Hm

It’s been a busy couple of days.

There’s a list of bands on my desktop I want to check out. I want to go and watch The Importance of Being Earnest. The kids have a COMPETITION on saturday they need to get ready for, and my uni app results are out tomorrow.

I feel quite relaxed. This gap year has been really good for me I think. It’s an amazing change of pace for me to be able to treat current affairs/history/lit as recreation instead of required reading. Sorry I dropped off the lookout ali, is that thing still going?

just up and talk

Nobody in the world is easier to talk to than a lit teacher. REALLY. In all honesty that’s one of my reasons for doing lit, right there. I mean, there has to be something to it if so many lit teachers turn out to be rather awesome individuals. I’ll really miss ib for the people, and that’s about it.

Well ok history and lit were pretty fun subjects. I still don’t understand physics and I have forgotten all my chinese ever. sorry, every lao shi who ever tried to teach me, it just fell out of my head.

Gorillaz

Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Taking over
But it won’t be long
They’re mesmerized, skeletons
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to

Drinking out (Push it real, push it)
Pacifier (Push it real, push it)
Vitamin Souls (Push it real, push it)
The street desire (Push it real, push it)
Doesn’t make sense to (Push it real, push it)
But it won’t be long (Push it real, push it)
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say “no” to

And they’re turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It’s all desire
It’s all desire
It’s all desire

photos

Went about wandering and got some photos. This batch didn’t turn out as good as I’d hoped. The big problem is that I have a better eye for interesting shots than ability to do exactly what I want. And it’s virtually impossible to read detail on that dinky little nikon LCD, so I’m pretty much guessing with exposure and metering.

I really should pick up post-production ability.

I’m getting a little sick of profile shots though. They’re just the least intrusive kind of photo that isn’t a shot of somebody’s back, and I want to be a bit more comfortable with quick two-second shots before I go sneak up on a bunch of guys loading a trawler using meat-packing hooks or whatever.

things things things

Oh, I picked up mirror’s edge today. It’s great fun. I keep on falling from high places though.

People keep asking me what I’m up to. Well, I’m burning through all the shows I ever wanted to watch but never had the time/opportunity. Tomorrow I’ll finish the Mad Max trilogy.

A tiny, rational part of me thinks I’m a little irresponsible for not getting a full-time job, but I know me well enough to know I’d probably not learn anything, I’d be terribly bored, and anyway coaching pays more than well enough. My last internship was a DISASTER, partly because my uncle was my boss’s boss, and as much as I love the guy he’s got a notoriously short fuse. So I spent my internship reading a book I found in my cubicle. It was about multiple-personality disorder. It wasn’t a bad read.

I’m having a lot of fun. It’s great stop-gap for a gap year, and it’s pretty awesome having time to meet up with people whenever I feel like it.

Daft Punk

This video always creeps me out a little.

discuss.

Oh look, here’s a clearly written defence against Young Earth Creationists. It’s really refreshing to read intelligent, well-thought out ideas like these.

I think you’d like this, Ali.

night drive music

I’ve never found an electronica group so darkly optimistic as the Crystal Castles. These guys are awesome. Melodic drifty electronica, overlaid with driving beats that hint of inevitability. It’s really the soundtrack to your pre-direction years.

Also, I want to watch Tron now.

Edit: Hey if you squint pacman’s at 2.59! Gotta love the 80s. I really missed villains who kill underlings in frustration.

skeptical of the new media

So here’s the unfashionable statement. I don’t believe that the internet has any transformative power for good as a platform for ‘new media’. I don’t believe in citizen journalism, or blogs-as-news-outlets, or magical creation of citizen involvement. I think it’s going to mess everybody up and make politics dirtier than ever.

So here’s 3-step reasoning as to why.

1. No barriers to entry

This is the obvious one. The big thing about the internet is that ANYBODY can get on it. News media, citizen bloggers, cranky right-wingers, anybody. And each and every one of them is capable of publishing news stories, presenting opinion pieces, organising campaigns, do cranky blog posts like this one, just about anything.

Pretty fantastic right?

But there isn’t any kind of vetting process. The downside to having the internet open to everyone is that everyone is on the internet. Imagine millions upon millions of news outlets of varying quality all competing for your attention, mixed in with bizarre memes, distracting social networking and an overload of trend-information.

Now, this wouldn’t be a problem if there was an objective way to filter through all the noise and get to the ‘good stuff’. The immediate response is that I’m being a twit and that it’s called ‘google’.

But here’s the thing. What exactly is ‘good stuff’?

2. Differentiation in new media

Now google, as we all know, works through an obscure formula that includes number of links from relevant sites, visitor hits, you get. So it’s like a huge popularity vote, kind of. More people frequent a site, the more votes it gets, ka-pow, it’s top of the listings.

But how does a site differentiate itself from the millions of others? It can’t be in well-researched pieces. The comparative advantage of the internet is in low-startup cost, minimal overheads, minimal staffing, which pretty much precludes a huge budget for, eg, a $500, 000 bureau in Kyoto.

Instead, sites rely on two things: speed of delivery and personality.

With a very fickle internet audience, you need pieces and you need them fast. You want to talk about the Republican amendments to the stimulus bill last month? Too bad, old news! You have to talk about something the moment it comes out. So citizen journalists can’t afford to go check things out personally. So they get their sources from, strangely, the existing news channels.

Essentially, citizen journos are twitter feeds for current affairs. So to make it seem like they are adding value, people on the internet add the only thing they can: opinions. There is therefore no such thing as objective internet journalism. Every. Single. Blogger. out there is a one-man/woman editorial show. Choose the sub-genre of news, the articles, fire up some sarcasm, you get ‘personality’ and a differentiated site. Like this one: I’m doing an opinion piece right now.

The ‘citizen journalists’ of the internet are filters. They become middle-men repackaging existing stories as ‘independent coverage’. We’ve just gone and added an extra layer of process for our news to pass through before it gets to us, all without improving our ability to find out new things.

3. Too much noise

Stay with me now. Last step, and most important. I don’t believe the internet results in any greater degree of political engagement because there’s just so much noise out there. By definition, there are opinion pieces out there forwarding almost every conceivable position on every little news stories. Except very few of these opinion pieces actually add meaningful dimensions. Why? Because a well-argued opinion piece requires access to all the facts. And who has time for that anymore?

This is why I’m a little annoyed by Obamania, especially outside the US. All this chatter about Michelle Obama’s ’super-toned arms’ and how great he is, but how many of the non-American Obamafans know his plans for the economic crisis, or his plans for the war on terror (continue), or his foreign policy ideology (quite hedged actually)?

Not alot. And the reasoning is, there’s already so many possible opinions out there. Why do I need one of my own? Much better to just keep surfing kitten memes and occasionally grumble about someone else’s politics. “I’m pretty sure I heard on the Colbert Report…“

:O

Somebody built a genuine, caterpillar-tread Rhino troop transport from a camp game about aliens fighting moody, gothic space marines. They even gave it a paint job and an army emblem. Then they smashed some cars up with it.

Is it even legal to own something like this

Edit:

Oh. Wow. Apparently it’s made from a real WW2 tank.

There’s actually a company called Tanks-A-Lot that operates and maintains a bunch of vintage tanks you can rent. Bonus points for that NAME.

We operate over 95 tanks on our challenging off road tank driving course and we are firmly established as the UK’s major specialists in corporate tanks driving, corporate events and fun days.

‘Corporate tank driving’ is, of course, a vital part of any modern business model. You have to specify it as part of your job expectations next to dental plan and health insurance.

“what, you guys don’t offer corporate tank driving! screw this, im out of here!’