Tag Archives: this modern world

Yeah, I’m still alive.

Renos done, twice the time, twice the price, wahey.

Feel like I’m juggling many many things, but I’m not really. I do have lots of ideas and I’m kinda throwing a bunch of stuff out there to see what sticks.

Oh, and for NaNoWriMo this year, I’ve decided to get my last year’s effort into shape, which I’ve been meaning to do for nearly a year now! but if I can write the thing in a month, I should be able to edit it in a month, now that it’s had a year to gel.

Maybe for December I’ll do a month of music, and get that song that’s been in my head for so long nailed down, now that I have some good tools :D

Minxilla.com has been given over to the WGB July 2012 Meat, for now, and there are some plans percolating for that, as well.

Just not too chatty right now! or busy on the social medias.

Also, Go Occupy Wall Street! and down with overbearing police departments. Rubber bullets are not an appropriate response to non-violent demonstration in the USA. Oh, that pesky First Amendment.

Social? Media

So there’s been a plethora of “new” social media lately. Well, if two = a plethora. OK, so not that many! but still, two remarkably similar (visually, at least) alternatives to Facebook, The Evil Grandaddy of Social Networking or whatever it’s called today.

First, by release, is Google+. Google+ had the advantage of being part of Google’s less-than-evil empire, and pretty good integration with all of their other stuff, which half the world already uses. I mean, I suppose I’m not necessarily typical, but I use GMail (several accounts), Google Apps for my business email, iGoogle to corral my RSS feeds and a few other bits and pieces, and I had tried Google Buzz and Google Wave, although they pretty much fizzled out in spite of some good things. So I could be more heavily-Googled than many, I don’t know.

So I got a coveted invitation, and quickly spread the joy as far as I could. People complained, “It doesn’t DO anything,” forgetting that the first component of one of these systems is the user: the user has to fill it up with pictures and jokes and stories and links and so on and so forth. It also needs a critical mass of users, which I think had been a problem with all of these Google things: where Facebook has been around for years now, and even your mom and your friend from 10th grade are all on there, they’re not on Google+ and not likely to join. And the hip thing about Google+ is the “circles” feature that lets you share things selectively, among certain friends but not others. But somehow we weren’t eager to invite all the old rellies and long-lost acquaintances of Facebook into our private circles.

Google has the +1 possibility, which is a little different from the Facebook “like” and has that implemented across other things like your Google searches. They also have the intriguing Huddle, which allows multiple users to video chat at the same time, like a super-Skype. Usage (mine and others’) has been kind of in fits and starts, the Google+, and then they added games. Well, I like a good game, so I started to play one. I got sucked in enough that I actually spent some cash money for credits. Their game is a LOT more expensive to play than the Facebook game I’ve put cash into. Like, exponentially more expensive. I finally had a “screw it” moment yesterday when for the billionth* time, it wasted minutes of use of my item that cost credits because the servers are overloaded or the game just isn’t built properly, or whatever the problem is, but I’m not into waiting for shit to load for minutes at a time.

So after Google+ came out, there were rumblings on the twitters that it looked a LOT like Diaspora*. Diaspora* was the original answer to Facebook, trying to capture all the people who leave Facebook in waves as various privacy barriers are breached. Diaspora* had been in alpha for a very long time (and I’d been on the waiting list for nearly as long, it seemed), but earlier this week or last week, they started talking about releasing invites, finally.

A friend got Wm Gibson to wrangle him an invite (excellent use of online resources), and he was kind enough to share with me.

Visually, it’s nearly identical to Google+ and if I were Diaspora…well, I guess all you can do is be flattered at the imitation. The Diaspora Aspects (stupid name, btw) were presumably the template of the Google+ Circles. No games yet, and a really empty, echoey feeling, but it is still in Alpha, officially, so we can expect things to get better.

I have more than 600 Facebook friends (many just game friends), and around 40 Google+ friends, and a mere 11 Diaspora* friends, so far. It’s hard to tell how it will be, but if they can successfully scale up to accommodate a bunch more users, I think they’re in with a chance.

We’ll see how it goes. If anyone wants an invite (to Google+ or to Diaspora*) do let me know and make sure I have your email.

* Possible exaggeration.

Utterly shocked

today to learn that I know an actual living, breathing creationist. Who is under the age of 80. And is convinced of the high quality of the education that led to that belief. (I think indoctrination would be a more accurate name for it, but whatever.)

I have a hard enough time trying to comprehend theists, really, anymore (although it’s the actual, corporate, religions that disgust me, while theism tends to just bewilder me), but trashing all of the science of the past 150 years or whatever it is, deciding that you know better than Charles Darwin?

How does anyone do that?

Weirdness.

I have had four random strangers with realllllly long gmail addresses subscribe to this blog.

I’ve deleted them on principle, since I don’t know them, and it’s easy enough to bookmark the blog if you have an overwhelming interest in it. Subscription doesn’t confer any posting or editing powers or anything.

