Mr. Potatohead has been ruling the memes and I didn’t even know about it
I’ve never been rickrolled. I would certainly be surprised to click on a link about a topic (not Rick Astley) and end up watching him in his, er, heyday, wearing that denim shirt and high-waisted jeans.
We used to call him Mr. Potatohead when his Stock, Aitken and Waterman days were just beginning. We giggled at his inability to dance, his poofy hair, but never at his voice. He has an amazing voice.
Mr. Astley, even though you’ll be touring in an 80s revival (some things should not be revisited), I still think you’re faboo.
Kitten cannon
A link from Terry, who says: “Good for procrastinating for a couple of minutes.” — The Kitten Cannon.
No Ingterneck nous
The Internet! Social networking! A perfect place for hoaxes to flourish. People, check the sob stories!
Every time I receive one of these mass emails asking me to be outraged and sign an email petition, the very first thing I do is search online for confirmation of its status as a hoax — I find that to be the result 100% of the time. Why do people keep falling for this?!
Gah!
Facebook in 50 years
Presenting pensionbook — the social network all the oldies are talking about.
Alerted by a colleague!
The voluntary simplicity movement* of blogging and making websites
I can be very easily influenced by the latest “this is so hot right now”, even if I don’t pick it up / join initially. In some ways I can be extremely resistant (I only registered at del.icio.us today), but being… I dunno, human, I want everything to be lovely and good and for people to like me (and visit me a lot, and tell their friends).
So I think I need a shake-up. I’m not going to delete all my posts again like I did when I moved to WP (and as you can tell, putting them back is taking, erm, for-freaking-ever), but I think I need to remember that my personal website is just that, personal:
No more Blogsvertise. Fewer ads in the weblog. There’s no real need to have the domain / webspace pay for itself, even though it’s nice. I’ve written to them to get my account / profile removed, and I’m going to delete all those posts once it’s done. It may have helped me write about different topics, but most of them didn’t really strike me in any way, and I am also tired of receiving advertiser requests for posts about hotels in Sydney and poker. You’ll also have noticed that I’ve pretty much removed all the ads, save the Google bar in the footer and my Amazon aStore here and there. It’s just too much of a hassle.
Elements of my weblog should reflect elements of my life more. That is, I’m not going to let stuff faze me (except when people use ‘phase’ for ‘faze’ — it drives me mad). In life I’ve become very good at letting things slide. This is the first time I have uploaded a new theme / design and not started on a new one almost immediately. I like that I’m not so bothered about it looking perfectly modern or current or whatever. I’ve noticed that while I admire new, more modern designs on other people’s websites, I can never imagine having to look at that design every day.
Be organic. Not in the ‘no pesticides, I’m so green and carbon-neutral’ way. I will continue to write whatever I like (and I am going to be more self-disciplined with the work-personal life separation as of now), and I will stop thinking about SEO. I was a lot happier online before there was such a thing. I don’t really have an interest in web popularity contests because it’s too much stress, so I’m going to avoid adding plugins / widgets for social bookmarking to try and get my site noticed — it’s been six years, if I was gonna be up there, I would be by now — it’s time to give it up totally, even that nagging little wish. (I blame that early nomination in the Weblog Awards, it made me assume I was something I’m not. Hehe. Not my fault.)
Be kind, no matter what kind of day I’m having. I’ve always tried to be helpful if someone needs me in real life, and I try to keep to that online, too. It shouldn’t even matter if someone slags me off for something I’ve tried to do, because I know I’m doing my best with the best intentions, so I don’t need to be defensive. (And here’s something I need to learn to do more in real life — admit when I’ve done something wrong, promptly.)
Finally, remember why I started this in the first place. It was because I thought I was annoying people by constantly forwarding links to folk, typing, Check this out, or some such. It was fun. There are more funny sites now, so this should be easy!
* A movement of one, because I’m surely the only one who’s this lameass and has to write it down. So many of the websites I read are already perfect examples.
Formalising bloogers
Bloggers Consider Forming Labor Union: this, to me, seems like a really bad idea. The whole point of bloogs, I thought, was its freewheeling, anarchist nature. I guess with the number of people attempting to earn a living off them, turning them into mainstream media (as such), it’s only natural for them to want it to have benefits like a regular job.
Which sucks for the rest of us. Does this mean that those who do not follow the ‘rules’ (that will / have inevitably emerge(d)) will be ostracised as ‘unprofessional’ in future?
Hell, I like being unprofessional.
Bipolar mice, good searches, bottles, dead old men, and frigid pigeons
Yes, they all connect up*.
- U.S. researchers create schizophrenic mice — I certainly did not know that mice liked to swim, I suppose I should look it up, and in future I’ll be able to get the best ever human-edited results.
- Wikipedia founder plans open-source search engine — will it be as not-quite-sure-if-it’s-entirely trustworthy as Wikipedia? Kind of like our next story, which is
- Bottled water and snake oil — bottled water is tap water in a bottle? I take that to work every day. It’s still as deadly and painful when lobbed through the air, and could kill, though ’sticks and stones can break my bones…’
- Man ‘died at hands of young mob’ — this poor man was killed by sticks and stones, called ‘missiles’ in the news. I was very nearly hit by a missile of pigeon poop the other day.
- Hollywood Pigeons to Be Put on the Pill — some sort of consequence must come of controlling birds’ reproductive cycles.
* In my mind
Spammers and social networking sites
How to spot false friends on Facebook:
When tested on a new set of profiles, the software’s estimate roughly matched human grades 90 per cent of the time and exactly matched them 30 to 50 per cent of the time. The idea is to use these estimates to decide whether to accept a request to be a friend.
Or, you could only add those you know are real people (i.e. you know them). I’m sure you’ll agree this idea of mine is revolutionary and people should give me money to dispense advice.