If 2008 was the year of Twitter, you can bet 2009 will be the year of more Imitwitters. Not that they haven't been tried already, but as code goes widespread and open source, be ready for your social media map to start looking like this.
Okay, first off, "Badges? We don't need no steenking badges!"
Seriously, congrats to the boy/man who's 18 now, but that's not the point. One might as well be dedicated to something. I never was a scout or a cadet or anything that required formations. If I could get a merit badge for blogging, maybe I'd also stitch it to a sash. My concerns lie more in some of the 121 subjects that these badges are based on.
- American Business (updated in 2003) - Already obsolete. See "recession" or go back to pamphlets from the early 1930's.
- Aviation (initiated 1911) - read: How to drum up pilots to fight the Kaiser.
- Basketry - really!?!
- Cinematography - And so we find what all those Steven Spielberg donations were really all about before he resigned in 2001.
- Collections - I guess it's deconstructionist to just claim one is collecting badges.
- Computers - That this was initiated in 1967 is a bit scary... Boy Scouts or Bilderberg!?!
- Fingerprinting - what was the motto again, To Serve and Protect?
- Golf - What!?! ...is that a Titleist?
- Graphic Arts - Teaching Scouts to Photoshop their first crush's face onto celebrity bodies.
- Indian Lore - I'm sure the folks in New Delhi will be thrilled.
- Journalism - Not a bad idea, but I'm at a loss as to who might be qualified to teach journalism these days.
- Mammal Study - read: Sex Ed.
- Motorboating - Getting ready for your future in the Hamptons.
- Railroading - Am I just cynical or isn't this the same as American Business?
- Rifle Shooting AND Shotgun Shooting - Two different badges. I suppose if you're bad enough at Rifle Shooting they just give you a Shotgun to spray your prey into tenderized little bits.
- Stamp Collecting - Soon to become Domain Squatting.
Like I said, I applaud the young man for enduring what must have been some torturous endeavors to attain all 121 badges. I'm curious as to whether, under the multiple Citizenship badges, Scouts are required to learn tolerance for sexual orientation as well considering the leadership fought like hell to remove Scoutmasters for being gay in 2000.
Then again the Scout Oath calls for all Scouts to be "morally straight".
I just went through a culture warp. I had this as a kid. 'Cause ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball.
Our "Year in Review" show even though I hate year in review shows. We hit the high and low points in tech, gadgets, movies, television and the web for 2008.
Hot on the heels of a Reuters story that speaks of pictures of women breastfeeding being censored from the site, several question have popped into my mind regarding the future of social networking as a part of life... okay, the title was a bit of tagline baiting.
Obvious question: If it was a man breastfeeding (or at least portraying the act of breastfeeding) would the reaction have been different? (All Family Guy fans, here's the clip you're looking for.)
If it is acceptable for a woman to breastfeed in public, how is not acceptable that an online social network of the same people cannot accept pictures of said act?
Second obvious question: Censorship concerns aside, why would anyone want to post a picture of themself breastfeeding?
The article quotes a FB rep who claims"the photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain." ...which users? Doesn't Facebook work on the premise that those who can see your pics should be friends or acquaintances? Why is a stranger trolling FB profiles for breastfeeders?
If social networks are to become the consolidated evolution of social intercourse in our society, then surely the gatekeepers of these networks should reflect the global views of the people that inhabit them and not the outraged complainers.
Third obvious question: Does this mean we're going to have a rash of women posting pictures of themselves breastfeeding to make a point?
Now don't get me wrong, I fully advocate a website's right to dictate terms of use. I just think a platform like Facebook, which claims such acts are necessary to "protect children", has done little to curb pictures and videos of people drinking, smoking, or pulling stunts which cause bodily harm. Aren't these practices potentially far more damaging to children than happening to see a nipple or two? Wasn't Facebook supposed to be doing a better job at keeping children off it's site where they may be subject to predators... especially the one's trolling for breastfeeding pics?
Fourth obvious question: Why should Facebook get to define obscenity?
Let's put our cards on the table. Facebook and other social networking platforms and sites want to move a large chunk of our social discourse and intercourse online, and, I'll admit, I've bought in. I tweet, facebook, myspace, plurk, friendfeed, and ping a-plenty. But we are coming to a crunch where the line will either be drawn or crossed as to the degree I can take such online exchanges. I would hope that all things that would be acceptable in my everyday life, between friends, families and acquaintances, would be fine in my online dialogues. I would hope that I wouldn't have to live in fear of a stalwart social networking site, on whim, pulling the plug on a tool I have now turned to in directing much of my communication. I don't want to think of how many old friends I follow solely on Facebook that would be lost if my account was ever pulled.