If there’s some reason you want to be subscribed, random strangers, comment and tell me so :)

Actually, it’s even weirder if you consider that there’s nowhere to subscribe on the page, that I can see.

Modern Grace

I tweeted this thought some time ago, making me guilty of what I am about to decry. Yay me!

With the social networking that so many of us are involved in, we have tons of opportunities to talk to each other. Most of my friends, both real life and strictly internet-based, are available to me through any number of the following media: public message boards, private message boards, livejournal, facebook, blogs, email, and twitter. There are a few with whom I communicate only using one of those, but mostly it’s two or more.

There is a certain amount of overlap, obviously. People briefly announce on facebook something that may occasion a more substantial blog or board post. There is the devil’s tool which automagically tweets your facebook status updates, or is it that it facebooks your twitter updates? I’m not sure, but several of my twitter friends are also facebook friends, and there’s nothing like getting same-day reruns…kind of like staying glued to a cable news channel for too long. There are people who disseminate stuff on one or another medium which you are fully aware they have found through a mutual friend…who is not given the customary hat-tip. SHOCKING!

So I maintain that the modern social networking reality requires, and will, with luck, engender, Modern Grace.

Modern Grace is knowing which immediate things to disseminate on Twitter; which longer-term things are made for Facebook; and which substantial thoughts really belong on a blog or board. Which isn’t to suggest that boards are worthy only of substance, because they aren’t, exclusively. To me, it also means crediting your sources. And most importantly, acknowledging and apologizing if necessary for heinous cross-posting, which may make your friends decide to pare down the number of places in which they interact with you.

Or may not!

I don’t find that “networking” with so many people in so many places is redundant—well, not in the cases where the people have attained at least a modicum of grace.

And of course,

no sooner did I thank the powers that be for Skype and internet than the Main Distractor lost the wifi he was hijacking. (It was beneficent and emergency hijacking: when he was originally supposed to have moved last month, he took the leap of faith and cancelled a whack of services, and when he learned that he wasn’t going to be moving on that schedule after all, he cancelled the cancellations, except he forgot that one. So aside from a little Skyping, he wasn’t using much…not downloading music or movies or anything, he’s kinda straitlaced about that kinda thing, as am I.)

So we’re back to telephone in the evening, which has a certain charm. It’s not the same though.

This too shall pass.

OH HAI

I’ve been remiss. Soz.

Since I wrote last, there’s been a minor flea invasion (possibly, and in addition to spiders; I never met a flea that I was as allergic to as some of these bites; as well, there are the mosquitoes at the park. Why am I so irresistible to all these creatures?). The animals have all been redosed with their Advantage, and now just waiting for the insects to fuck off. It’s HOT out and I can’t wear shorts as I can’t shave my legs while they’re all bitten like this, unless I want a bloodbath.

What else? I had a hard and fast flu that knocked me on my ass for three days. I had a doctor’s appointment that reminded me how old I am (OH BOY MAMMOGRAM), and made some more calculations and preparations for my Europe trip. I really wish I could skip a haircut but that’s not possible.

At some point, possibly last weekend, I got the new Portishead album, Third, off iTunes. I’m not a huge Portishead fan…don’t hate ‘em, don’t love ‘em, liked what I’d heard well enough but was never motivated enough to get an album. This one, though, was getting such rapturous responses from so many of my tastemakers that I took the plunge. It’s whacked me over the head in a huge way, and I can’t recommend it enough. I don’t know whether it’s that good, or if it’s just fitting a particular niche in my head right now. Anyway c’est le saveur du mois.

Waiting, toes tapping impatiently, for my Main Distractor’s arrival, fingers and all other appendages crossed that he will easily attain his visa. It should be a case of rubber stamping, but as someone who’s crossed the 49th a few times, you just never can tell. We’re trying to find some good advice and info. There’s some out there, but there’s also a lot of utter shit! Some site with a very authoritative tone about Canada, mentioned that pastries and baked goods are available in large cities, but are very expensive. Um. OK. You definitely need that (incorrect, IMO) opinion in order to decide whether or not to emigrate to Canada. There are also hundreds of sites on the web that are just, I guess, link-farms. No content whatsoever, just a page of links and some kind of payment-per-click arrangement I suppose. People make money off this? I’m sure this is old hat to everyone else in the world, but I don’t normally surf aimlessly, I usually know where I’m going, and don’t tend to end up on these kinds of sites. I can’t imagine a) who creates these useless sites, and b) who clicks these useless links. What pride of ownership can there be, “Yeah, I am a webpreneur, I have a hundred link farms where idiots click through and I earn a few pennies each time!” Hey, I wanna be just like you!

It’s the junk mail of the internet, the paid programming, the wasted fucking bandwidth. It’s disheartening. As my man says, People are broken. This isn’t even that bad, but I don’t see the point. I like utility, and I like frivolity. This is neither, just wasted space on a server somewhere.

