Internet Invoice From Mike

Upon returning home last night, I received this invoice from Mike for services rendered.

Itemized invoice for fixing Internet:
Time spent: 24hrs
Actual time worked: roughly 20min


List of work hazards:
Hot work environment
Work near electrical hazards
Flying cat attacks
Rocky Terrain

Technical skills required:
Computer knowledge
Electrical knowledge
Knowledge in software applications
Cat fencing
Knowledge in hitting things with other things

Payment requested:
Bigger bat for cats and Internet modem
or pizza
(your choice)

Twitter

Twitter has always seemed pointless and obnoxious to me, but today I've been fascinated by the twitters coming from Iran and have been following them all day. Literally it's a real-time feed of what's going on there, and it makes traditional news articles seem like stone tablets in comparison. The Boston Globe has a good round-up of twitters, as has Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic (warning that Sullivan's contains graphic pictures).

My current favorite, from some anonymous person in the thick of it:

Ahmadinejad called us Dust, we showed him a sandstorm.

That's first-rate human drama there.

Adblock Plus

For users of FireFox, Adblock Plus is a useful add-on. Quickens page-load speeds by not downloading the banner ads that litter your favorite websites (where once was ads will now be empty space). I could do without the red stop-sign icon it places in the toolbar, though.

Yes I Will

be downloading this free Obamafier plug-in for PhotoBooth tonight.



Stay tuned for pics tomorrow.

Leave Netflix alone!

It drives me crazy when people hate on Netflix. The company's had shipping problems the last couple days -- it's a minor thing, I'm sure; there's no reason it should be a major headline on every news site.

Give Netflix a break! I'm not offended by this problem. I don't mind waiting an extra couple days for my movies. I've been a Netflix member since 2002 and this is the first inconvenience in an otherwise stellar record of service. I do not want the credit they're offering to cry-baby subscribers to make up for this. If you think you deserve a credit because you had to wait an extra day for your copy of Bring It On 3, you're a d-bag.

Recently I got an email from Netflix about a lawsuit. Apparently in 2006 Netflix was the target of a class-action lawsuit (which I almost always think are bullshit on principle, and this is no exception) for something ridiculous like "it's false advertising to call the service unlimited because postage takes time," etc., etc. Netflix lost. As part of the settlement, and because I had a membership during the period in dispute, Netflix is giving me a free month of upgraded service. I don't want it! I wish I could opt out. I don't want Netflix losing money on me. (It is, after all, the only service I can think of that has actually gotten cheaper over the years.)

Because what if there was no Netflix? I wish people would think about that before they sink their vampire teeth into Netflix's neck. When they bleed the company dry and force it to fold, are these people really going to drive to Blockbuster instead? I don't think so!

In closing: Leave Netflix alone! *Sob*

Update: I received two Netflix discs in the mail today, on schedule.

Ben Recommends

The new Coldplay album is good.

The new version of Firefox is better.

Can I get a Hell Yeah?

This is real, and it's really what it looks like. Google Yves Rossy.

A Prayer to Google

I just came across this funny prayer to almighty Google, written by the managing editor at CIO magazine, where I used to work.

New Computing

In the olden days, getting a new computer meant starting over. There was no easy way back in, say, 1998, to move your stuff from an old computer to a new computer. Not that there was much stuff to move -- no photos or music or movies back then -- a couple MIDI files, maybe, or an animated gif or two -- so it wasn't that big of a deal, and it wasn't hard to say goodbye. The exciting new hardware (a modem! a soundcard!) was more important than the files you'd lose.

Today, it's different. I bought a new computer the other day, and with the help of three feet of Firewire cable, the exact contents of my old computer was duplicated seamlessly onto the new one in the space of 45 minutes. Aside from the faster speed and the larger screen, there's no way to tell I've even changed computers.

In the past that would've been disappointing, but I'm no longer looking for a novel user experience. I just want to be sure that the MP3s I've been amassing over the last eight years move safely from computer to computer. And the photos. And all the saved chat conversations that chronicle my life. And all my bookmarks and writing.

Nowadays nobody gets gaga over a new refrigerator -- all they care about is that it keeps their last shard of wedding cake frozen. Computers have gotten like that.

