technology
In Rainbows - being downloaded tonight
Not since I was a pimply long-haired teenager have I been so excited at the prospect of getting a new album. I was 16 then, and the subject of my greatly, amazingly misplaced anticipation was Live’s album Lakini’s Juice.
Social Networking Sites?
Most of the popular left blogs have now migrated, more or less, to Facebook, including a few Stoush.net warriors.
I’ve even found a few people on LinkedIn, a “facebook” for professionals.
Tim Dunlop has a bit to say:
I’ve had a while in which to experiment with the system and must say it’s a pretty good way of chatting, keeping in contact with people, and even of making appointments etc. If you’ve got a site of your own and want to add me to your “friends” list, I’m sure you’ll find me in there somewhere via the previous link.
Mark at LP also says:
I’ve found it fun for similar reasons to Dr Cat, and also had the very pleasing experience of catching up with a couple of old friends I’d lost track of, one of whom is visiting ‘Vegas soon. The particular interface of Facebook, I think, facilitates both reviving old ties and wasting time with friends really well, and its ease of use probably substitutes for email or phone contacts, and prompts in turn more personal interaction.
So if we built an LP group on Facebook, would anyone come?
What is the view of Stoush regulars? Facebook - a force for good, or evil?
Open Source Evangelism: Satanic Ubuntu
There’s little worse than being bailed up by evangelists of any stripe. For every clean-eared guitar-playing Book-of-Romans-quoting genuine religious transmitter of zeal, there’s an Amway seller, a jazz purist, a true believer in Fords over Holdens, someone whose every Austrian economic hypothesis is measured against Popperian falsifiability, or someone who votes Green because they got done over for Labor preselection in 1979. The common feature is an unassailable presumption to impose moral values on other people, regardless of convenience, appropriateness, right, and certainly regardless of embarrassment. Damn it, I don’t care if you believe that video games threaten children’s moral fibre, and it is meaningless to me what you think about the Greens’ many progressive social policies.
And so it is with operating systems.
Ubuntu Christian Edition has been out for a while, for those people whose religious sensibilities are just too fragile for an operating system without Bible study tools and anti-masturbatory filtering software. Yes, it’s a linux distribution, so it also fulfils the evangelist quotient of anti-Microsoftism and niche cachet. It’s the usual stock-standard brainwashing and cultism, fed by implied guilt and feelings of spiritual superiority: “You’re still running Windows XP? Aren’t you worried about your eternal future? If you just accept the GPL as your personal salvation”, etcetera.
I for one now will be rebooting using one of the two fingers in the famous salute of the evil and powerful and hailing, in the tradition of rock and roll, the Dark Lord. Thanks be to the minions of Evil for Satanic Ubuntu.
(The secular, non-religious ubuntu, which does a very good job in difficult circumstances on my decrepit as-yet unreplaced laptop, can be gotten here).
Sunday Video: Will it Blend?
Via The Man With The Dominant Claw, stoush.net becomes the next website to buy into the best viral marketing campaign for small kitchen appliances EVER.
(Unfortunately stoush.net has baulked suspiciously at the thought of embedding youtube piclets. As a result, I give you via linkage:)
Digital TV
I recently purchased the DviCo High Definition TV USB “dongle” (pictured). As I have recently moved, and with my new room too small to comfortably contain my old TV, I decided to ditch the TV and get a digital TV on my laptop.
Unfortunately, this proved to be a bad idea. I did a bit of shopping around the various computer stores in the CBD, and was consistently recommended the DviCo nano HDTV dongle. When I got it home, installed the drivers and software, updated it from the website, and plugged it in, the bloody thing completely failed to work. I’ve since tried it on a number of different computers, and the stupid thing still doesn’t work.
I’m left with a black screen. No signal. The problem is, I’m not willing to invest in buying an amplified aerial (which cost around $50) just to see if the dongle will work. I’ve already invested $145 in it. It should work out of the box, or stipulate that it requires a high-powered aerial connection.
Needless to say, I am disappointed. I had hoped to write a positive review with screenshots of glorious digital TV.
dating asians and middle eastern girls
Here is something I betcha didn’t know.
When you type “dating asians and middle eastern girls” into the Yahoo7 search engine you get sent to Stoush.net!
Well that’s what happened to one gentleman (I assume a gentleman) who was seeking something infinitely more attractive than this itzy bitzy blog on NSW Politics.
I welcome you reader and fine purveyor of the best Asia has to offer. Enjoy your reading here and never fear that your race or love choices will be discriminated upon by the authors…
…though EP might piss on your ‘culture’.
Ebaying my way to pocket change...
Have many of you use Ebay to sell your unwanted or surplus goods?
I recently decided that carting my treasured collection of science fiction and fantasy novels from house to house to house to house (hey - I rent and move a lot!) was getting a little ridiculous. Actually, it was f***ing ridiculous when I moved into my second floor apartment in Randwick earlier this year.
I have so many boxes of books that I cannot fit them into my bookshelves, even with double stacking, and must keep some boxed in the garage. It was this solution which saw me lose 4 boxes of hardcovers to a flooded garage in Enmore four years ago, a tragedy second only to the theft of my entire collection of Star Trek Deep Space 9 videos from my poorly secured home in Pyrmont 5 years ago.
I decided that the angst and hard labour must end. I would sell them on Ebay. “Everybody’s doing it” the friendly website cries.
It is with such staid logical decisions that obsessions take root.
I can no longer log into my PC without checking my bids. I live and die by the feedback that I am left. I agonise over what to say about my buyers and the efficiency of their payment. I hit refresh constantly as the final seconds tick down and the “watchers” emerge to take the unwary early bidders down. I read the books that I am selling with morbid fascination, knowing that this is the last time…
…I ponder the ethics of false bidding.
I warn all uninitiated readers to beware Ebay. Don’t be tempted by its promise of easy selling and buying, a worldwide audience and rivers of money for unwanted items. Recognise that “Everybody’s doing it” sounds more like a sleazy adult contacts site than a legit business.
I’ll sit here counting my cash, thinking if the time I spent on Ebay, and the loss of treasured possessions, was worth it.
And I’ll log in to check how the lastest bidding is going.
Google My Own Skull
It’s true that we nowadays turn to the google search engine for just about any query, no matter how menial or trivial. I’ve watched people google the weather within head-sticking-out distance from a window. (Hint: if you get wet, it’s raining). Yes, google is a wonderful tool that’s accomplished the greatest feat of any informational tool: to be entirely forgotten and unacknowledged while being in constant use.