A few weeks ago, the management company sent some people into our apartment to do some “preventative maintenance.” While this did include some benefits (they fixed a sink that was broken for more than a month), they also hardwired our outside light, so we couldn’t turn it off. This was certainly in preparation for spring weekend, which is fast approaching. I get front row seats this year, and I’m not about to let them go to waste – I’m going to film that oft-joked about zombie movie, using the drunken masses as unwitting extras. The movie will not be good, but it should be a lot more fun than I would otherwise be having over spring weekend. Better yet, it seems that people are interested in this movie thing, so I’ll have help. For the first time, I’m looking forward to spring weekend.
Blog
Teabagging
This is ridiculous.
No Motivation
No idea what happened, but I’m in vacation mode with a month of school left. I’m utterly unable to do anything – even internet browsing is laborious. I have several papers I could be doing, all of which are due soon, but I’m totally distracted. I’m five to ten years in the future designing a passive hydraulic solar tracker for a parabolic reflector oven, which I can use to bake all day. It’s large enough to accommodate a pizza.
Mr. Ambulance Driver
I would really love to get an ambulance. It really seems like the perfect live-in vehicle, especially since many are diesel, and could be converted to veggie. Unfortunately, I’m not sure veggie will be a reliable source of fuel over the coming years, and this makes me wary of buying one. I’m certainly interested in electric vehicles, but I think an ambulance is too large for easily obtainable motors. If I’m lucky, that will change as veggie fades away.
CC Media
So I’ve been thinking recently about journalism, and more specifically about the current state of news media. It seems to me someone could do pretty well if they did something (anything) and licensed all their work CC-BY, so any publication could use it. Whether that thing be reports for radio, tv, newspaper, magazines, whatever. If it’s good content, and free to the publications, it has a better chance of being accepted now than ever before. And depending on the strategy taken, it could prove to be an incredible way to get a foot in the door, and sidestep a whole lot of bullshit in the whole process.
And then I saw this, which is an interesting route that journalism could take, though I don’t really like it. The idea is reporters backed by philanthropists, which is fine for a while. I imagine wandering the country, making enough to keep wandering, and reporting on things. All free for any major organization to use. I’d love to see someone try it, and if the situation is still viable in a year’s time, I just might.
True Life
I got an email a few weeks ago from someone working with MTV’s True Life series, saying they were interested in Applied Daydreaming. I don’t have any idea what they wanted (they never got back to me), but it is interesting that it can garner that kind of attention when there are at most a handful of people present every week. It’s little blips like this, even when they don’t pan out, that make me think I could make a living doing stupid stuff I thought was fun.
Free Domain
I bought something on buy.com recently, and there was a GoDaddy promotion going on at the same time, so I now have a free domain at my disposal. I tried to give it to a few people I thought could use it, but no luck. I have no practical use for it, but I need to redeem it by April 1st or I lose it.
Any ideas, suggestions, or silly projects that need a home?
2009/03/21
Went hiking today. I really like this picture.
Why do I even try?
I handed in a travesty of a paper for one of my classes recently. I had absolutely no interest in the topic, and it barely applied to the theme I’m supposed to be sticking to this semester. I knew it was bad, but I had to hand in something, so I gave it as little effort as I could, and handed it in. A day late. And a page short. In a larger font and typeface. I got an 81, meaning it could have been higher, if it hadn’t been docked for being late. I actually tried on the first paper for this class, too. I don’t get it. She isn’t an easy grader, and people got lower grades than I. I don’t even know why I bother trying anymore.
Real Time Search
That’s what a lot of people have been talking about recently. Since twitter recently became stupidly popular, lots of people have been considering the potential of real time search. That’s in contrast with Google, which searches things that have been said. Sometimes it’s even within the last day, or week, or month, but always in the past tense. Search on twitter is what is happening right now.
I don’t like twitter. If I want to write something, I’ll write it here – I have that outlet. And I really don’t care if other people read it, so twitter really has nothing to offer me. Even so, I made an account a long while ago (’07?) to see what it was about, decided I didn’t care, and left it. What saddens me is that it seems like the bad habits of social networks have made their way to twitter: followers as currency. The more friends you have, the more popular you are, etc. And there’s the unfortunate practice of people friending you in the hopes you’ll friend them back. Even though I’ve explicitly stated “don’t follow me” in my bio, I’ve had two since I started using it again. A friendly “who the fuck are you and why are you following me?” took care of that.
Oh right, I had a point. Facebook is in on the game too. Not direct competition to twitter, but they’re both doing the same thing (yes, that works). You can search twitter to see what people are saying about a subject right now, and you can check Facebook to see what your friends are doing right now. I don’t think either is going to revolutionize search, but it is interesting to watch.