Hypermilers

My car is by far the most expensive thing I've ever owned, and I drive it with that in the front of my mind. On the rare occasion when I'm unable to avoid a pot-hole, I groan and think, "The most expensive thing I've ever bought just gained unnecessary wear and tear." When I see red lights, I start slowing down waaay in advance so, if I time it right, I never have to come to a full stop at all -- this saves my break pads. I go gently over speedbumps. I don't accelerate when I don't need to.

When I'm driving I think of my car as an instrument, and I'm making music with the road passing underneath. I like the music to be smooth and soft and in tune. I play the car gently, like you would a Stradivarius violin.

I'm also obsessed with gas mileage. I always reset the meter after filling the tank, and that's the only math I've ever enjoyed. But I never thought to put the two obsessions together -- the symphonic driving with the gas saving -- until I read about people who call themselves "hypermilers" -- people who, through strategic driving, get 60 or 75 miles per gallon. Hypermilers'

goal is simple: squeeze every mile they can out of each drop of gas. Some of their tips are a matter of common sense and could help any driver, especially now, with gas climbing past $3 a gallon: avoiding jackrabbit starts, using alternate routes to avoid stop-and-go traffic, anticipating lights and driving a bit more slowly.

Those are all things I do already... but now I feel part of a club. And a little less crazy.

Profound Thoughts from Spam

In my spam email folder this morning I noticed one with this subject line:

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always outweighed the demand.

Kind of a profound thought for a spam message. Of course, the point of the spam was to sell me a seven-hour erection for pleasure my woman longtime... so I guess the whole thing was more like seeing the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast.

Crazy Radio

Every Saturday in Argentina, mental patients at the Jose Borda hospital run a six-hour radio show. The residents of the psychiatric hospital talk about politics or read poetry or sing.

Radio La Colifata, or Crazy Radio has 12 million listeners, more than half of what Howard Stern had when he left terrestrial radio.

The popularity, not to mention the therapeutic value to patients, has inspired 20 other psychiatric hospitals in Argentina to launch their own radio shows. Germany and France followed suit. The La Colifata group has now set their sites on creating television shows.

The Rasterbator

In our new apartment Chris and I have huge amounts of empty wall-space. Anything other than a mural would be swallowed up by these walls. Unfortunately, big art comes in big prices.

Enter the Rasterbator.

Upload any image file and this web program will instantly send it back to you in the gigantic size of your choice, neatly divided into up to 20 meters' worth of 8x10 paper.

It's awesome and it's free. Let the creativity begin!

MySpace priorities

Have you ever bumped a real-live friend out of your Top 8 to make room for the profile of a fictional character?

I'm a little embarassed to admit that I've done just that. But hey, it's Superman!

I'm sure the bumpee will understand.

Hear ye? Hear ye?

Can you hear this ringtone?

According to the NY Times, this new ringtone, which only young people can hear,

is perfect for signaling the arrival of a text message without being detected by an elder of the species.

"When I heard about it I didn't believe it at first," said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan. "But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could."

I can hear it. Thank god. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to. Guess I can push that quarter-life crisis off a little while.

Google Notebook

Has anyone else discovered this yet? Google has a habit of stealthily releasing beta programs and services, and Notebook is the best one yet (second to Gmail, of course).

In simplest terms, it's a net-based bookmark file. Excellent for people using more than one computer. Often in my browsings at work I'll stumble across an interesting website. How then should I remember the address for when I get home? In the past, it has always meant emailing myself links -- a process that's inefficient, at best. Now, with Google Notebook, I just right-click on anything -- links, pages, pictures -- select "Note this," and it gets popped into a little window via a browser extension. Then I can sign into Notebook at home and have my day's stumblings instantly available. Genius.

Committing Friendstercide

Yesterday I deleted my:
-Livejournal,
-Friendster profile,
-Crisis on Infinite Blogs! blog,
-Story of Ben blog, and
-several unused email addresses.

It feels good. I've always been at odds with my Internet presence. I try to keep it reined in as much as possible, but still it can get out of control. There is Friendster and MySpace and Facebook, all which do the same thing. There is Livejournal and blogs and blogs and blogs, none of which anyone really reads. E-mail addresses for work and personal and for all the secondary sites I've registered at. Part of me would like to remove myself from the Internet entirely, but that's not exactly practical. I kept my MySpace profile, for instance. I do want to be at least a little searchable.