I don't like a website having that much power over my network. And while I fully admit that I am the one giving them the set up for such a fiasco to occur... isn't that their goal? Isn't the idea that Facebook can go to investors and sponsors and say we've got this demographic at this percentage, and they would leave us if Barack Obama told them to on Twitter? All it would take is the following checkbox beside a newly-uploaded pic: "If you think a child under 12 or their parent could be offended by this picture, please check this box and we'll ask any viewer to confirm age before looking." Let the users police themselves!
We are not idiots. We are not disrespectful. We are trying it your way, but with a user-generated monetization model you'd best listen to most of us and not just prudish porn miners.
Don't become like television networks that refuse to allow real language, situations, or views of the human body for fear of advertising revenues. Be the user experience we want and need you to be and we will follow you to the end of the web... or the year... or until you sellout... or until something better comes along - hey, we're nipple - I mean FICKLE!
For all of you crying the blues about an economic downturn, take some advice from the Canadian province of Manitoba. When the chips are down and people can't seem to make ends meet, there's a sure way to pump money into the economy while pumping your veins full of forget-your-troubles juice.
Manitobans break record for single-day liquor sales
"MLCC spokeswoman Diana Soroka said the holiday season accounts for 17 per cent of the province's annual liquor sales. And it will be another busy week in the lead-up to New Year's Eve, she said, adding customers seemed to be not only buying more liquor, but better liquor at this time of the year."
As a Canadian, it warms my heart to know the good citizens of Manitoba are not just drowning their consciouses in a cheap glass of ripple, but taking it to the next level all for the economy. With all the doom and gloom reporting that's been happening over the past few months, thake some time to raise a glass to Manitobans who know the best way to break an economic recession is to forget all about it.
Let me know what you think of my latest construction project. Of course I hired some people to help me out.
from smsless.com
In this article from the NY Times, we get a comprehensive explanation of how the economy of SMS/text messaging is clearly a price gouge, and that the idea of message numbers going up does NOT indicate proportional cost increases for the providers.
A few key quotations:
"All four of the major carriers decided during the last three years to increase the pay-per-use price for messages to 20 cents from 10 cents. The decision could not have come from a dearth of business: the 2.5 trillion sent messages this year, the estimate of the Gartner Group, is up 32 percent from 2007. Gartner expects 3.3 trillion messages to be sent in 2009."
"The lucrative nature of that revenue increase cannot be appreciated without doing something that T-Mobile chose not to do, which is to talk about whether its costs rose as the industry’s messaging volume grew tenfold. Mr. Kohl’s letter of inquiry noted that “text messaging files are very small, as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost carriers very little to transmit.” A better description might be “cost carriers very, very, very little to transmit.”"
"Srinivasan Keshav, a professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, said: “Messages are small. Even though a trillion seems like a lot to carry, it isn’t.” Professor Keshav said that once a carrier invests in the centralized storage equipment — storing a terabyte now costs only $100 and is dropping — and the staff to maintain it, its costs are basically covered. “Operating costs are relatively insensitive to volume,” he said. “It doesn’t cost the carrier much more to transmit a hundred million messages than a million.”"
"Once one understands that a text message travels wirelessly as a stowaway within a control channel, one sees the carriers’ pricing plans in an entirely new light. The most profitable plan for the carriers will be the one that collects the most revenue from the customer: unlimited messaging, for which AT&T and Sprint charge $20 a month and T-Mobile, $15."
The world wide web has many positive and negative attributes not the least of which, both positive and negative, is eliminating my need and desire to ever visit brick and mortar stores again.
I remember growing up in a time when the Mall was the touchstone of all social and pop cultural advancement. As an early teen I could easily wander from checking out the freaky animals at the pet store to meeting a friend who worked at the record store (they were still called record stores then) to checking out the t-shirt shack, food court, music sections of department stores, book stores and basically wander around aimlessly for hours. This was all, of course, before driving was an option and before I was permitted to hop the bus downtown.
Upon gaining the bus permission, my browsing became refined. The downtown core held five record shops worth checking out on a weekly basis with at least two bookstores and two comic book shops. There were also a couple of television stores that carried the latest video game cartridges for Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision, and, a couple of years later, Commodore 64 software. This was the first time in my life I could feel ahead of the curve on things. This was the time I was reading magazines on video games, musical instruments, and collectibles. I knew when things were coming out a month in advance and could save up money for something I really wanted because I'd read the advance reviews.
