just jen

Sometimes Twitter Accounts About Sh*t Your Dad Says Get You TV Deals

Sometimes Twitter Accounts About Sh*t Your Dad Says Get You TV Deals

Are you following @shitmydadsays  ?  It is hilarious and apparently he's got a tv and a book deal based entirely on his Twitter feed.  

Study: Internet Users Aren't Isolated (Thank Facebook) - Business Center - PC World

Study: Internet Users Aren't Isolated (Thank Facebook) - Business Center - PC World

Overturning a previous study that suggested that technology has created a more isolated American, the Pew Charitable trust now says that texting, mobile phones, and, the big one, FACEBOOK is creating wider social networks and deepening conversations and discussions.  

YAY FOR US COMPUTER NERDS.  

(This is a little, polite, bird flip to those who thought I was a freak when I started using the Internet back in 1993.)  

guest post: kelley lynn on dumb facebook status updates

Check out Kelley Lynn's Guest Post about the Top 11 Dumbest Facebook Status Updates Ever.  Kelley Lynn is a comedian in NYC and teaches college courses on comedy on Long Island.  Kelley is outrageous and funny and has a way of making us all see how absurd and impressed with ourselves we all are.  Except, of course, ahem, for bloggers.  We are completely not absurd and impressed with ourselves, well, only because we should be.  Right.  Moving on: 

 So we all love Facebook. It is a nice little distraction from day to day life; or a great place to hang out while you are at a boring office or temp job, etc. Mostly; its a wonderful way to reconnect with people you honestly didn't think you'd have a chance in hell of ever hearing from again; and that is pretty neat. But for the Love of God, people, can we stop with all the stupid facebook status updates? Please? Im guessing the answer to this question would be no; simply because there will always be morons in the world and morons write stupid messages. So as long as morons exist; I shall continue to mock them endlessly. It's just what I do. And those of you who know me or have read my Wedding Planner Blog know that I do not do Top 10 Lists. I do Top 11 Lists. This is my way of honoring the great Nigel from the classic movie "This Is Spinal Tap." So I now present to you my list of THE TOP 11 DUMBEST FACEBOOK STATUS MESSAGES. As always - "these go to eleven."

To read what makes the top 11 and what Kelley has to say about it click here. 

forestalling the inevitable

Newsweek's Daniel Lyons talks about letting the newspapers die: 

The fact is, all this hysteria has nothing to do with saving the news, or saving jobs. Nor is it about saving democracy, which is what the red-in-the-face newspaper lovers always get themselves huffed about, as if newspapers and democracy were inextricably linked. Democracy existed long before newspapers did, and it will survive without them. And plenty of countries that don't have democracy do have newspapers. Nor would a bailout help readers. In fact, it would only slow down our shift to the Internet, which is a far better medium for delivering information.

See the full article here. 

(HT: Chestertonian.)

and don't forget the demons that lived in the printing press

Another thinker enters the fray of the Technorenaissance.  Salon interviewed author, linguist, and English professor Dennis Baron, author of the new pro-technology book A Better Pencil.  In it, Baron argues that the Internet is the next developmental step in communication technology and debunks the hysteria about how social media and the internet are "melting our brains".  

His thesis is clear: Every communication advancement throughout human history, from the pencil to the typewriter to writing itself, has been met with fear, skepticism and a longing for the medium that's been displaced. Far from heralding in a "2001: Space Odyssey" dystopia, Baron believes that social networking sites, blogs and the Internet are actually making us better writers and improving our ability to reach out to our fellow man. "A Better Pencil" is both a defense of the digital revolution and a keen examination of how technology both improves and complicates our lives.

speaking of snark...

Even I can admit: 

Not every aspect of the technorenaissance is positive.  

This week's installment of The Enchanted 15 discusses snark in criticism--and speaking of that, here is a great little piece on the definition and history of snark as it peaks in New Media culture.  

the theft of the humanities

One of the hallmarks of the technorenaissance as I have noted it, is the ease with which the tension between the arts and the sciences is finally being attenuated.  Geoffrey Harpham writes about how the forces of disciplinarity ghettoized the humanities.   Harpham notes how the push toward scientism and research in the Academy disemboweled the humanities and encourages the reconstruction of the bombed out bridge between the arts and the sciences.  Writes Harpham: 

"We stand today at a critical juncture not just in the history of disciplines but of human self-understanding, one that presents remarkable and unprecedented opportunities for thinkers of all descriptions. A rich, deep and extended conversation between humanists and scientists on the question of the human could have implications well beyond the academy. It could result in the rejuvenation of many disciplines, and even in a reconfiguration of disciplines themselves-in short, a new golden age."

Image: . Art and Science .. by ~0-Aegir-0

i can tweet you with my brain

Adam Wilson has developed the technology to be able to Tweet using impulses from your brain.  You can literally type with the interface by focusing on and thinking about letters, which then appear on the screen.  Wilson developed the project with the "locked-in" patient in mind, those suffering from complete immobility but with in tact cognitive processes.  Just let's not let River Tam get a hold of this.  That could be really, really scary.  

a social history of the MP3

Unlike the "casette crisis" in the advent of the CD, the MP3 shift narrates a social revolution in the consumption of music and art in general under the auspices of the technorenaissance.  This article does an excellent job in mapping this social revolution and speculating on what it means for publishing in the grand scale, including writing.  Author Eric Harvey writes: 

"This latest shift-- you can tell your grandkids you lived through it-- opens the possibility to freely create and distribute culture, with the idea of reaching a global audience. Compared to the one-to-many model of last century, the current one, which is still coming into shape, gives us the capacity-- maybe even necessity-- to cheaply and easily collaborate, create, organize, and speak truth to power. Technologically, it's futuristic. In terms of what it might hold for social organization, the roots are pre-modern, even ancient."

I like this thought process in that it explores how the myth of "progress" creates the illusion of moving forward and abandoning the past is radically altered in New Media.  That New Media is not so much changing as synthesizing what already existed and is resurrecting our common human past in new more digestible and process oriented whole.  (HT: if:book)

time magazine 50 best websites

Time Magazine released the 50 Best Websites of this year and it's actually well worth a look wanna be Tech-Geek that I am, I was a bit surprised that there were some things on there that weren't on my radar that I want to check out--it also explains some of the technological advances the sites represent (like Flikr and collaborative tagging) which it's deliciously nerdy and fascinating.