Just some fun, frustrating or interesting things to pass along today.
Things that make me hate the internet:
1) "Noob" may become the millionth English word. A "noob", for those of you who are blessed enough to have avoided it thus far, is slang for "newbie", which itself is slang used to describe a clueless newcomer. It's normally used as a derogatory term, particularly amongst the video gaming community.
2) Ralph Nader whines about how the internet isn't good at motivating action. Shut up, Ralph. The internet is not a force in and of itself. It's not something that spontaneously spawns movements. However, the internet is an amazing resource for movements to utilize. The internet is not a motivating tool. It is a tool for motivated people.
Things that make me hate the internet:
1) "Noob" may become the millionth English word. A "noob", for those of you who are blessed enough to have avoided it thus far, is slang for "newbie", which itself is slang used to describe a clueless newcomer. It's normally used as a derogatory term, particularly amongst the video gaming community.
2) Ralph Nader whines about how the internet isn't good at motivating action. Shut up, Ralph. The internet is not a force in and of itself. It's not something that spontaneously spawns movements. However, the internet is an amazing resource for movements to utilize. The internet is not a motivating tool. It is a tool for motivated people.
3) Fake and/or misleading headlines. Considering this one from Yahoo! news (courtesy of the increasingly laughable AP), entitled "Study: Bad boy doesn't always get the girl". Sounds like it'd be an interesting psychological study about how the Western concept of the "bad boy" (the jerk, who treats women like crap and is perhaps a bully to other males) isn't necessarily what contemporary Western women respond to, right? Wrong. It instead just talks about the number of wives per aggressive male in a remote society where the murder rate is 46%. Which, while interesting, is clearly not what the headline promised. There are "bad boys" who smoke and perhaps don't call you back after sex. And there are "bad boys" who engage in never-ending cycles of murder. Which one did you think of when you read that title?
Things that make me love the internet:
1) When internet citizens use their training in troll-dom to actually do something good with it. Read this fascinating article from Ars Technica that details a group of netizens who have banded together to take on the infamous Nigerian spammers.
2) The Steam distribution system continues to rock my world. Not only does it allow me to thumb my nose at asshole brick-and-mortar game retailers like Gamestop, it continues to show that the conventional pricing systems are stupid. Go grab the amazing Plants vs. Zombies for just 10 bucks on Steam.
Here's a screenshot and review from the Onion AV Club:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/plants-vs-zombies,27802/?utm_source=homepage_current_reviews
Things that make me love the internet:
1) When internet citizens use their training in troll-dom to actually do something good with it. Read this fascinating article from Ars Technica that details a group of netizens who have banded together to take on the infamous Nigerian spammers.
2) The Steam distribution system continues to rock my world. Not only does it allow me to thumb my nose at asshole brick-and-mortar game retailers like Gamestop, it continues to show that the conventional pricing systems are stupid. Go grab the amazing Plants vs. Zombies for just 10 bucks on Steam.
Here's a screenshot and review from the Onion AV Club:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/plants-vs-zombies,27802/?utm_source=homepage_current_reviews
3. Super bonus update: One news item I forgot in the original post - an Irish student proves that all those nagging fears you have about journalistic integrity and investigation in the age of 24/7 insta-news cycles are probably true. Why take the time to do good investigation when you can just copy+paste from wikipedia?
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2 comments:
The link to Ars article about Nigerian spammers goes to stupid Yahoo! story.
Lesson learned: don't post when you're tired and in a hurry.
I fixed the post so that my #2 though about Ralph Nader doesn't just trail off, and I also fixed the link to the Ars Technica article. Read it - it's really interesting.