Disqus - Latest Comments for SquidLord

Re: Ping.fm / Uploaded Image from Alexander Williams

creativedv8tion — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:40:57 -0000

That's funny, I would've thought your tentacles would be plenty strong. *bowchickabowbow*

Re: Ping.fm / Uploaded Image from Alexander Williams

SquidLord — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:51:49 -0000

Hey, it's from my cell phone and tentacles aren't my most stable strength. :)

Re: How Not To Be Liked On FriendFeed

SquidLord — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:51:41 -0000

I just read feeds NOT about SocNet stuff via RSS. From elsewhere. Because FF is a truly lousy medium for actually being exposed to ongoing comment, discussion, and exploration.

At worst it's an overgrown chatroom with threading. At best it's a newsgroup with no focus and lousy filtering tools. Neither of these is good for research, understanding what's going on in the world, or news. That's why Hades invented Google Reader, after all.

Re: Are You Blogging or Journaling?

SquidLord — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:23:17 -0000

I would like to point out that aside from offering a distinction that's not a distinction, you may have missed the fact that all but the least of the bloggers and journalists do a lot more fact-checking than what passes for reporting in the mainstream media, if only because of the ease of and pressure to do something that used to be core to a good and important story: attributions.

TV reporters don't often attribute sources or references at all. Newspaper reporters only seem to do so erratically and with a definite air of "I know better than you what you need to know." But even the personal journalists are not only not shy but eager to cross-link to people they talk about, images they see, stories they're commenting on and so on. Hardcore bloggers generally won't be caught dead without footnoting the likes of which any 18th century correspondent would be jealous of, and any interested reader can chase those links all day long. If they do and come up with a different conclusion or a new source, they can immediately respond with and/or blog the new thing themselves.

In that and largely in the more traditional senses, bloggers / journalists are far seperated from the bulk of what traditional media think of as reporting, so much so that it seems overly divisive to not recognize that both actually do REPORTING better than the traditional media-imbued writers.

Re: Blog Design – Magazine Style vs Traditional Blog Style

SquidLord — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:11:43 -0000

I actually don't REALLY care for either format for sites which purport to be about providing me an ongoing list of articles which I may or may not be interested in full. The blog format instantly assumes I want to read everything about everything; while newer designs let me cut through their output with a lens made of keywords (but seldomly let me craft my own RSS feed from boolean sets of keywords, which I consider a serious oversight), the magazine style assumes I want to read everything on their site ... and truthfully, I just don't.

I have my own means of reading and organizing articles in front of me. These days, I use Google Reader but I'm sure a better reader interface for RSS'll come along eventually which'll leverage tagging from sources and me together to let me explore the space of updating article feeds. Neither the blog interface nor the magazine interface really embrace Web 2.0's core competency, letting ME have the power over my reading, not THEM.

I consider this a serious failure.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

SquidLord — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:30:37 -0000

Is it just me, or would Alex Jones be somewhat less inclined to go after, say, the bloggers on BLACKFIVE, who all tend to be current or past military men with -- say -- a bit of my attitude toward such social gracelessness. Ie. he's end up definitely getting a punch in the face and a bit of a curb stomping, possibly even a simple cool confrontation with biting sarcasm and the threat of snipers in play.

Honestly, you'd think the Left would draw away from this kind of show ... but this is the kind of thing Kos and his MoveOn travellers eat up. If that's not reason enough to know something there's broken.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

rizzn — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:36:43 -0000

That's a difficult case to make, I'm afraid. Perhaps my story would hold a lot more sway if I could remember the content of the jokes - they were along the lines of "the darkies shouldn't vote," like PJ mentioned above.

I agree that a black fellow as head of the KKK would be far more entertaining, though.

As an interesting side note, I did a bit of research last night when I wrote this up to make sure my KKK terminology was correct (I couldn't remember of the kid's dad was Grand Wizard or Grand Dragon), and the official Texas KKK's website doesn't list an official Van Zandt county branch, which I take to mean that it's either been shut down due to lack of interest, been driven underground, or the KKK is just not very current in its record keeping.

If there are any East Texas locals lurking here, I'd entertain any comments from the peanut gallery with your speculations on which it is.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

SquidLord — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:55:31 -0000

You do realize the counter-argument to this: "The shocking part of the tale was how racially derogatory terms (inside and outside the context of the jokes) were used for Mexicans and blacks in the presence of the Mexican and black fellow, and how they simply took it in stride and appeared to genuinely laugh at the jokes at their races' expense. The cavalier way they accepted the hateful terms and roles the white fellows leveled towards them was jaw-droppingly nuts, and to me indicated a state of institutional racism that still existed in the area."

The idea that they didn't consider it racist. They weren't offended. No, really and for true, their feelings weren't hurt at all! They were three hard guys sitting around in a jail cell together talking shit. If you can't call your brother a nigger or a spic in that situation, you're going to get your ass whupped, frankly. As I see it, that's the absolute paragon of non-racism and tells you how far the rural South has come in racial understanding. True integration doesn't mean you erase the words from history and pretend it never happened, true integration is where everyone laughs at them, passes a smoke, then tells a redneck joke and proceeds to kick the ass, comunaly, of the skinny white city kid because he obviously just don't get it.

