Searching the dark recesses
The internet is pretty good at having information but not always so good at the sharing of it.
“Did you see that video? Thing You Did With A Banana? It was so funny!”
Nope. Never heard of it. Now I feel more left out and more like an outlier than ever before. Well played, internet.
You know what’s not well played? The video itself.
There I was, in my own living room, feeling all dejected because when it came to Thing You Did With A Banana I didn’t even qualify for a participant ribbon. Not only had I never seen it. I’d never even heard of it. Since this is how I measure my worth as a human being I was feeling sad and dejected.
Luckily we recently souped up our home entertainment system with a device that has YouTube built in. I decided to undertake a quest. I was going on a mission to search and destroy.
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The Blog That Wasn’t There
Today we take a peek behind the blogger’s curtain. If we want to wax poetic, we could call it A Day In The Strife. Either way, this portends dust bunnies and little else of value.
House dust mites are ubiquitous everywhere humans live indoors. Positive tests for dust mite allergies are extremely common among people with asthma. Dust mites are microscopic arachnids whose primary food is dead human skin cells. They do not actually live on people, though. They and their feces and other allergens they produce are major constituents of house dust, but because they are so heavy they are not long suspended in the air.
Source: Wikipedia – Dust
Right out of the gate and a fascinating factoid already got slipped in. See? That’s the power of blogging. Take a deep breath and let’s begin!
An effective blog post requires several key components: A premise, a point of view, words, pictures and other things. That leaves me out. To that end I often find myself researching my own historical archive of posts. Perhaps I want to link a phrase back to something I wrote before. Perhaps I want to revisit a particularly riveting and interesting idea.
Remember, this is all theoretical.
If you’re like me, you got bedazzled and bamboozled by the sheer spectacle of the promised internet. It was going to be this shiny, vast repository of knowledge. It was somehow implied that this would be a Good Thing ™.
A big piece of this bamboozlement was the heralded “hyperlink.” This was going to be a little information workhorse that magically tied it all up, just like the Force binds you, me and the rock together. Unfortunately, it turned out that hyperlink was one of the most gamed inventions in human history and, even worse, had the lifespan of a fruit fly doing the backstroke in a bowl of malathion soup.
We interrupt this blog post to report that the dumb ass author prematurely pounded the Publish key quite by accident. This is another crucial part of blogging. It’s called The Instant Two Part post.
To be continued…
Singer/Songwriter Tom B. Taker
Oh yeah. Residuals. I now will feck you up with a spirited rendition of an a cappella performance piece I wrote while on vacation. And no, it wasn’t in Wyoming. That’s just an unfortunate naming coincidence.
I have to admit, this is one of the crappiest songs I’ve ever written.
Make the jump to view the video goodness. Enjoy!
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You’ve got blockage
A year ago today I blogged about Google pulling out of China. Google had redirected google.cn to google.com.hk. I just verified that still holds true as of this morning.
Also being reported is that China has closed 130,000 internet cafes during the last six years in an attempt to control information available to its people.
China, prominently showcased as the site of the 2008 Olympics, initially stated that Internet access would not be censored at the Olympic Village press center. However, journalists that arrived at the press center found that sites containing politically sensitive matter were inaccessible and learned that the IOC had quietly agreed to “some of the limitations.”
According to Wikipedia, China’s internet censorship does not extend to Hong Kong:
The controls come about a year after Google removed its Chinese language Internet search engine from China and relocated it to Hong Kong, where Beijing has few controls.
Now Google and China are at it again. Yesterday Google accused China of “disrupting” Gmail service saying it was due to a “government blockage.”
Beijing has long had some of the world’s strictest Internet controls. But after pro-democracy demonstrations broke out in the Middle East in January, the Chinese government seems to have intensified effort to censor Web content and disrupt Web searches related to calls for similar protests in China.
China currently blocks other social media sites so prominently featured in pro-democracy demonstrations in other countries recently like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
Both quotes are from The New York Times.
Meanwhile, China has intensified condemnation of Libyan air strikes and Libya’s top oil official in Tripoli said that oil contracts could be offered directly to China. Along with Russia, China abstained from a U.N. resolution calling for a ceasefire in Libya. India has also criticized the attacks on Libya.
As if that wasn’t enough, China recently was targeted in the crosshairs of none other than Sarah Palin:
I personally have huge military concerns about what is going on in China. What’s with the buildup? You don’t see a tangible outside threat . . . to that country. Is that just for a defensive posture? How can that be? Stockpiling ballistic missiles, submarines, new-age ultramodern fighter aircrafts. It certainly means America needs to be vigilant looking at what China is doing.
–Sarah Palin, speaking in India, March 19, 2011 (Source.)
The destinies of the United States and China seem to be converging in a variety of ways. The question is, how will that all play out? Will we ever so pro-democracy demonstrations in China like we’ve seen in Egypt and other countries? It sure seems unlikely but 2011 has been a strange year so far. Who knows?
Association out of sync
What do you mean I'm blurry and out of sync?
The dawn of the 21st century was the dawn of a new era. We had it all – or so we thought.
First, it was the 21st century. If that doesn’t sound ultra modern and bitchin’ then I don’t know what does.
Then we had the computer, improving life for us all. Some didn’t even require hourly rebooting. Our technological leaps were truly impressive.
Lastly, we had the internet, the magical conduit to all things possible.
There, at the apex of our society, came YouTube, at long last bringing audio out of sync with video to the masses. At last we had it all. At last we had achieved true greatness.
Never before in the history of civilization had the entertainment value of out-of-sync audio been made available to so many. Advanced nations around the world had finally achieved the dream and we able to relax and enjoy the good life, one filled with blurry and confusing sound and images. And it was YouTube that made it all possible.
Some took the easy way out and compensated for the effect with drugs, which they said made the videos watchable again. But most chose to confront reality head on, grapple with it, and eventually fail.
In their memory I offer this rousing clip:
Good news and bad news – RAWR
First the good news: I just made a YouTube video where I completely and utterly own the IP (intellectual property) rights. It’s mine, all mine! Mwuhahahahaha!
What does that mean? Several things, actually.
Some douchebag lawyer in an office building can’t decide it infringes on anything and go whining to YouTube. And YouTube can’t give up a weak knee-jerk response and pull the damn thing down before they even stop to check what’s in it.
It also means that since I’m the content owner that the video won’t be restricted based on country. (What? There are people outside of the United States? Who knew!) It’s almost like we’re not even the only people who matter. So yes, even my friends who are not in country will be able to watch.
Another perk is that I can embed the damn thing as much as I want. Eat that, You Tube.
Gee, that’s a lot of +1 goodness.
Now for the bad news: The video is my cat craving an ice cube.
Bon Appétit!!!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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