devolute.net

Even a 4 year old knows that. Or so said NYUs Clay Shirky at the recent Web 2.0 Expo08 [blip.tv video]. He detailed how things are shifting away from passively watching television and into more interactive forms of media. He uses the example of the millions of hours of work that has gone into Wikipedia and other community-based wiki-like project by a great many people.

“Media that is targeted at you but does not include you may not be worth sitting still for.”

Shirky knows why we watch television. It’s because since WW2 we all have so much free time. Isn’t it better that we interact with something rather than just sit there and consume it? I think he’s right. Collectively, we watch far more adverts on TV than we do using brilliant collaborative projects such as Wikipedia. Has anyone watched television recently? 99% of it is rubbish. Getting involved with media is a lot more fun than an osmosis-like filtering of it into ourselves.

Still, regardless of this, Peep Show does start again tonight and I’ll definately be taking time out from the collaborative Web for that!

Video found via random($foo).

I used to love RTS games but ever since the Command and Conquer games turned into a rubbish pile of EA crap, I’ve not had many good ones to play with. It’s a good news Starcraft II is on the way. It looks good and effects heavy, but I’ve also got a feeling that all the units will be balanced perfectly, the AI tuned and the story interesting as well. Basically, it’ll be nothing like the new C&C games that seem to fail on all accounts.

The new Zerg got unveiled in a trailer shown recently in Korea (where else?) and they look especially foreboding. This could be the first RTS I’ll buy in a very long time.

The James Lavelle posse are on tour again. We went to see them in Sheffield and it wasn’t what we expected. There was less emphasis on the turntables and much more on the full rock band that basically drove the show. What we expected was more DJ Shadow, what we got was more 65daysofstatic. Guess we should have listened to the last album before we went to see the show. None of this is a complaint, however.

Things should move on. I liked Psyence Fiction, but I don’t want to see it again and again. The last UNKLE album; War Stories isn’t very ‘them’, but it stands well on it’s own and the show definitely reflected this. One thing that has stayed constant is Lavelle’s leaning towards collaborations. What made the 1st album great was that they got people like Mike D and Thom Yorke involved and the new album has guest appearances by people like Josh Homme and one of my personal favorites; the Duke Spirit. I heard that the London show featured appearances by Ian Brown, Badly Drawn Boy and others. Up in Sheffield of course, we didn’t have such treats. The stand-in vocalist was good, but we were left wanting Ian Brown, I think. Still, a good show and the album is worth checking just as long as you’re not expecting another Never, Never Land.

I never found Garfield that funny. But then we’re on the 59862145th strip now and it’s pretty hard to think of something new isn’t it? People have taken to photoshopping the cat out of the strip, and now they appear to be a look into the mind of a man on the edge, a wildly delusional schizophrenic. Much, much better.

The best can be found on the garfield minus garfield blog.

I’ve just been sitting here and the whole house shook for about 4 seconds. So, being the geek I am: go internet go! The ever-useful Sheffield Forum tells me that I wasn’t imagining it. Even more surprising is the news there that it was felt as far west as Manchester and that according to my friends who I’m talking to over IM, as far East as Hull. Wierd. They felt it strongly too. More news later, I guess. It’s always interesting to see how the big media (like the BBC) react to this sort of sudden unexpected news.

Update: The BBC have got an initial report here. Got two pals in North London saying they felt substantial shakes.

Update #2: One guy hurt his leg when his chimney fell on him. My Mums piggie bank nearly fell off the telly. That’s it. No doubt the Japanese/San Franciscans are looking on and sneering at us making such a fuss. Unsupprisingly, it was left to b3ta.com to make the defining point.

More of this sort of thing please. ‘Bloody Zombies’ is an ‘experimental’ game. One man, a lawnmower and a load of Zombies. Yeaaaah boiiiii. It’s the perfect way to loose 5 minutes. Indie games ftw etc. etc. The only thing is, as it’s such a small project for the developer, he’s not added sound. I suggest the Shaun of the Dead soundtrack, in particular the 80’s Matchbox B Line Disaster.

You can download this little game from the makers website, Kloonigames. Apparently the chap is doing a new game every week, so it’s probably worth keeping a look at his blog.

It’s only after you read the BBC Innovation Labs briefs that you start to get a bit bogged down by ‘Web 2.0-speak’. It has even started to creep into Private Eye magazine on an almost fortnightly basis now. We need help in these fast moving times. We need a man who knows the media. A man so pioneering, a man so brave and a man so in touch with what’s happening right now. We need this man to help us through all the buzz words. The man we need is Alan Partridge. My colleague at rckt wrote a few Partridge-esque ideas that might help the BBC in producing some new and exciting content for the web.

“Photos posted to Flickr from Alan’s Iphone, geotagged and mashed onto Microsoft™ Live Map”

This is what the web needs.

Surely now those pesky creationists will no longer struggle with the concept of evolution after they read this craigslist post.

“I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.…”

Yeah yeah yeah, It’s all very complicated.  I think I want Obama to win personally, but after a mere 219 years of all-white presidents, I’m not holding out that much hope. So as I can’t vote (what, being a British citizen and all), I’m forced to point and laugh from afar. I could join the ‘Brits for Obama‘ facebook group I suppose, but lets face it; the guy doesn’t need someone like me supporting him from over the pond.

This video makes all the salient points and stars McLovin (from Superbad) and professional Steven Colbert impersonator Ed Helms. I suddenly feel enlightened since it’s been explained so firmly and passionately.

With all the drama going on right now with Anonymous and the Church of Scientology, it’s nice to see some old skool creative trolling going on at this ‘My Little Pony’ fan forum.

“…your picture of Stalin riding a Year3 Limited Edition Starflower inside a German concentration camp was both upsetting and historically inaccurate”

With such legendary responses, it’s hard to tell if the ‘targets’ are dumb or genuinely enjoying taking the bait as much as the troll. Guy’s a legend.

First things first, I think Apple make some great stuff. Work recently put a 24″ iMac on my desk and it’s great to work with. Sure it’s not exactly crash-proof (although this is more Adobe’s fault) and the keyboard is awful, but the Apple/OS X experience is pretty good, especially with that lovely vibrant screen. I was recently in the market for a new laptop and was going to buy a 13″ Macbook. In the end a friend of mine stepped in and let me have his old 13″ Sony Vaio for much less, so I bought that instead. I think maybe in his wisdom he was trying to save me.

This trailer for an upcoming film about Mac users called ‘Macheads‘ is terrifying. I’m a pretty huge geek who uses a range of Windows, Linux and OS X machines, but the thought of getting quite as attached to a computer as any of these people makes me glad that I only use a Mac during office hours. As someone with a keen interest in design, I can sympathize a little with someone who collects old Macintosh boxes, but lines like “I have never knowing slept with a windows user” are just disturbing.

At least in the old days (before the iMac) all the hardcore Mac users had beards so were recognizable. Now they have started shaving. God help us all. I still want to see the film though.

See the trailer in question here (found via Gizmodo)

Hurrah! A full day of selective quoting from his many speeches, taking care not to mention anything he said about stopping poverty, the US class system or his anti-war stance. The picture of the day can be found here.

Finally, someone is dealing with the things that really matter. I think I’ll stick with Aesop Rock though, to be completely honest.

Sometimes it feels nice to rant against blatant stupidity and get the support of my peers (read: fellow redditors). I’m happy to be upmodded when it’s something I care about. Sad? Well, maybe. But in this case; when it involves media-scaremongering that makes people terrified of their own neighbourhoods (specially when it’s my neighbourhood), I’ll happily take those votes.