Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Tech-focused ramblings. Computers, blogs, and whatever else fits.
Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts, …tend to be more Web savvy, with more than half having been online for at least five years…are 58 percent more likely than the overall online population to build their own Web page and also slightly more likely to buy goods online, according to the report.
(via MetaFilter)
Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, United States, Seattle, Downtown, Woody, Male, 26-30!
(via Doc Searls)
I just found the Blogger’s Manifesto through a link on Doc’s blog. As one of the many people across the ‘net who are blogging, it’s both interesting and amusing — however, for various reasons, I don’t think I’ll be adopting it.
Here’s something interesting — a group called the Experimental Interaction Unit has created what they’re calling an “I-Bomb” (I’m assuming that the ‘I’ stands for ‘Information’). When activated, this I-Bomb creates an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) that destroys all electronic equipment, yet is physically harmless to structures or living beings.
Were units like these set to a high enough power output in the right locations, they could cause incredible amounts of damage, without having to physically harm anyone. Hints of terrorism to come?
After a short hiatus to regroup, the Web Standards Project is back up and running. These are the people that I tend to turn to when doing any major redesign on my site, and were instrumental in my decision to re-code my site to be entirely CSS-based and W3-compliant. Good place to start if you’re at all interested in web design.
It’s about time some of the music companies started realizing that, cliched as the phrase may be, “if you can’t beat ’em — join ’em!” According to a story in the LA Times, Universal and Sony will be offering low-cost, unencrypted music downloads over the ‘net. Individual tracks for 99 cents, albums for $9.99 — and they can be freely (and legally) burned to CD once they’re downloaded. Hopefully it will work well enough that the other studios will follow suit….
Major benefit to having my own DSL connection: because it’s up 24/7, I can run this website out of my own house, off of an iMac I have here.
Major downside to my DSL connection: at the level I can afford to pay for, while my incoming speed is great (1.5Mbps, equivalent to a T1 line), my outgoing speed bites (128kb/s, about twice the maximum theoretical speed of a 56k dialup modem).
This has been bugging me for a while — while my outgoing speed is great for the majority of my site (text and graphics are small enough to transfer quickly), the .mp3 mixes I have available for download on my dj propaganda page take forever to download whenever someone decides to grab one. I was whining to Casey about this yesterday, and he pointed me over to a friend of his.
So, at this point, I’d like to give major thanks to Karim, who graciously let me use some space on dragonshed.org to host my .mp3 files. As dragonshed sits on top of an OC3 connection (155.52 Mbps — insanely huge pipe), anyone who wants my .mp3s will now be able to download them at the maximum possible speed of what ever line they are using to connect to the ‘net with.
So, I’m in the process of uploading all my mixes to dragonshed now. I should have them all transfered over to the new server by the end of the weekend. Thanks again, Karim!
(Update @ 12:48 am Saturday — they’re all transfered over now — woohoo!)
I’m about to head to bed, but I just found this article, and as far as I’m concerned, it should be required reading for anyone who’s been online for more than just the past few years: When 300 baud was the bomb, from Salon.
(Lots follows in the rest of this post — what started as some simple thoughts turned into about an hour and a half worth of reminiscing. Aaaah, nostalgia….)
Some days I sit back and wonder just why I do this. My site doesn’t get a whole lot of traffic — primarily just my folks and a few friends who stop by from time to time when they remember. And, admittedly, much of what I write probably wouldn’t be of any real interest to the world in general. Bits and pieces of my life, what I’m doing, what’s going on. Heck, I don’t even get personal enough most of the time to make for any real good drama!
I found the following quote over on Peach’s site after she left a comment to one of my posts, and it seemed to sum up fairly accurately why I keep banging away at this — because, whether or not it’s seen all that often…it’s fun.
I am very pleased with my (o.k. and yours too) blogger. I feel like I have fallen down the rabbit hole; just falling and falling in a blissful state, sans the drugs. I love IT! It is peering through my own looking glass at my own ego and my written word. Whether you are an amatuer or a professional; whether you are an exquisite artiste or you stink, it makes no difference. Most people who create at some time or another, have a strong sense of who they are in the images they create. Mediocrity is the scare word for us. Your word or my word, we all checked off ‘public’ for a reason. We would like to be read and responded to.
Sometimes, though, I feel that I shouldn’t be ‘published’ unless I am very, very good. And then again, who cares? It’s my Journal and if you want to read it, be my guest.