The ability to drive and a growing experience at the specialized shops allowed me to winnow down my browsing even further. I knew the best stores to maintain my comic book collection, my sports card collection, my video game addiction and even had "frequent buyer" discounts on all the LPs and cassettes I bought. Each Friday night would be a comic and record run. Each Saturday would be sports cards and video games. I had it down to a system, and the only thing that killed the system was my burgeoning knowledge.
You see, I am, by nature, a collector. I have to get parts three and four if I've got parts one and two. I purchased comic book series far after they ever remained good just for the completist in me. I would buy every album a band put out if I liked the first one I bought. I would sometimes avoid a comic book series or novel series altogether if I'd missed the first one or two installments. I liked to get in on the ground floor... it was for this reason I eschewed coming in late to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics and instead turned to the radical underground stylings of the Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters.
But knowledge is a costly thing. I soon found I could not keep up with everything I wanted to maintain this completist lifestyle and, as such, started to give up things altogether. I stopped buying comic books. I gave up hockey cards. I radically slowed down book buying. I focused on music and, while trying to keep up with growing PC options, the costs really put them out of my league. Besides, I had already learned how to tape over a notch in a 5.25" floppy in order to copy and recopy to my heart's content.
I moved into a time period where the only interest in any mall was books (more as a passing interest than a purchase) and music. And even then, the mp3 scene was bursting out with Napster and Gnutella clients. I had moved my browsing from windows and aisles onto web and ftp sites. I, essentially, forsook the mall.
I have the city's only worthwhile mall, by all accounts, a five minute walk from my house and I haven't been there in two years except to meet a friend at a restaurant inside. I remember renewing my license plate stickers two years ago at a kiosk just inside the doorway. I don't know or care to know any of the stores contained therein except for the ones with their illuminated signs emblazoned on the outside. I have been shopping online for over a decade. I remember pooling friends together to buy 500 blank CD-Rs and 1000 CD-R sleeves to get a discount rate. I research, discover, and comparison shop without leaving the comforts of home.
When I walk into the Brick & Mortar store these days, I feel out of place. I see people wandering around aimlessly looking at things and often feel that I should be doing so as well. I'll walk up and down the aisles looking at things I know about, don't want, and wonder why anyone would ever that price for it. When a sales clerk asks if I need help, I'll play the game and say, "No, I'm just looking." I don't want to make the clerks feel bad by letting them in on the fact that their jobs have become meaningless to me unless they have to unlock a display case. I try to make my Brick & Mortar experiences as long as possible to soak in the ritual that accompanies so many of the hoards that still shuffle aimlessly between the shelves.
In reality, but for checkout lines and slow debit machines, I should be out of any store in three minutes or less. I don't want the extended warranty. I don't want to upgrade to the "next" level. I don't want any advice from a clerk who's extent of technological knowledge is capped at chat clients and X-Box Live. CompUSA and Circuit City are victims of me and those like me who now have the tool to do the research, the comparison and often the purchase itself. Gone are the days of trusting a sales clerk to tell you if something is good. I've got a world of reviewers at my disposal and an endless supply of merchants willing to ship worldwide to my door.
Yesterday was Boxing Day in Canada, kind of like Black Friday in the US, and I haven't been there for years to take part. Even the online specials are almost meaningless. Unless I feel like a visceral cattle call in my near future, don't ever expect to see me rubbernecking the Brick & Mortars again. I've evolved.
So politics in Sweden has come down to the big question: just because someone treats politics a bit tongue-in-cheek, does that mean they can't do an effective job of representing a population in government?
The Pirate Party of Sweden has a membership that is outgrowing that of the Green Party, has 50% of all males under 30 ready to vote for them, and needs a 100,000 votes in total to get a seat in parliament. Swedens proportional system of government allows for the popular vote to dictate representation. That, as is common in North America, we are often restricted to a single choice, left-side/right-side conundrum may be traditional to us, but is hardly effective representation.
In Canada, for many years, we had the Rhino Party who proposed ludicrous ideas to maintaining the country, but, upon reflection, I sometimes wonder if the ludicrous is not what's often needed.
So here's to the Pirate Party. Avast ye scurvy dogs! Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! If I lived in Sweden, they'd have my vote just on the name alone.
