Certainly, I’ve been more bored in my life. Usually, as a journalist, I’m being paid to be bored to death. This time, at this conference on how health care industries can use social media to enhance their public relations and marketing, I had paid almost two hundred bucks to observe massive piles of old news.
There was, of course, the gigantic movie-style screen on the center of the stage of the auditorium of the midtown facility, showing endless PowerPoint slides. Continue reading
Remember the data visualization of racial and ethnic divides in America we saw a few months ago? The man behind it all, Eric Fischer, is back. This time he looked at geotagged Flickr photos and Twitter tweets to create See something or say something. He used red dots to represent Flickr photo locations and blue dots to represent the locations of tweets. If something was posted to both, a white dot was used. Like his previous projects, the results are pretty and informative. Continue reading
Friends. Who needs ’em? Well it turns out that we all need ’em. Without friends, who will bail us out of jail, run to CVS for the Morning After pill or send us those dirty text messages?
And you know who really needs friends? Craigslist People! In the Gathering of the Juggalos on Poppers-esque subterranean hellscape that is Craigslist, a “friend” is someone who is game for whatever random quasi-illegal fetish you’re into. It’s a beautiful thing, really.
Quick question. How many bearded men do you follow on Twitter? If you answered less than 5 you are a total slacker. There are two important things about following people (or spam bots) on Twitter, you should have a well rounded list of both bearded and non-bearded people and you should always be loyal to your fellow Crasstalkers.
The good news is now you can combine those two guiding lights of Twitter following.
I am a space geek. A massive space geek. In sixth grade, I saved up the money I got for delivering our HOA newsletter and bought a telescope, which I used to look at the moon every night, until my dad yelled at me to get off of the roof. I talked my mom into pulling me out of class to drive 60 miles east to Mojave to watch the space shuttle land. We were so far away that it was a white blur distorted by miles of heat coming off the desert floor, but I loved every second of it. I ditched work to see SpaceShipOne take its two trips into space. On Friday, weather permitting, the longest program in the short history of spaceflight is coming to a close. Why am I not unhappy about that? Continue reading
NOTE: I am not some computer genius. I’m a guy who surfs the net a lot and tries to fix his computer himself. I know a bit more than my parents about computers, but
I am in no way Tim Berners-Lee.
Thanks to the fine folks over at Demonoid, I grabbed a copy of 0x 7 yesterday and installed it on my laptop.
First things first: You can only run this if you have a Core 2 Duo or i5 or i7. Don’t think your old G4 Cube can handle this operating system. Also, Core Duos, sorry, you’re out. You guys are the new Power PC. Second, there’s no installation DVD. You download and launch the .dmg and everything else is taken care of for you. This was especially welcome to me, because my DVD drive broke after I dropped my laptop. Just double click the .dmg, and let it sit for around 45 minutes (my black MacBook – 2.2 Ghz core 2 duo – told me it would take 30 minutes, but that bastard lied to me) and then you’ll be done. Continue reading
September is coming soon. Not soon enough as it’s also the month of my birthday. Yes, I’m a lovely Libra. That’s why I’m so balanced. Actually no, that’s the meditation I do in the mornings. Another thing September is likely to bring us is a new iPhone 5 and the rumors and speculation about that are already flying. Calm down though: There are a few Things We Already Know: © Continue reading
I didn’t get a cell phone until 2004, when I was a freshman in college. I have pretty much broken, lost or somehow damaged nearly every phone that has had the misfortune of belonging to me. If there is some kind of Toy Story shenanigans going on at the T-Mobile store, my name is whispered in hushed tones by hot pink flip phones who fear to be purchased by me. My alternative theory is that the things that I say or text with my cell phones are so inane that they all commit suicide rather than be owned by me for a period of longer than six months. Continue reading
Like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai, I interrupt your Golden Calf internet orgy to present to you the Ten Commandments of Internet Commenting. I bring them down from an angry internet God who has judged you and found you wanting.
Much like the other God, they are presented without comment or explanation. Because, honestly, they should be self explanatory. But you can spend the next 2000-3000 years discussing and misinterpreting and generally believing they don’t apply to you.
Those of us on the American coasts may be familiar with a website network called Patch. Basically it’s a blog covering extremely local news. It’s a great way to stay current on local events, politics and shopping. My local version is Long Beach, NY. Since our local paper is owned by the local cable network, it’s refreshing to get a different perspective on things.
