Category: Internet

The Cult of Lar

I'm amazed at what actually makes me go from “Gee! That would make a great blog posting.” to the actual logging in and typing and making with the linky-linky. I think some of my best ideas have retreated to the 95% of my brain we feeble humans are incapable of using.

So why am I posting today? I'm really not sure. Sometimes I have a fascination for the mundane, the seemingly useless, or the completely stupid. Maybe I realize somethings are only stupid skin deep, and all those somethings are really smart on the inside. And yes, I mean somethings, I'm using it to describe a singular unnamed or possibly vague individual thing (or a just one concept, event, phenomena alone in a vcacuum), and not a group of …you know I do this some times and it really works…but right now I'm not feeling the “really works” part. Sorry for the brain tease, but let's get back to why I'm posting.

I added Lar as a friend. You know one of those friends. Lar looks a little like my one sister's dumpster diving neighbor, except a bit younger. But that's irrelevant.

I added Lar because when I looked at Lar's profile, I looked at Lar's other friends. Not because they were “Cool New People” (another post in itself, perhaps), but because there were a lot of Lar's (plural, does the apostrophe go there?) It seems that Lar searched or ran a script to find anyone with “lar” in their profile name, and then invite them to be friends.

Does everyone have an urge to belong to something? Is that why I felt like I needed to add Lar as a friend? Do I even still want to finish this post now that I've been bullshitting with my nephew for the last half hour?

I can't answer any of that. But I'm a Lar. And I'll always be one. Perhaps I'll even join Lar's for Lar.

So this isn't essential linking or anything. Just commentary on searching for Lar's in the world we live in. But if you're a Lar, too, there's a place for you in this crazy, mixed-up, online world.

Skins for Your PS3…Literally

I'm not even sure if I should link to such a thing, ok I'm kindof (seriously, kindof should be one word, without the space, think kinda, then do the proper pronunciation, sometimes that's fun) sure I should since it is relevant (to what I'm not sure, social mores in post-milennial America perhaps.) Scantily clad women have long been a successful marketing ploy for beer, bikinis, beer, men's magazines, beer, women's magazines, lingerie, beer, calendars, and beer. Did I mention beer?

No longer are pixelated maidens alone on their glossy packaging in encouraging video game sales. Now we have real live amateurs baring much to peddle PS3s on eBay. (NSFW – Not Safe for Work, for you home gamers, because of ads for other adult sites). Oh, and one professional. (SFW, but a link could probably make it Not So Safe for Work (NSSFW) very quickly.

Here's a link with less pics, but more safe. (LSBMFFW – Less Pics, but More Safe for Work)

The Nintendo Wii needs no such marketing to sell. It's inherently sexy.

To quote Devil Ducky: I like go-karts… VROOM VROOM.

More Ted Stevens.

This posting should have been up a week ago (or more). I lack the desire to edit this, so I hope it's somewhat cohesive. There must be more Ted Stevens insanity by now. And perhaps even in my bookmarks folder. But in the spirit of quantity, with quality a distant second, here's a posting for you.

It's clearly what the people want. We don't want his legislation. We want him to explain more things to us. Preferrably all technical items. Perhaps he could fill in for Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal for awhile. Maybe he's the next John Dvorak, oh, Jon Dvorak doesn't really write all his material. Could Ted Stevens at least start blogging? Or maybe a podcast. That would totally rock. And there would be no end to the soundbytes DJs and producers could get their hands on for their mixes.

Ok…now that I've started typing this, I've done a patrol around my little internet and found some other people's internets had some interesting Ted Stevens related material. Enjoy the links.

Yep…links. (in addition to those above, naturally.)

Oh, look…he does have a blog. Thank heavens for Theodore Stevens! (liberty taken with pronunciation of the last Stevens, but I've been called a liberal, so I should know something about liberty, right?)

Ted Stevens is selling his internet on craigslist. (Not surprised, it doesn't sound like it works as well as mine. Explains why it's only $19.)

Ted Stevens Internet Fan Club on myspace. This user's mySpace account was previously closed in relation to his song in honour of Ted Stevens. Who's that cuddly fellow that owns mySpace again? No no no, it's not Tom. The other one. Right, Rupert.

Will the real Rupert Murdoch please stand up? (Props to the “Dirty Digger” for his love of the Pixies.)

And here's the fake Rupert Murdoch mySpace page.

Net Neutrality or Forget Reality

Listen to Ted Stevens describe how the Internet works (courtesy of The Daily Show), and decide for yourself if he should have any say in any legislation involving the Internet. I would venture to guess that given a Tivo, Senator Stevens would figure that the technology was reverse engineered from some technology found out in Roswell.

We've had Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley, but I'm not sure which Internet/Tech hotbed exists in Alaska. I would guess it would be the Silicon Pipeline, but unless data's in the form of black gold, it's got to find some other way to travel.

But since Stevens has been all for further oil drilling in Alaska and the rest of the frozen tundra, his use of “tubes” as a metaphor for the Internet should not be a surprise. Tubes and pipes have very similar technology. He knows how pipes work, so those “tubes” must work the same way.

This is the same Senator Ted Stevens vehemently opposed cutting off funding of his “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, when some selfish senators, even fellow Republicans, wanted to divert the money to assist Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. How dare they.

This $223 million bridge would connect the 8,000 people on one side to the 50 on the other. The Gravina Island Bridge (proposed name for the bridge) would apparently be nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and as high as the Brooklyn Bridge. The last time I checked a lot more people use those bridges, perhaps during the New York City Marathon alone.

(Upon further research, it looks like the bridge is no longer earmarked to receive its federal funding, although Alaska would still receive the money to spend on something else.)

This is also the same state that spent $500,000 in tax dollars to paint a giant salmon on an Alaska Airlines plane. This was to help promote the Alaska fishing industry in their battle against salmon farms. $500,000 could have been better spent elsewhere. How many people can even see ? I don't see too many planes pulling along side me on the highway, usually I'm underneath them, and their pretty high up. And even if it looked like a flying fish over my head, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to run out to the fish market shortly thereafter.

Save the Internet, folks. It's still ours. It doesn't belong to Ted Stevens. I'm not sure he even knows how to turn an Internet on. For shits and giggles, let's hand him a solar calculator duct-taped to a toaster oven, and tell him it's the Internet. Although he'd probably be sharp enough to ask where the “tubes” were.

Rocketboom Response

This posting was going to link to Andrew Baron giving his side of the Rocketboom debacle over at Dembot, (that's his blog, or at least one of them). But at the present time, Dembot is down. I'm sure it will be back, and then you can hear his side.

In a nutshell, Andrew Baron says that Andrew Baron does a lot of work over at Rocketboom. It says that he does just about everything. He even came up with Amanda Congdon's quick head turn to the other camera. I'm not sure he holds the patent on that, so perhaps Amanda will use that in the future.

That said, Joanne Colan will be the new host of Rocketboom. Joanne was apparently a VJ on MTV Europe. But now she got a pretty big shoes, (seat, whatever you'd like to add) to fill. It's very possible that this whole thing will work out quite well both for Amanda Congdon and for Andrew Baron at Rocketboom.

All they have to do is deliver. Simple,huh? The world may not be watching, but the blogosphere is, and that slight sound you hear is the blogosphere tapping on the shoulders of two friends collectively to tell them about all this. Even those who still don't care have the seeds planted in their brain, and when Amanda Congdon starts showing up on The Daily Show or some other media outlet, they'll know why they know who that is.