Internet Discoveries & Bandwagons

You Are Not a Gadget

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Jul 122011

You Are Not a Gadget - Jaron Lanier

You Are Not a Gadget
Jaron Lanier
2010, 224 pages

Mr. Lanier wants the kids to get off his lawn. And his lawn is the internet. And from what I could tell, he misses the good old days, where people were creative on the internet. Because nobody is creative on the internet anymore. Mashups aren’t creative, and people are only making mashups now.

The author really enjoys coining new phrases as well. He used the term ‘digital technomarxism’ more than once. I believe he also said something about digital socialism, and probably digital capitalism.

So here’s his argument about why people aren’t creative on the internet any more: people use Facebook, and people can’t be creative on Facebook because they’re too busy playing Farmville, which is dumb. Facebook users are dumb. Facebook users don’t engage in meaningful ways. Facebook has made online interactions shallow and pointless, rendering humanity into a hollow shell of its former self. Memes are dumb. The internet is full of dumb.

Ugh. Does he not remember how dumb the internet was in 1997? The Internet was always dumb. It was just like it is now, except it was full of terrible animated gifs, personal websites with “under construction” signs, and it was way slower. Now, there’s more people to spread the dumb around.

So back to the book. I was expecting something different than the guy who came up with virtual reality whining about how the internet is shallow. It was written in really lofty prose that led me to believe the guy thought he was significantly smarter than he was. I didn’t find the book put together a cohesive argument about whatever this guy was trying to tell me. I’m not sure what he was trying to tell me. It feels like there were six or seven different things going on that never really fit together, and I wouldn’t like you to read it.

Now, back to the Internet being full of dumb: everything is full of dumb. Newspapers are full of dumb. The radio is full of dumb. Television is full of dumb. I don’t know much about telegraphs, but I’m betting it was full of dumb, too. This isn’t new. Most content, in any medium, isn’t brilliant. Most of it is mediocre, some is awful, and some is brilliant. I think it’s all about finding those little niches where you can engage in the stuff you love and find brilliant.

That’s why I won’t be passing this book along to any of my brilliant and wonderful friends. I don’t want them turning dumb.

Now I know how Alexander Graham Bell felt.

Internet Discoveries & Bandwagons, Life 6 Responses »

Jun 302011

He invents the phone in order to speak with people remotely. Nobody else has one.

I’m on Google+ now. Now I can give Google even more of my personal information, and Facebook less. Except that nobody is on Google+, so everything will have to be cross-posted on both. Just like with Twitter.

Anyone else out there on this thing? Social networks are boring when there’s nobody to be social with.

Remember when life was easy and all we had were blogs and email? And terrible Geocities home pages? Those were the good old days.

Like A Dalek You Exterminate…

Internet Discoveries & Bandwagons No Responses »

Feb 022011

This song is too damn catchy

2011: A Year in Preview

Internet Discoveries & Bandwagons, Life, Projects 2 Responses »

Jan 022011

Resolutions are dumb, and I don’t really support them, but The Alanator and I have been talking for a while about some changes and goals we’d like to achieve. I’m certainly not opposed to writing them down, so here they are (some of these are mine, some are collective):

Stop buying books
We’ve already talked about this. Right now, my To Read has about 130 books on it. I’ve gotten into a bit of a funk about what I read, and so I’m letting other people pick my books. That’s why I’m doing the Bookstravaganza and why I started reading A Tale Of Two Cities yesterday morning. If I can make it through another 20-30 books this year, I’d be happy with that. Ultimately, I’d like to institue a zero-sum rule for books where if one come into our home, one goes out to someone else, but we’re going to start small.

Go for more walks
Last year’s vague ‘reach some weigh loss goal’ was a complete and utter failure. I’m at roughly the same place I was last year in this respect, and it’s not a good place. I want to get this part of my life under control and I know it can be done. I need to start making better decisions and making those decisions consistently. Seems like a good first start would be going for a brisk four days a week. These will be scheduled into my calendar, as I’ve started finding accumulating task lists and schedules effective in getting shit done.

Go on a fun trip
In 2009, The Alanator and I got married and then a month or so later went to Ireland. I’m not expecting to do anything quite so epic, but we’re hoping to do something for four or five days around our anniversary or his birthday (early spring). Current suggestions are a trip to a semi-nearby city full of museums and other fun things. Potential cities: Ottawa, Chicago, Montreal, or NYC. Also I hear there’s a Kirland Lake weekend scheduled for early April, and those are always fun. I loves me my Brad and Lem time.

Make more local friends / Hang out with existing ones more
We don’t have a lot of friends who live within an hour’s drive of us. I’d like to change that. Additionally, I’d like to hang out more frequently with the people we do like. We have large quantities of friends that live within a 2-3 hour radius, and we don’t see them nearly enough.

Get new blog theme
I still like the red and black, but it’s time for something new. Thinking about changing the name as well.

Figure out finances
Pay off the remainder of my car loan and start socking away money for a rainy day.

Finish another quilt
I have the top of one made but not the bottom of it, and I like having a project that I can hold up at the end of the day and show my progress. Web app development isn’t really conducive to that sort of thing.

2011 will only be as good as I make it. The last month or so has been a little bit rough for me, so I’m hoping a bit more focus will help get myself back into a proper frame of mind and productive again.