I’m still playing with trendio and I’ve had a nice increase over the past week with the stock value. It’s not monetary but I have finally started to make some “profit”. It’s gone up by 16 percent in a week.
I need to keep it increasing more so I need to keep watching to see which are the best words to get.
Finally I’m home to a pc, linux and mac environment and I’m running joost. It’s not bad. At the moment it’s just filler content but nonetheless it’s interesting to see it work and interact with it. For a few days I can offer invites to anyone that wants one. Just put a comment and I’ll get back to you.
Andrew Keen’s new book, The Cult of the Amateur is the latest addition to the Newsnight book club. In it, the author expresses his concern for the profligacy of online amateurism, spawned by the digital revolution. This, he feels, has had a destructive impact on our culture, economy, and values. Web 2.0 is a state of play by which anyone generating content can share it with an audience of hundreds of thousands or even millions depending on its mass appeal. As a result, the quality of media content that certain generations are taking in has gone down. Whilst the occasional work on youtube may be good there are hundreds of thousands of clips that are absolute crap. They’re long takes with no editing, just letting things happen. One of these such videos is of a pack of buffalo by a stream. A pride of lions captures the young before a crocodile attempts to get its share of the kill. Unfortunately, it fails and the lions finally think their meal is ready. They didn’t plan on the herd coming back. The clip ends with the young buffalo rejoining its herd once more and the predators are still hungry. What is annoying about these two clips are the duration and the window size. An editor would do his best to find the key moments. In taking the key moments and making a one minute subject the audience would have gained far more. It would also have saved us time. In HD I’m sure it’d be beautiful but as a small window on a browser, it’s disappointing. That’s the issue with online material. Everyone believes that they can do what they want when they want and then share it with the world. One of the last twitters I received is from Ijustine which read “Just got yelled at for wearing ‘a webcam’” because she’s decided to do the same as Justin from justin.tv. What’s the point of this. I understand the appeal of something like twitter but the live streaming of video seems to be taking it too far. Why are so many people flooding the world wide web with such extraneous content? I don’t want to watch Ijustine sitting at her computer at 3 am as she’s doing as I type this. Where is the media literacy training that should come with this new generation of web users? Who is to decide what is socially acceptable or not. Is it acceptable to strap a camera to your head and film everything that is going on around you or is that a breach of confidence? Is it worthwhile? Who’s going to make sense of this new media landscape. Current TV is supposed to be one of the new waves of user-generated content but does it achieve this. How can you boast about creating a user-generated channel when it’s scrambled so that only through payment can you watch the channel. It’s contradictory. There is a group of podcasters who do a good job of creating web content. The TWIT podcasts are one of these, Mobuzz TV is another to a lesser degree. NPR’s On The media is fascinating. These are examples of how technology can be used to provide high-quality content for a lesser price. In summary, technology has made it easy for anyone with an idea for a program to distribute it widely over the world wide web. Most of it is absolutely terrible and no one would be interested in the content whilst other elements are brilliant. Whilst everyone is seeing this as a new form of communication there is a lot of material that will never appeal to a mass audience. We must simply wait for a new model to emerge whereby the flood of crap will decrease greatly. I’m looking forward to the end of this transition period
](http://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/amusing.jpg “Usage for today”)Here is a reason for the Halls ISP to complain. today’s usage 862 when the limit is only 500 a day. Look at how much bandwidth I have remaining though. How am I going to get through 26 gigs in thee days I wonder.
There are two things to write about. The first of these is that I recently tested the new mobile web version of the TFL website and it’s really good. It’s got a great user interface for a web based service and i think I’ll be using it from time to time when it’s needed. The second bit of info is that I’m moving into a house with 15 megabits per second web connection. I hope that the antenna is powerful to get up to my bedroom. It’s not hard to test anyway. It’s a top floor bedroom in zone two of the tube which means it’s cheaper to get around compared to living in zone four. There are quite a few shops close by although I need to scout the area properly beforehand. I may rent a car to move the stuff since it’s easier than doing three or four trips on the tube. Flat hunting was fun from the point of view that you can choose precisely where you live but in the long run it’s frustrating due to the fast rate of release and take up of flats in a city with over seven million people. Film students got to the end of an essay last night therefore quite a few were at the SU bar. I didn’t spend much time chatting with them but rather with some other friends. The night was particularly good and relaxed. There is one key reason for this. Summer’s here.
I listen to a lot of current affairs programs but occasionaly I enjoy listening to more light hearted podcasts. Over the past two or three days I have been listening to John Foster’s Beerschool. This is a podcast aimed at those who want to learn to appreciate more than one type of beer. He also jokes that “the best part about beerschool is of course the homework” which consists in drinking beer. It covers the San Francisco area speaking about a variety of beers and the breweries and bars where they are served. It’s a great resource for those who may drop by that part of the world and want to experience that aspect of the culture. Aside from this point I was recently mentioned in their podcast for a comment I wrote about the “Rockstar” program. I was quite amused by this.
Since I left Switzerland after doing some work on the 21st of February I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep for 85 days. That’s a long time. I wish there was a soundproof chamber into which I could go. What if I designed and built a soundproof bed? Wouldn’t be that complicated.
Petteri Koponen - May 4, 2007
Hi Richard, I think Jaiku is not proprietary at all: although we have our own Nokia S60 client, we have also 3rd-party mobile clients for practically all the Java-enabled handsets, Blackberries, and soon also for Windows Mobile. At the moment we have more than 20 3rd-party apps built on top of our APIs, ranging from mobile clients to iGoogle gadget and OSX + Windows clients. A more complete list can be found here. You can also use Jaiku via SMS and IM (IMified, soon also via our own IM bot): browser is not required, although quite a few people use Jaiku with it.
source Twitter is suffering and Jaiku is showing off about how great that website is in comparison. They omit to mention two facts. 1. It’s (giving the impression of being) proprietary, interesting mainly to Nokia users (at the moment) 2. It’s better online (requires a browser to take full advantage) Twitter is a mobile status tool of sorts –edit note– All text in italics is an edit following on from Petteri’s comment.
Sometimes you hear about writers and how they fall in love with their machines. I think I’ve begun to love my laptop. I’ve just spent an extraordinary amount of time writing so many words over such a period that the laptop has use marks. If you look at the trackpad you see that the right side is smoother. If you look at the keys they’re also smooth with use. The space bar has smoothed out where I always press with my thumb. There’s a dark mark where I rest both my hands when I’m typing. The monitor shows signs of degradation. The repetitive motion of the fingers has developed muscle reflexes that mean that as I sit in one place from which I see people walk by I can observe people and continue writing at the same time. In effect I’ve been touch typing for a year and every computer develops a certain amount of time for the reflex to be perfect. I’m a martial artist at the art of typing ;) Laptops are great because they become such a big part of your life. You use them every day, from the bad times to the good times, from nice locations to some of the worst. They’re there whatever the weather. They’ve got all your music, all your photographs, possibly some of your video projects and more. They’ve also got all the software you need from day to day work practices. They’re reflective of the person that uses them.