Word Virus » Twitter

Twitter is down mein fuhrer. I can’t stop laughing. Best subtitles ever.

gabriel — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:02:08 +0000

thedailywhat: Kemp: “Fail Whale (Star Wars Version)” The fail is strong with this one, etc. [more.]

gabriel — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:08:15 +0000

thedailywhat:

Kemp: “Fail Whale (Star Wars Version)”

The fail is strong with this one, etc.

[more.]

Twitter useless, says dying media.

gabriel — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:55:28 +0000

Twitter useless, says dying media.

juliasegal: Good news Darth Vader is on twitter! Bad news…this cat is not on twitter! I wonder if Bela would let me dress him up in this?

gabriel — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:27:04 +0000

juliasegal:

Good news Darth Vader is on twitter! Bad news…this cat is not on twitter!

I wonder if Bela would let me dress him up in this?

Twitter and the uninformed masses. Swine Flu from xkcd

gabriel — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:17:00 +0000

Twitter and the uninformed masses. Swine Flu from xkcd

I have found my Holy Grail

gabriel — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:36:14 +0000

I have been looking for a CD for the past 22 years. In a moment of complete coincidence, someone on Twitter mentioned Dag Nasty, and I stumbled across a reference to it on Last.fm. The CD is by a West Coast punk band called Doggy Style, entitled II. I owned it for many years on cassette, but like all my other cassettes, I had no easy way to listen to them any more. Every so often, I’d think about this album, and how Darrin and I would listen to it, over and over while skateboarding. I’d search punk stores, the internet, eBay, everywhere, never finding a trace or even a reference to it. I knew it existed, but like most of those small press punk classics of the 80’s, it had disappeared into obscurity.

It turns out, I’ve been looking for the wrong CD. II was only released on LP and cassette. However, it was re-released in 1999 on CD, as part of a double album called Don’t Hit Me Up. In 1988, Doggy Style released this CD, with all the tracks from II included. After a little searching, I found a copy on Amazon, and 2 minutes later, it was ordered. My work here is done. Now I only need wait the 4 days to re-live one of my all time favorite albums.

Twitter cupcakes – lomo: Ginga Blah » Tweet Sweet

gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:44:49 +0000

Twitter cupcakes – lomo:

Ginga Blah » Tweet Sweet

Why the music industry is still missing the point

gabriel — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:58:44 +0000

I rarely buy CDs. Rather, I rarely want to deal with “physical” music. I own over 3000 CDs, and with the recent 30th anniversary of the compact disc last week, it made me think about how I collect music. I bought my first compact disc in 1987, before I even owned a CD player. I still have that disc, Samhain’s Initium. Yet, over the past 5 years, I’ve made conscious decision to buy fewer and fewer CDs, in favor of digital copies. Don’t get me wrong, I buy a lot of music. And, if a nice collectors edition of something comes out, I’ll usually pick it up in CD form. However, whenever possible, I prefer to purchase digital only copies. There are several reasons. First, I just don’t have the space. I’ve reached the point where nearly all of my CDs have been boxed and placed in storage. Second, I don’t even own a CD player or stereo system. When we moved last year, I decided that it was just a waste, since all of my music listening takes place on a mobile device or computer. The stereo in my car has an iPod jack and it can play mp3 files. Why would have 10-15 CDs in my car, when I could have 200+ on my iPod?

So, what does this have to do with the music industry? They are so concerned about potential profit loses, that they make it hard for the majority of users to enjoy the music they own. Apple’s recent move to DRM free for most content and the DRM free content on Amazon is a step in the right direction, but I’m rarely going to just stumble upon music at one of these sources. The place I find music is on the internet: websites, blogs, streaming sites. In the past, I’ve usually avoided online radio, mainly because I hate the radio format. Years ago, I listened to lots of Shoutcasts, but even that became too commercial. I haven’t actually listened to the “radio” in over 20 years. Yet, somehow, I seem to find new music without any problem, and buy lots of it.

This leads me to internet services like last.fm and blip.fm. I’ve listened to lots of stuff on blip over the 6 months, usually through Twitter links and suggestions. I only recently joined last.fm, and in that short period of time, I’ve discovered more new music than I have in the past year. I stream last pretty much all day. My library and other people’s libraries. The funny part is, I’m not paying for this music, and as far as I know, the artist aren’t receiving any compensation for these streams. However, in the past 3 weeks, I’ve purchased 9 CDs, as a direct result, of music I’ve heard on other people’s streams.

What’s the lesson that the music industry can learn? If you let people listen and share music, they will hear more, and in turn, buy more. Trying to sell the same 20 artists year in and year out is not going to work any longer. The more music we can hear and the more diverse that music, they more likely we are to purchase more. Isn’t that what the music industry has wanted all along? Consume, consume, consume. Somewhere along the way, they became “consumed” with how much money they could potentially lose and failed to recognize how much money they could actually make.

Why IE6 will not die

gabriel — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:21:38 +0000

A few days ago, on Twitter, I posted a link to this graph:

As you can see, IE6 still has +20% market share of internet traffic. With the upcoming release of IE8, and the fact that there are other, and might I add, better browsers out there, that render pages correctly. I would hope that IE6 would eventual die. However, this does not seem to be the case. There was a interesting article on Slashdot this week about the State of Colorado’s Office of Technology. They posted a workshop, in which, they claimed that Internet Explorer 6 was the only secure web browser, and “It has been decided that Mozilla based, non-IE browsers pose a security risk.” The site has been taken down, probably in response to the Slashdot article. However, this sort of short sited IT mindedness, is the reason that IE6 will not die. As most developers know, there are a long list of security problems in IE6. I would never claim that Mozilla based browsers, or Webkit based browsers do not have security problems. I would also be the first to point out that Microsoft has done a much better job of addressing security issues in IE7 over the last year or so. However, there seems to be this sort of shortsightedness among IT professionals, trained in Windows based applications, to assume that Microsoft is the only way. They also seem to make this proclamations without regard for the truth, or for how none tech people will take and use such information.

Once again, can we please, just let IE6 die. It’s time.

Tweet Stats for March

gabriel — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:30:10 +0000

Tweet Stats: If the first 6 days of March are any indication, I’m on record pace this month on number of tweets. The graphs over at TweetStats tell an interesting story about my Twitter use. Over the past month, since switching to a 3G iPhone, my Twitter use has really jumped. It’s become one of my favorite sources of news and information, as well as, a place to meet and connect with people. Go find out what your Twitter trends look like.