trip.

This weekend my girlfriend and I went on a little trip. We went to see my family in Minneapolis, and also went to get some new records (we’ve been dying for some new LPs). We scored some great new (and some not-so-new) records. We got a new Tara Jane ONeil LP, which although we haven’t listened to the whole thing, it seems like it’ll be quite unique. Also, to satisfy my need for epic open-riffed guitar rock, I scored the new The Nina The Pinta record.

kanye…the best, i guess.

For anyone who’s into popular music at all, it’s no secret that Kanye West really likes himself, especially since his mother died. Kanye was all over this years Grammy Awards, complete with an oddly inappropriate a capella song for his dead mother.

One of my highlights was a complete surprise to me when it happened. It started out as a classic Grammys moment, Vince Gill wins an award (like he does nearly every year). I prepared myself for a rather dry and boring Vince speech, but this year, good ol’ Vince must’ve had something to drink before hand, as he unleashed this epic line:

I was completely amazed. Kanye must’ve been getting on everyone’s nerves that night, since there were a couple other Kanye zingers thrown out. I’ve said it before, and I’ll for sure say it again: Kanye’s definitely not the best there ever was. If anything, The Beatles were.

i’ll probably be referencing this a lot

The more I think about the Web 2.0 movement, the more nervous and scared I get. I read this book once, entitle The Cult of the Amateur. Essentially the book is a former Web 2.0 insiders view on the negative possibilities of the movement. It’s quite a compelling read, and I suggest it to anyone, internet junkie or not.

Here’s a bit from the first chapter of the book:

Look at Wikipedia, the Internet’s largest cathedral of knowledge. Unlike editors at a professional encyclopedia like Britannica, the identity of the volunteer editors on Wikipedia is unknown. These citizen editors out-edit other citizen editors in defining, redefining, and then reredefining truth, sometimes hundreds of time a day. Take, for example, July 5, 2006, the day Enron embezzler Ken Lay died. At 10:06 A.M. that day, the Wikipedia entry of Ken Lay said he died of an “apparent suicide.” Two minutes later, it said the cause of death was an “apparent heart attack.” Then at 10:11 A.M., Wikipedia reported that the “guilt of ruining so many lives finally led him to his suicide.” At 10:12 A.M., we were back to the massive coronary causing Lay’s demise.

One problem with websites like Wikipedia is the lack of credible journalism. The sources of information, if any, are most likely other blogs, and if there is a legitimate source, bloggers tend to either steal the content and not quote the source, or they do cite the source properly, but it’s still simply a repost. This calls into question: what’s the point of a blog?

Most blogs that are popular are news-related blogs. These blogs get their information from established, credible news sources, like The New York Times. The problem is that these blogs, while reposting these news items and spreading them to a degree, are not helping out the source at all. In fact, they are stealing the information from the source in a sense. Lots of people get their news from blogs, and they do not realize where the blogger got the information. Also, blogs had led to a decrease in readers for their sources. So what happens when bloggers have sucked all of the life out of their sources, and the sources have to quit or change dramatically? Read the book.

this isn’t news to me…

I was just over at Digg, and I noticed this was the most popular article:

“A computer shop’s sales pitch: We remove Vista.”

This is no surprise to me. I’ve used Vista before, and even it if worked properly, it’d still be on the bottom of my list due to the fact that essentially no computers can run it up to speed. It’s a NIGHTMARE!

The part of the article that I found the most truthful was how customers of the store have repeatedly asked to have their machines downgraded to XP. What’s interesting about that to me is that I work at Bemidji Communications, and we do this sort of thing daily. We downgrade computers that come with Vista preloaded, and we do lots of fresh XP installs. Also, we try to talk customers out of Vista when they’re buying a machine. It’s just a nightmare for us to deal with all the phone calls we get about the OS.

In the article, the store manager says that “a lot of the manufacturers forced people to go up to Vista,” and this has been creating a lot of the issue. This is also true. We at BemCom deal with people daily who order their PCs online through Dell or HP, and when the PC arrives, the customer surprised that it is running (barely) Vista. And what’s with all the variants?!? Jeepers.

I’m not a Microsoft fan, nor am I an Apple follower (I actually get more annoyed by Steve Jobs than most people in the computer industry). I’ve always been a free software kinda guy. Call me crazy, but I’d rather use something that’s a bit more difficult and has no strings attached than something that costs a lot, has crappy service, and doesn’t work.

mr. cormac

About a year ago I read a book called The Road.  It was written by Cormac McCarthy in 2006, and is one hell of a book.

I’ve always really enjoyed the idea of post-apocalypia as fodder for a plot or storyline.  28 Days Later and the original Japanese cut of Godzilla are a couple of my favorite films.  It’s a bit harder to find novels (at least in my experience) on that theme.  Sure, there’s the classic negative-utopia books like Brave New World, or 1984, but that’s a different subject all together.  For me, it’s all about the doomsday.  Bring it on.

What brought this on was when I went and saw No Country for Old Men the other day, which was written by McCarthy.  It was a fabulous film, and it made me remember reading The Road, and how much I got sucked into that story.  So I did a little research.  And yes, The Road is being adapted for the screen, and I believe it is currently in production.  The lead is rumored to be Viggo Mortensen, which could be promising.

I am definitely excited.  I can’t get enough.  Bring it on.

cold!

Alright. What gives? Why so cold, Earth? I think the ocean currents have been messed up due to far to much fresh water being introduced into the ocean because of melting icecaps, but c’mon! It’s a cold one.

Today, I missed my Blogs and Wikis course. Why? Because of my car, and also because of public transportation. This morning, according to wunderground.com, it was -19 F. My car said no. Public transit also said no, as they were not running today. Why? Because ISD #31 was canceled. Last I heard, public transit and school buses were not quite the same thing. On days when peoples cars won’t start, having the buses running would be a good idea, methinks.

In the end, I was finally able to get the car jumped, and got to school in time for my noon class, but I still hate missing class. I hope it’s nicer tomorrow.

apartments

My girlfriend and I recently moved into our new apartment…straight across the hall from the old one.  It has been the easiest move ever.  Literally straight across the hall.  We could open both doors, and shuffle the couch and other large objects straight on though, which on a super cold day like today, is a very nice thing.

The apartment itself is over twice the size of our old one, which is a great thing, since the other one we outgrew probably before we even moved in.  Oh, and this one doesn’t have carpet in the bathroom.  Score.

credibility

In our text, The Blogging Book, by Aliza Risdahl, it is said in chapter 2:

Look closely at blogs you are visiting for research. Can you identify who is behind them? What proof do you have that the creators are reputable?

What a very simple, and surprisingly not obvious enough, bit of advice from the author. I feel it is far to common for people online to use blog, wikis, and other sources of free and public-editable content as sources for their information. It is more common that not, in some cases, for today’s college and high school students to use Wikipedia as a source for information regarding a research topic. This is strongly frowned upon by many universities. In fact, some universities will give failing grades to students who use these sorts of sources. I think this is a very important point. Blogs and wikis are generally good sources for information that is simple, or easy enough for a very general description to suffice.

k.

Hello. This is a weblog for my Weblogs and Wikis course. It sould be a pretty nifty time. Hope all is well with everybody, and I hope you enjoy this weblog.