You Are Not a Gadget - Jaron Lanier

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.

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.

This song is too damn catchy

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.

Fail Whale

Russian Division

Bazinga

Go Away

Recursion

Compiling

First Doctor

Also, they’re now selling xkcd shirts, and I want all of them. Well, most of them. Nope, I just checked, I want all of them. What’s a girl to do with all of this awesome in one place? They have Delorians! And sonic screwdrivers! And Futurama toys! And lots lots more. Just wanted to share some of my favourites with you.

Just as an aside, I’m also quite excited about Futurama coming back next month.

Obviously we have reached the end of days.

One of the things Alan and I did that was crazy for the wedding was Scrabble related. About a year before the wedding, we decided we wanted to do the name tags at the tables with Scrabble tiles. We had our mothers and their team of friends and relatives and acquaintances and really everyone they knew searching for Scrabble boards for us. Our moms found us about 25 Scrabble boards, and we had a friend make us about sixty additional tile holders. When we started doing the table arrangements, we made each person’s name and put them in individual baggies, and then put each table in a big freezer bag, and then when we set up the hall, about a dozen of us spent about half an hour making each person’s name in Scrabble tiles.

We weren’t really sure how this would work, but it looked pretty cool, and it was fairly nerdy. People immediately started renaming people and looking for dirty words. We used the Scrabble tiles as the kissing game instead of people having to clink glasses or sing songs about love or anything else. After dinner, we had people come up with the words they had created. Our best man and maid of honour would determine how good the word was, and that was how good the kiss would be.

It worked better than we had really imagined. It passed the time quickly between dinner and desert, and everyone relaxed and started trading letters between tables and so on. Some of the tables came up with really elaborate stuff, like “were sorry mario but your princess is in another castle” (this was related to our recessional song, which rocked). After a while, people didn’t care if we kissed or not, and we were able to sit down and eat our wedding pie.

Because yes, we had wedding pie. It was the day before pi day. And pie is so much better than cake.

All this to say that Mattel changing the rules of Scrabble hurts me deep down inside. In a way that others just may not understand.

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Courtney lived a couple of blocks from the university. We’d known each other for a few years, having been at the same church retreats. We bonded over caffeinated teen antics. I knew she’d played the drums in high school, but I had no idea if she’d want to play with me. After all, I wasn’t very good. Lem always said that I was the dead weight in Paradoxical Overtones, and I know she was right. Over coffee, Courtney and I decided to try and find a couple of other people to make some noise and see if we could make it pretty.

Erin lived an hour away and played the bass, and we know she’d love hanging out with us, since we were cool university students and she was still stuck in high school. She jumped at the chance, and Paul rounded out our band with a second guitar. In my mind, Paul was a guitar god. He took me under his wings and that’s when I really learned how to play. My fingers were so calloused and sore that sometimes I could barely type, but I progressed quickly and caught up to him enough to no longer feel like I was dragging the other three down. To be quite honest, I had a crush on Paul in those early days, but that was before I met Eric. He was a guy in one of my classes, and well, that’s a story for another day…

We practiced for three months before our first gig. It certainly wasn’t glamorous, but to us it was magical. For four people struggling through university and early adulthood, the band allowed us to jump out of our day to day lives and be the party people, one or two nights a week. Erin would come down twice a month, and we’d play cover songs and a few originals at the local bars: Big Dick’s, Spicoli’s, the Pub… the names and places have all sort of blended together at this point. Erin and I took turns singing, and Paul would tell stories between songs. The girls loved Paul…

In the summer after my first year of university, we released our first EP, Leave My Soul Alone. We made 700 copies of it, and sold it at the shows. It had five tracks:

1. In a Moment – this was our attempt at a song like Chick Magnet – a bass driven punk song that was, in all honesty, quite catchy. It made it onto our first full-length album.
2. Through With You – I think this is the song where we rhymed master with plaster
3. Mixed Metaphors – Our attempt at clever lyrics.
4. The Pebble – my personal favourite, stolen from church events Erin, Courtney and I had attended.
5. Punk Rock Boy – a girlie version of Punk Rock Girl. This song should never be covered, and we never should have recorded it.

Puny Express - Leave My Soul Alone

Anyways, the LMSA EP wasn’t very good, but we soldiered on. I’ve talked with Courtney, and she wants to continue the story over at her blog. Maybe after all this, Paul and Erin will give us their takes of what life was like on the Puny Express. I know it was a ride I’ll never forget, and despite the rocky points that came later, I will always look back on those early days fondly.

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So I will give you a double shot of things I love. That means fourteen things I love. Here goes:

1. Sunrises and sunsets. See yesterday for pretty pictures.
2. Fluffly clouds. They totally make me happy. I miss blue skies in the winter months.
3. Big open spaces. I miss the expansiveness of country living. I also miss stars. However, I do love the convenience of city living.
4. Alan. He’s fun. And so much smarter than me I’m ashamed to admit it.
5. Google Reader. It rocks. I’ve mentioned this before
6. Music. Right now, I’m still in the Great Music Sort of 2009, but almost done the letter L.
7. Sci Fi. What’s not to love? (Other than the rampant sexism of classic-era sci-fi. I don’t love that.)
8. My friends and family. They’re pretty great.
9. Making stuff that didn’t exist before. I’m not necessarily interested in optimization or security, but I love bringing ideas to fruition. That’s why I have a secret project.
10. That I’m mostly winning Shan’s Lenten Challenge. I haven’t done well with the weight training and working out parts this week, but the not eating at restaurants is going quite well, and I’m sure I’ve saved a good chunk of money and I’ve lost about 5 lbs.
11. Reading. Maybe I’ll write a post about the people and things I associate books with. I love books.
12. I love that I have no idea what The Hills is about. And that I’ve never watched a single minute of American Idol.
13. This number. It’s great.
14. I’m not sure it’s an “I love…” yet, but I’m really glad that I’m blogging again. I missed it.

So there you are! Fourteen things I love. And possibly one of the most shallow lists I’ve ever produced. Maybe I should have included kittens and bunnies. They’re pretty great as well.