Now, the fun part is when you get to the racists who seem to do it reflexively. I'm waiting for the day when a black guy ends up as head of the KKK in some backwater town and everyone's cool with it. On that day, you can truly say that racism is dead. Or at least far more entertaining.

(That reminds me, I need to find someone to be The Killer Spic on BSU. I already HAVE the Angry Black Chick.. Hmmm, need to add to my collection of freaks and absurdities ...)

Re: rizzn's personal blog

SquidLord — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:28:41 -0000

So ... If you want to compensate people because you like their work and want to reward it, encourage it, total win. Offer them some cash and tell them why, THAT reason ... Strangely, I think you'll get a lot more happy, rewarded people than if you straight-up said you want to syndicate their content for your site. Clearly, the issue of compensation and what's just is in flux in the community, but people a reward for producing something you like, explicitly -- that's a whole different cultural artefact.

If you offered folks in the current blogosphere a lump sum, on the one hand for rights and the other for reward. I'll bet you'd have more takers of the rewarding hand, even if the monetary values from your perspective are identical.

I think there's something there worth experimenting with.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

rizzn — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:28:25 -0000

Well, that's part of my motivation. I'm very interested in pioneering a full featured business model that's sustainable and efficient for a New Media news organization. What I see as equitable and what's being practiced, though, are two different things.

I do think the creator should be rewarded - I firmly believe that. Its going to be ultra-hard to compete in an environment where ventures can both maintain a positive reputation AND take content from commercial publications with impunity (speaking within the confines of this discussion and not venturing out into the larger discussions of fair use and such).

Re: rizzn's personal blog

SquidLord — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:44:22 -0000

The advantage of being a tremendously cynical bastard is getting to say things like that. :)

Me ex-gf is a doctor, and she dragged me off to class for a week when I visited once. Pharmakinetics was interesting, even though I kept reimagining the designs as OOP instance architectures, but my favourite bit was Ethics. Which confuses people because they think I don't have any ethics but what they mean is morals. Anyway, her ethics prof had a favourite phrase: "But you'd be a damn fool if you did," as regards to "right things" that were nonetheless stupid, like admitting you'd damaged someone's $400,000 car when there were no witnesses.

You'd be a damn fool if you paid for content, dude. Unless you do it PURELY because you think the creator should be rewarded. Like a donation.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

rizzn — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:56:45 -0000

I really can't find anything to argue with here. :-p You sorta pegged it.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

SquidLord — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:42:53 -0000

Mark, short version: You're a fool to pay for content AS LONG AS you can get it for free with no repercussions. At the present time, it looks like not only can you, you can do it and dance a happy jig while people shower you in golden wreaths. Next week, maybe, maybe not. Paying for content is ALWAYS safe -- but if you could have gotten away with not paying for content for 6mo, then that's 6mo of pay you could have kept for profit.

And that's the rub. It's gambling, but gambling is big in Web 2.0.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

SquidLord — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:01:29 -0000

Israel listed as of 7:02a Eastern, anyway.

Re: Whispers of the Hackopalypse | The dirty little secret of newspaper journalists...

SquidLord — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:15:57 -0000

Either way, really. When you think about it, sorting to irreverance is an important filtering mechanism, too.

Re: Whispers of the Hackopalypse | The dirty little secret of newspaper journalists...

oneman — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:37:04 -0000

Or just renders it irrelevant by ignoring the blogger in question.

Re: Whispers of the Hackopalypse | The dirty little secret of newspaper journalists...

SquidLord — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:16:36 -0000

I utterly and completely agree with this quote. The painful truth is that bloggers in many cases have more editorial oversight than many "journalists," in the sense that their readership is quick to correct less than adept writing.

Re: Real World Social Media Slaps Feldman Back To The Bush League

SquidLord — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:10:18 -0000

So ... what you're saying is that the truth doesn't matter, the facts don't matter, only what you imagine the facts to be matter?

Yeah. And they say I'm unduly cynical.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

rizzn — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:46:07 -0000

The framerate isn't a function of my camera but more the jickyness of my computer. Sometimes I get some excellent framerates, sometimes it just kills it.

I'm upgrading from Vista to XP soon, so that problem should fix itself.

Re: rizzn's personal blog

SquidLord — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:37:37 -0000

The video player itself is rather nice. Solid pop-up bar at the bottom, nice resolution. The icons aren't immediately intuitive and don't have any mouseover text if the pointer hovers a bit, which it probably needs to really be user friendly. Otherwise, it's sleek and straightforward.

Now, your webcam, on the other hand ... Nice res but we won't discuss the framerate. And let's get you a decent boom mic with an audio gate to kill some of the background buzz; easy enough to put together the audio stuff.

If anyone should be embarassed by the BMW and Ford ads ... it's the WSG. Where in the world did they find this Stephanie Krug? All the energy and immediacy of watching grass grow. Voice talent with some style isn't hard to find. I might suggest they start by checking their intern list for someone who isn't on Lithium ...