus I directed all of my FB traffic there. I didn’t want to wade through tonnes of crap and i'm too lazy to alter the settings; however this is where the snag occurred. Apparently the FB “Team” sent out an email or something to confirm my account details, or at least tested the address was valid, (possibly when the received thousands of Mailer alerts they got the picture) and my account was disabled. I tried to change my password / email, but could not log in to the site at all, even the support pages. I trawled for what felt like hours through their supposed FAQ system, I used their search function combinations of black magic and ritual sacrifice just proved bloody and useless. I gave up, and launched a new FB account realising the time it would take to get it set up to my specs again…(this was pre twitter when I still cared about FB). I tried to search the help one more time, and then after just clicking on a seemingly unrelated link (I can’t remember the path now, as if it were a dream) it took me to a page of links one of which was the unlock procedure for my situation…(I understand that a lot of people trying to change email etc are either scamming or have been scammed but some of us are innocent) it also told me not to open a new account (crap…)

 

Anyway, the point is I had to resort to opening that new account cos FB fucked up their own FAQ! Now I am stuck with an account which points to my Google mail address (linked to my iPhone ffs) and forwards all the crap to me. After about an hour of FB spam I altered all of my settings (Another hour or so) so I would only receive email about Wall posts (something almost defunct thanks to status comments) and friend requests, and even these I find a bit much.

 

FB are not the only culprits they were however the ones I had the worst experience with, feel free to post your own experiences with IAQ’s below!

 

Luke out!

Fucking cool shit I can do with technology

Ok so here's the thing: I can do some awesome stuff with technology.
No suprise hey, everyone can, yeh I know that too. But lets take a
minute here to ponder those fucking cool things.
•BASICS
sattelite communications: you can talk to anyone anywhere in the
world. View television LIVE from anywhere if you wish, to quote the
cable guy play mortal combat agai st a friend in china. Awesome.
•read ebooks anywhere: might not seem astonishing until you realise
the kindle is using epaper. A screen developed to work like paper,
viewable in high and low lighting with no backlight, yeh it's refresh
rate sucks (links and reasons after the break) but it's fucking cool.
•email / blog / tweet from anywhere: case in point, I'm emailing this
entry from my iPhone. Fuck yes.
ADVANCED SHIT.
Ok more about super cool technology hacks/stuff I do ^_^
•use a PSP as a second / third screen on you pc...wirelessly: using
pspdisp driver and a custom psp you can get a small screen. Useful for
system info / monitoring whilst in game / video.
• use conductive fabric and paint to implement technology into almost
anything: oh yeah there is graffiti with led's built in, circuit
boards built into clothes. This shit is amazing.

There are millions of other cool things I do and you can,
Free your mind at:
Www.hackaday.com home of most of my inspiration
Www.instructables.com holiday home of my insipration

Short one today. Not too much going on being POETS day I'm shattered
from work. (piss off early tomorrow Saturday)
They may go early I have to fix their stuff so they can.

Sent from my iPhone even any spelling mistakes!

Why people don't use twitter

And why I think they should…

 

So here’s the deal, I use twitter, I use it a lot. Not as much as some others but I do use it a lot. As thus I can say that I understand the power of this micro blogging site, the ponderous things that this “Social enabling” site does for us. I have tracked the progress of my favourite geeks throughout the San Diego comi-con this year without actually being there, I have been given up to the minute updates for this year’s Shift Happens and I have experienced the thoughts and feuds between Will Wheaton (Wesley crusher for the uncultured….) and his cat.

 

Things that Twitter has done for the world

 

I figure I should put forward some good things to come out of the twitter-verse, and some of them really are good. It has standardised most civilised comment threads, before you might see this.

 

Well hamface223 I think you are incorrect. And….*wall of text*

 

This, whilst serving a purpose, is sometimes completely lost on the intended user, unless sent as a direct response or email alerts spam your account every time someone posts another comment, but thanks to twitter we now have the @. OK well we had it before, it has been a convention of email since nigh on the beginning, but using it as a reference to a username makes it so much easier to read conversations, and if necessary interject with your own ravings. Basically the @ makes it easier to see responses when scanning through, it’s not too intrusive and gives a more direct response to proceedings.

 

Ok so there are better examples (Tweetups / Twitter meet-ups, tweeps (twitter peeps) moving on injustice; namely Adam Savage from myth busters and AT&T not really injustice but showed potential power of thousands of followers) but I stand by it Twitter has given us a lot without a lot of people realising it.