But anyway. Still alive!

Telecommunication

So my modem crapped out on me. I went on Tuesday to buy a new one (before the Radiohead presale), and found out that London Drugs doesn’t sell ADSL modems at all anymore. WHAT?! They have some wireless package for $150, no thanks. I had called tech support, and he said you have to buy a new modem.

I go home, beg my neighbours to let me use their wireless, they are sweet and let me, surf the Telus site where I can find absolutely NO MENTION of where or how to buy another modem.

I look online, I look at Canadian and US stores, I can’t find a same-brand replacement for less than $80…more than that, I can’t find one to ship to Canada, and I can’t find one in stock in Canada. (Huh? I was surprised, myself.)

So I order this other brand one, which is supposed to comply with all the relevant standards. Astonishingly, it arrives in less than 24 hours, and I take it home and plug it in, and it functions as far as Telus. I call Telus. A lady tells me that Telus doesn’t support other branded modems, only modems specifically made for Telus work on Telus. I say you know I looked online and there are plenty of people out there with other-branded, not bought from Telus, modems on their DSL lines. (Nobody with the brand I bought, mind you.) I couldn’t make it go though. I mean it worked to where I could communicate with the modem setup site at a specific IP, so I know it worked. So I ask the lady what do I need to get, and she says well you have to call Customer Care, they can sell me this other kind of modem. So I rail a little bit because I am not a fucking n00b and I could not anywhere on their website find a place to buy another freaking modem, and I’ve wasted HOURS of my life, and gas driving around, and why the hell should it be this hard? and it’s not this lady’s fault or anything, I just ask her why it has had to take me these phone calls and hours of surfing to find out what I need to know. And I say fine, I’ll waste another hour on the phone with Customer Care tomorrow.

So I go to the website to find the Customer Care number. I call the closest thing I can find, and get stuck in Voice Mail Lady Hell, and end up in the same place where you get tech support, and I don’t want tech support, they can’t support me. I look on the website for retail locations…and whoa, their website shunts me to the mobility site. I’m not looking for a goddam cell phone here.

A couple more clicks and…I’m on the Shaw site, and I’ve signed up for cable internet and cable home phone because I simply cannot be arsed any more, I’m too fucking tired.

I have a couple promos, I won’t be any cash out of pocket, and for a couple of months will be somewhat to a fair bit cheaper, and then it will still work out 5 or 10 bucks cheaper than I have been paying. The only problem/tedium I have is I have to change a mess of contact emails. Which I’m probably changing to goddam gmail anyway. Long-distance calls to my main distractor will be 3 cents a minute cheaper, and my internet might be a little faster.

But as of two weeks from now I will have entirely divested myself of Telus services. I am just too tired of doing so much of the work myself. That’s supposedly what I am paying them for. And why a leading telecom and internet service provider can’t hire someone capable of creating a useful site architecture…? I mean I surf a lot, and I can usually find my way through websites to access what I’m looking for. What do the people who are worse at it than I am doing?

Tomorrow: Shannon’s baby shower! Holy cow! and some work, too, I have some time to make up.

OH NOES

I believe my food geek site has been hacked. How fucking lame is that. What’s even lamer, is that I can’t submit a help desk ticket at my SUPER AWESOME WEBHOST SITEGROUND.COM. Because it’s looping me around for no apparent reason (yes I disabled the popup blocker on my firefox). And there’s no other way in, because God forfuckingbid that a customer should be able to contact someone who might have an answer to a question. This is NOT what we call GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I’ve submitted a ticket to billing, they usually get to them sooner or later. Maybe Monday. And I started a topic in the support forum,  which has to go through a moderator before it goes live, who may also be able to help me. There is no telephone number you can use except to get through to sales, and sales doesn’t know anything and isn’t allowed to put you through to anyone who can help you, I don’t think. And if you email support@ you get invited to go to the help desk. Which I have tried to do a fucking dozen times now but it ain’t helping me. And there is no other way through.

I just hope that the cocksucker with the HongKong IP who seems to be playing around with things gets all his fuckin ya-yas out without screwing me over too much.

Anyone want to go retaliate for me? the IP is 58.65.236.89 and all my foodchat.net/forums site are routing through them, basically.

What’s your point, asshole? it’s a couple dozen food geeks.

I wish I knew how to turn the site off but I can’t even do that.

Impotent, much?

Circularity

William Gibson has blogged about Die Ärzte, the band my college bf Rodrigo is now in…and whom I’m seeing in Berlin this summer when he plays the same venue as Radiohead a few days later. Another Gibson boardie from Berlin is a fan, and I’m going to try to see if I can get a “plus one” (ooh! never had one of those) so he can go (show is sold out).

My apophenia gland is jest feckin’ twitching, Bill.