I saw atlpagan‘s farewell post just now.

Hmm…..

Continue reading The body and the computer →

I’m back. Having been away from LJ for a few days (since Friday), I was down in WR, against my will (Mom dragged me there, under some rather-frustrating circumstances). hypertwolf knows what I’m talking about, so I’m not going into details. However, the summary of it: I didn’t go over to his house for the weekend as planned (and announced).

Mom has also nagged me into promising her that I wouldn’t do any more overnight visits to anyone’s residence (so lordsathien, to spare me of the wrath of my Mum [yes, I said “Mum”, lol], I won’t be spending the whole night at TP’s anymore, just up until around 4 am or something, heh). In return, I’ve obtained the HP Pavilion to take back to the dorm, albeit temporarily (like, until the next time that she rolls up in her little blue Daewoo). Of course, I had just as equally nagged her for it the entire time, and she didn’t turn it loose until I had started disassembling it when we were about to head back up north.

Man I’m persistent…

Anyhoo, while getting used to a desktop keyboard and adjustable LCD flatscreen monitor (sidecomment: for a standard Windows-default desktop maker, HP sure has its shit together), besides the typical standard DLs/installs (y’know, Yahoo Messenger, Google Desktop 2, Google Talk, Mozilla Firefox RC 1.5, Quicktime 7 [the new one with bundled iTunes], Spybot Search & Destroy, WinXP SP2 updates, any possible thing offered by or owned by Google, etc.), I also tried out Talisman Desktop, some alternative GUI thingy.

Nice, nice. Too bad that its Shareware, though.

But the thing that has seriously won my attention with the re-obtaining of my Internet reach in the dorm room (where I now spend my days languishing over the lack of things to do, if not sleep or in class) is iTunes’ Podcast service, which allows for free subscription to most existing Podcast/Vodcast feeds.

Main subscription topics: anything that has to do with Japan (in the slightest sense), Linux, Mac, Africa/Diasora (hoping that some Nigerian bloggers could start up one from Lagos in particular….would be very interesting to hear their perspectives on the politics of Naija and West Africa), Atlanta, Open Source.

Oh, and before I move on, congratulations to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on being elected the first-ever female head of state of an African sovereignty (particularly the Republic of Liberia). Of course, it would’ve been nice for 1995’s FIFA World Player of the Year to have gotten in there, too, but hey, it’s all good…

Finally, new ideas.

– UNO – : Google should launch an indexing of all possible protocols (not just the typical http://), folders, and files, be it on the web or on your Desktop (although it should mostly keep the two separate for privacy’s sake). Furthermore, it should also plug into all local applications on your computer so that you can reach most of any of them without having to search for it through Windows Explorer.

Then, and ONLY then, will I consider Google a candidate for the commanding of the Mandate of Heaven (digitally speaking, of course).

– DOS – : How can a podcast be “live” without having to resort to actual streaming?

Easy. Just create a constantly-refreshing xml feed of your audio/video (say, every 10 seconds or so) as it is being created (might not want to put this on your blog feed, though).

In that way, people will be hearing your voice talking on a sorta “real-time” basis.

Now to announce this idea to a few communities for a response.

Peace out!

Symphony OS, created by Jason Spisak and Ryan Quinn, is one interesting-looking beta distribution, at least from the looks of the screenshots.

However, although it is based on both Knoppix and Debian distros, this distribution of Linux has just presented some *very* revolutionary concepts to the OS game (Ubuntu folks, take notes):

1. MEZZO DESKTOP, with a screenshot slideshow to boot.

2. ORCHESTRA, a rapid application development environment that has yet to be turned out as of this posting.

3. Jason Spisak’s 8 LAWS OF INTERFACE DESIGN.

Awesomeness….

srlinuxx of Tuxmachines.org had something to say about this distribution; So did Jack Wilkinson, CapnKirby, and Slashdot’s Linux channel.

And you should be watching the developments with this thing. Yes, you should!

Yay, I finally came across my cell phone today (had lost it for the entirety of last week). What timing; now Mom can yell at me about my bi-weekly off-campus sojourns….argh.