But enough with the glut of online self-expression.

Emotion Detectors

Saw this in the Boston Globe today.

Scientists at MIT's Media Lab are developing a wearable device they say is capable of helping people read the subtlest, most nuanced emotions in another person by tracking the movements of that person's eyebrows, lips, and other facial features.

Eventually, ...a tiny camera will be mounted to a pair of glasses or a baseball cap, and the wearer will be alerted by a hand-held computer when the person on the other side of the conversation is bored, annoyed, or confused.

This device is intended to be used by people with autism who can't pick up emotional cues in others. But I can think of plenty of non-autistic people who could benefit from this thing too.

I'm always amazed at how oblivious some people can be. The other day I was doing registration for a seminar. The last person I registered was a fat dude eating a corn muffin, pieces of which he knocked flat-handed back into his gullet the way people in movies pop pills; crumbs bounced off his fat belly onto the floor. He complained about various things for no less than ten minutes (not an exaggeration -- the seminar started and he was in no hurry to get in there), and preceding every bullet-point of complaint he said, "PS."

"...And PS, the guy in the back asked a lot of stupid questions, too. PS, I think the seminar should've been in Marlboro instead of Boston."

I sat there agog at the cartoonish nature of this man. Much of his complaining involved legal issues and recent court decisions of which I had zero knowledge. Was he not able to interpret my emotional cues and realize that his listener 1) didn't care about his commentary on other members of the class, and 2) didn't know anything about the current state of our society's judicial affairs and thus didn't care about his bitching about it?

PS, somebody buy this guy an emotion detector.

Say Cheese

I read an article in the New York Times the other day, about the rise of arm's-length self-portraits on the Internet.

In her bedroom in Lubbock, Tex., Ms. Adams, 21, tried out a variety of poses — coy, friendly, sultry, goofy — in the kind of performance young people have engaged in privately for generations before a mirror. But Ms. Adams's mirror was a Web cam, and her journey of self-expression, documented in five digital self-portraits, was soon visible to the 56 million registered users of MySpace.

Coincidentally Josh sent me a link this morning to a short film called MySpace: The Movie, about the embarrassing but universal habits of the typical MySpacer (including the taking of self-portraits), and the pitfalls that come with Internet life. (Check it out -- it's hilarious because it's true.)

I'm sure a more intelligent person could read more into this, this commenting on a medium via the medium itself, this new sense of controllable self (take enough self-portraits and anyone can be hot -- it's "the angles"!), this whatever. Me, I'm just happy we've got something, that my generation has something of our own. I watch Lords of Dogtown and regret that skateboarding has already been done. I read Men of Tomorrow and regret that the comic book has already been invented. I'm sad that I'll never be a hippie. But I think in 30 years kids will look back in awe at the early 2000s, at the rise of MySpace and all the little webcam movies you can find on YouTube and Google Video, the -- I'm speaking on a stage now, in a good suit; the sun is shining -- the rise of the time when anyone with a broadband connection can be a media mogul, when teens and college students and twentysomethings are staking out their own territory no different from the pioneers of the Old West! That's something. And there will be plenty of photos to document this. Ninety percent of them will have arms in them.

On the subject of ringtones

People in my office keep their cellphones on vibrate, so only they are aware of their incoming calls. Then, out of the blue for everyone else, they'll randomly start talking. "Hey man, what's up?" If it's a bad connection or they don't know the caller, all you hear from within your neighbor's cubicle is him confusedly asking "Hello? Hello?"

I always keep my ringer on, no matter how rude or annoying it may be when it rings, because I need that lead-in before I use my voice. I need people to know I'm about to speak, and why. When I go up to my boss's desk I always jingle my keys on the way so she's already looking up when I get there.

I like to evaluate and judge people based on their ringtones. The editorial assistant who was here before Calvino had a jingling whir for a ringtone, like a cartoon sound-effect of electronic bees. I liked it, and so I liked her. The IT guy upstairs has a ringtone wherein an impatient voice shouts his name (Bob) and demands that he answer the phone. I'm annoyed by this ringtone and, consequently, by him too.

My ringtone is the ring of an early 20th century phone, the kind of phone where when you answer the operator has to "patch you through." The ring is simple, does only what it has to do, and betrays nothing about me except for a possible appreciation of retro-ness.