Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

MOG: Last.fm with poorer English

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I’ve been using last.fm for some time now to track what I’m listening to. I have no idea if anyone actually pays much attention to it, but it’s all handled for me in the background without my having to worry about it (as iTunes plays music, the last.fm client sends info on what I’m listening to to their servers), so I just let it go.

Now there’s a new upstart service looking to do much the same thing, in much the same way. Sign up for MOG, download a small application (on Mac OS X, it’s a system preference pane), and MOG will track what you listen to and link it to other people with similar tastes. Here’s my MOG page.

Right off the bat, I really can’t see what MOG offers that last.fm doesn’t already have…there really doesn’t seem to be much differentiation between the two services.

Save for one little thing.

Under a link called ‘Share my MOG’, you can spam notify all your friends of your new MOGspace. You can either write your own little note, or you can use the provided boilerplate text. All pretty standard — except that MOG’s boilerplate message made me cringe. Out loud.

what’s up?

thought i’d share my spankin’ new MOG page with you.

you can find it at: http://mog.com/djwudi

MOG automatically creates a page for me that lets you see what’s in my music collection and what i’m playing (and does a whole lot more). There are serious music freaks hanging at MOG. see you in the MOG-O-SPHERE. later.

Out of seven sentences (well, six plus a farewell), not a single one is actually well written. Grammarians more versed than I would be more able to point out all the problems (and probably see some that I don’t identify right off), but…yeesh. Capitalization is nearly nonexistent, dropped subjects left and right, missing punctuation, and a general disrespect for the English language.

It’s bad enough that a disturbingly high percentage of ‘net users have little to no critical writing skills (or even casual writing skills, for that matter) — do we really need to encourage this wholesale slaughter of the language?

Ick.

Yes, it’s high-falutin’, snobbish, and elitist. But damn if that isn’t enough to knock MOG several steps down in my estimation.

iTunes “00 No One Takes Your Freedom” by Beatles/Franklin, Aretha/Michael, George/Scissor Sisters from the album www.djearworm.com (2004, 5:15).

Me and My Shadow: The story of Jason Mewes

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I’ve been watching the pieces of this show up bit by bit (kindly assisted by watching Mike’s del.icio.us feed), and since the last section went live today, here’s a list of links to all the pieces so I can read straight through, beginning to end.

Since the gossip sites have seen fit to print only the portion of the Jason Mewes story I told at UPenn (that portion being what said sites seem to feel is the only interesting aspect of Mewes’ life), I figured why not put the whole tale of Jason’s battle with drug addiction into print here, where folks can get a better idea of who Jason truly is and maybe why he fell victim to heroin abuse in the first place.

[..] At the least, it’s a more comprehensive profile at a guy who’s accomplished a lot more than celebrity bathroom sex; at the most, it’s an ode to a very unlikely hero of mine and a man I love (in a decidedly hetero way).

  1. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 1
  2. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 2
  3. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 3
  4. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 4
  5. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 5
  6. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 6
  7. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 7
  8. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 8
  9. Me and My Shadow, Pt. 9

iTunes “Rise Up (Future)” by Commodores, The from the album In to the Mix Vol. IV: The Classics Remixed (2000, 3:50).

Penguin Floozies

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The shocking truth about penguin’s sex lives, photo by downtempo, found on Flickr today.

For years penguins have been regarded as the conservatives of the avian world. Always attired in formal evening wear, they have become symbols of literature and family values.

Recent studies, by Otago University lecturer Lloyd Davis and colleague Finoa Hunter of Cambridge University have shown this veneer of respectability to be a sham. During a summer camped on the ice watching Adelie penguins mate around the clock, Dr. Davis and Dr. Hunter observed prostitution and wife-swapping.

The most bizarre aspect of penguin sexuality is the female’s penchant for prostituting herself to acquire pebbles to line her nest. In the ice and snow of Antarctica pebbles are useful insulation, crucial for survival of broods, but they are at a premium.

Often the only way to get pebbles is to take them from other nests at the risk of severe pecking. Females have figured out that a good way to get pebbles is to swap sex for them, says Dr. Davis, who has been studying the penguins since 1977.

“Occasionally females who have pair-bonded with a male will go off for a quickie.”

Dr. Davis says penguin prostitutes usually manage to get a stone without having sex. In many instances females will go through a courtship ritual, then abscond with a stone after the male gets out of his nest, expecting them to lie down on it.

Natural history documentaries have always described penguins as mating for life. Dr. Davis says that is clearly not so.

“My work shows they swap partners regularly, often in the same season.”

Saturday Mourning

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At about 3:30 Saturday morning, as the rave at Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC) was winding down, the young people who lived at 2112 East Republican Street scanned the dance floor for people they could invite to their afterparty. They made a habit of welcoming strangers—it’s how they had all met one another in the first place. They had almost finished with the invitations when Jeremy Martin, 26, spotted a hulking, solitary figure.

“Go ask him,” Jeremy said to his best friend, Anthony Moulton.

Another person who lived at the home, 24-year-old Jesiah Martin (no relation to Jeremy), remembers having seen the man that night—conspicuous not just for his 6’5″ 280-pound frame but for the fact that he wasn’t dressed up or dancing. “He was by himself mostly, fly on the wall style,” said Jesiah.

Anthony, who is disarmingly goofy in the way of most in their group, approached the man and said, “Do you know the difference between Scotch and beer?” Most at the party were drinking beer, but Anthony handed the man a flask full of Macallan. The man took a swig and grimaced. But he liked it. He even smiled, leading Anthony to say, “Hey, what are you doing after this? We have half a keg at our place…”

And that is how Kyle Huff came to visit the house on East Republican Street.

I’ve mentioned before that The Stranger has been consistently doing the best reporting on the Capitol Hill shooting. They continue with this feature story on the events of the night.

Capitol Hill Tragedy

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So sad and terrifying.

Trademark this, Aggies!

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Given that Texas A&M is up in arms over the Seahawks’ use of the ’12th Man’ phrase — which the Aggies have actually trademarked — I must agree with this idea that popped up in LiveJournal’s seattle group.

Someone needs to make t-shirts with the following (forgive the slightly clumsy formatting, I’m not familiar enough with MathML to actually make it work completely correctly, and apparently Safari doesn’t even display MathML correctly, so it wouldn’t matter anyway…):

√144th Man

Disaffected!

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This is hilarious…and (at times) freakishly accurate.

Disaffected! – a videogame parody of the Kinko’s copy store, a source of frustration from its patrons. Disaffected! puts the player in the role employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetences common to a Kinko’s store.

[…] Disaffected! gives the player the chance to step into the demotivated position of real FedEx Kinkos employees. Feel the indifference of these purple-shirted malcontents first-hand, and consider the possible reasons behind their malaise — is it mere incompetence? Managerial affliction? Unseen but serious labor issues?

[…] Disaffected! is an arcade-style game with fast action and high replayability. The player controls one or more employees behind the counter at a typical copy store. As each level starts, customers enter the store through the front doors and line up behind the cashiers at the counters. The player must try to find and deliver each customer’s order. Obstacles include confused employees, employees who refuse to work, employees who move orders around indiscriminately so the player cannot find them.

After the number of years I spent working at Kinko’s (now FedEx Kinko’s)…heh. Count me as very, very amused. And very glad I’m not working there anymore.

(via Boing Boing)