Well, in the meantime, I’ve been looking at OSes again. This time, I’ve decided to take a look outside of Linux in general (and Ubuntu, as hard as it was), and possibly, upon the gaining of a new powercord, partition my hard drive with a Solaris 10 Boot CD.

Solaris, I say?

Yep. There’s actually a world outside of Windows, Linux, AND Mac! Isn’t that wonderful?!?!

*clears throat*

Well, just found out that the Movie night at PKZP’s is cancelled. *frowns* Oh well, at least we’re good for the weekend while at Hyperion’s.

And other stuff…..

Peace out!

My LJ (aka the LJ portal) goes live

Just came across a new Unix desktop. Probably the most interesting to come from Sun since Java (and probably the most interesting desktop since the Vista XP skin for Windows or Aqua for Mac). Still reeks of Windows 2000/ME’s pastygrayness, however. Hopefully, they’ll ameliorate such before they actually launch the beta.

Also, as bad as my day seemed, I was uplifted when hypertwolf offered to drive to CompUSA to get a new power cord for the laptop (and a microphone or headset to boot) right before we (that is, he, his mate, lordsathien, and I in his Beetle, lol) run up to PKZP in Marietta. I may get a CD-RW pack as well…

Also saw both Ong Bak: the Thai Warrior and Appleseed on Monday. Let me just say that, as bad as the English dub of the first one was, the story/plotline of the second was God-awfully stereotypical (not to mention just plain DUMB). Good points for Ong Bak: INSANE martial arts. Good Points for Appleseed: CGI was given a fair treament, although, again, I’ve seen the same thing in other movies prior to this one.

Also, a report on Dead Leaves from around two Mondays ago: colors. OMG, MY FUCKING EYES!!! *cries*

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Anyway, more tomorrow. Peace out.

So THIS is where Yahoo’s been putting all of its seemingly-lacking niftyness all this time?

And, according to the flow chart for publishing a podcast, it doesn’t really seem to be all that hard to do; plus, it seems plenty inexpensive (both of the immediately-listed software for publishing are free; LAME MP3 decoder is filed under a Creative Commons license….gotta love those licenses!).

So, how about it? Should I launch a podcast?

Title candidates:

“Life Over IP”

“The Wired”

“My Homies and what they be thinkin'”

“View from the Perch”

“News and Nizotes”

“The Dangerous”

“From My Rearview”

Any of you have any?

Also, I think I can get this thing launched with the availability of Skype conversations on the air. Well, Skype primarily comes to mind, but Yahoo Messenger, which also has VoIP enablement, could probably do the same thing as well (only because of the abundance of peeps who use YM, compared to Skype, on which I only have one [1] contact).

Subject matter?

Pretty much anything that I can’t actively take on in blogging.

I want this to be an all-purpose podcast (as I am a general-purpose blogger), one that will serve as both a vehicle for my ranting and a medium for my ideas.

And of course, the listeners could always call in. :->

What do you all think?

Yep, just as here. Only now, its for the reasons which I’ve left a great deal of Livejournal communities for, as well as other reasons, namely these:

1) Yahoo can’t seem to make up its mind as far as its social networking is concerned. It’s obviously aiming for a Myspace-like reworking of its SocNet services, as evidenced by its separate searches for books, music, movies, reviews, location, and general interests. However, as its 360 service also provides for the option of displaying which Yahoo Groups to which you belong, one will run into a snag: Yahoo Groups is exclusively based upon Yahoo’s EMAIL service, thus rendering Yahoo Groups a throwback from a fast-disappearing remnant of the Internet’s earlier history: mailing lists.

Furthermore, I received my first two spam messages through Yahoo 360 last month (um, yippee?). Obviously, as we are dealing with a service-in-transition that already possesses an *extremely*-strong following outside of the US (note: remember the 409 clique in Nigeria? the mail-order brides from the former Eastern bloc? yeah, its THAT serious), this kind of thing is only going to get worse.