 

So Why don’t you use twitter??

 

I don’t have enough friends to follow me.

 

Ok this is a common one, people think that you need droves of people to follow you on twitter to see it as a viable platform. This is not true, your tweets show up all over the place, in searches in trends everywhere, people see what’s going on in the “twitterverse” and you are contributing, ok so it’s not live interaction ala Friend-Feed (See later post about collaborative communication on the internet) but it is part of something larger. Heck if your interesting enough people will find you.

 

It’s not as good as Facebook / beebo…etc

 

Ok let’s kill this one off nice and quickly, Twitter is nothing like Facebook, it is nowhere near. Yes unfortunately they are grouped in the social networking websites umbrella but they just aren’t the same beast at all. And Facebook is a beast, a foul beast of unimaginable horror and disgust, but if you use it you already know this. FB (Facebook) is a incredibly Narcissistic platform, it is completely “look at me look at me!” in its approach to social networking. It used to be that it was simplified, easy to use and a stripped out version of the then bloated, useless spam riddled MySpace, and now it is the new bloated, useless and spam riddled Facebook; filled with badges of social distinction (via www.twitter.com/hannahnicklin  @hannahnicklin) and essentially the “News Feed” is a group of people shouting at each other. I used to love the aspect of being able to track my social life in one website, but now I rarely use the full version of Facebook, checking only my messages on the iPhone or my email.

 

I don’t see the point. Isn’t it a little me me me?

 

Well it is if you use it for the purpose they intended…ok this one might be a little odd but here we go. Twitter is not all about the “What are you doing now?” question, I mean Yeh that’s the opening gambit and for a while you will use it for that, but it can be so much more. For example, again my good tweep and real life friend @hannahnicklin essentially summed up the Shift Happens conference this year, tweeting directly from the floor (and abusing her battery at the same time) I have gained a cult following from posting bizarre pictures of my friend @bearpiglett, and people such as @documentally posting somewhat cryptic messages about his chainsaw with sufficiently creepy videos too…oh and being somewhat of a tech buff so I am told! But yea this still might seem a little me me me. But it is not just that.

 

As I stated before Twitter is a collaborative space, people update and blog on twitter, and you choose to follow them, you don’t have to read all of the posts, I do because I am like that, but you don’t have to. It’s selective, and as many people have said the shift in media is towards the selective, the collaborative and the user generated / driven. The iPlayer from the BBC is a good example of this. People choose what to watch and when to watch it, for free. They select the television they like, it is huge and it is so successful that other media companies are trying to shut it down, but they won’t. The other great contender is Spotify, a legal completely free music service (if you don’t mind the Ads, and I don’t) it has user generated playlists you can share, and the ability to reach millions of people. This is what Twitter is part of it is more than the sum of its social networking components it is something more, something intangible, something I feel passionately enough to write about.

 

Something that has bored the pants off of you…

 

 

Links and apologies

Ok well I have to apologise for the last post, it was a gritty story of plot holes and spelling mistakes!

Told ya the phone was a poor platform for me personally i work too fast. Anyhow links!

www.twitter.com/documentally A tech micro blogger of great acclaim so i hear!
www.twitter.com/hannahnicklin A close friend of mine involved deeply with Theatre and technology.
www.hackaday.com My usual haunt for technology hacking
www.hannahnicklin.com Hannah's website full of good stuff and links to her blog.

just a couple of things i think you should check out really.

Take care out there.

What's it all about?

So this is the first blog entry I am writing from my iPhone, and may I
say it is a wonderful thing. The only problem I perceive is my la k of
ability to spell and the iPhones not so intuitive spelling checker. So
far it missed my I before e fail in perceive, and attempted to
undermine me with thong instead of thing.

So what is this blog all about? Well lets see...

•it's an experminet: I am terrblle at rememebering to update blogs
etc so I am seeing if I can keep this one up.
•it's about technology: I love technology and as many of my peers are
heavily involved in technology (links after the break) or scientists
of sone sort I figured I should join the ranks and blog about it in a
light hearted way.
•it's about choice: people choose their own media these days, they
pull content from the Internet, just look at the BBC iplayer and hulu.com
! So this is about giving people more choice in their reading.
•it's about humour: yep I'm English just look at that surropticious U
in humoUr!

So stick with me and I will try and keep you updated on my world of
tech and a guide to the Internets and real life.

Sent from my iPhone with pride!