At some point in the *very* near future, Yahoo must choose between its webmail and its just-begun venture into social networking (or, as I may be allowed to call it, “MySpacing”). Their groups service will have to be integrated into 360 at some point (which will thus uproot Groups from the email/webmail base by default), although I doubt that there is a need to phase out their email service altogether as of yet. Otherwise, Yahoo, in its entirety, will continue to retain its tactless, pretentious reputation (at least as far as its North American users are concerned).

2) Yahoo’s Groups search….AGAIN I say “360”.

3) My inbox is too full of shit (in the half-literal sense of the term).

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More about webmail:

Google, with the launch of its portal service (y’know, Groups, Email/Webmail, and Blogspot), came into a dying business *way* too late.

Webmail has been decreasing in importance with the advent of XML, OPML, RSS and Atom. All of a sudden, now people can view the latest postings without needing an “inbox” to clean out every 6 months or so. So why the need for mailing groups or lists, save for personal, exclusive reasons only?

Eventually, they’ll find a new use for it, but mailing lists are being rendered less and less viable of an option for mass communication, in comparison to the communities/groups on LJ, Myspace, and Orkut, among others.

Someday, it’ll all make sense…..

More in another post, peace out.

Also, a thought.

IM is the primary form of long-distance P2P communication on the digital plane; Telephony is the primary means of P2P communication on the physical.

So is prayer the primary means of P2P communication on the spiritual plane?

And notice that IM, as awkward as it may be with someone else for the first time, is quite tame in terms of awkwardness in comparison to when you actually attempt to talk to that same person on the phone (as I did with Dom and Mingant a couple of weeks back).

So, if the phone is considered to be something of a more sacred means of communication between two people, then what about prayer? Sir Edward B. Tylor’s definition of it (“the address of personal spirit to personal spirit”) leads me to think that prayer is a means by which one person can talk to another on a spiritual basis by spiritual means.

I’m wondering about this because, for certain people I came across early in my digital lifetime, the one whose essays I read (and made me aware of otherkin, therianthropy, and, in his own particular case, Draconity), but has since taken another identity…or two…I just want to let him know that 1) I’m OK (and that I hope he’s doing the same, too) and 2) that I’m just as serious about therianthropy (or probably even more so) as I was when I first emailed him (I believe that it was the first email that I had ever written ***anyone***).

I won’t mention his name, as I have done so in a past posting.

However, I just want to leave him a message after the tone.

*beep*

Since last night, I’ve been in a state of digital withdrawal, as far as LJ is concerned.

No more community whoring, no more RSS subscriptions, no, none of that, people. Its all meaningless bullshit to worry over in order to make myself feel good for just five short-lived seconds of semi-bliss.

Physically speaking, except for a few instances, it hasn’t benefitted me shit for any of this time, for any of the last 20 months or so on LJ.

I understand now that LJ is a place to which people come to live, die, and maybe engage themselves in the fiercest, funniest drama with others, only to forget about each other some 3-6 months afterward.

If someone who you friend friends you back, its either because of some coincedence that binds you two together, their tendency to friend unthreatening potentials back, you’ve contacted them on Yahoo, Google, or AIM, or something positive came out of that drama thread that you too fought in.

Otherwise, they’ll probably look at you as an enigma, and you at them in a similar manner.

So, there is no point to this. LJ, ultimately, makes for a poor means of social networking (which I can do at Myspace or Orkut, except that Myspace is shitty-shitty-shitty, and Orkut….well, its full of Brazilians, which isn’t a problem except for the apparent language barrier), but a good means of combining basic blogging with the most-basic social connections.

Therefore, as you may have noticed, I’ve slashed the friends list by a good bit, I’ve deleted the entire userbio, I’ve deleted the subscriptions to all RSS feeds save for 2 (since I already know them from times past), and I’ve cut down my community memberships by 4/5th (and counting downward…).

I’ve also undefaulted my userpic, since I now know that its not representative of me (and never has been).

Other changes will come (not like you’re going to notice, but hey, WTF, mate?) if it seems like something is in excess of any kind.

More in another post, peace out.