Today's Mighty Oak


Written: 10/15/2011

Fayette County is a magical place.  In so many ways.  There is a lot of beauty there: Nemacolin, Fallingwater, Ohiopyle, Connellsville, even Heritage (the camp I’ve worked at).  But it tends, and shamefully, sometimes rightfully so, of being a bit backwards, racists and a dangerous place.

A new favorite blog, Musings from FayetteNam, covered some hate graffiti she spotted while she was rafting including this fantastic sentence:

Regardless of Dylan’s sexual orientation, stop acting like being gay is a bad thing. It’s not. Being straight doesn’t make you better than anyone. Get over yourself.

Go read the whole thing, and subscribe to the blog, she’s funny, witty, and has her finger on the pulse of Fayette County, so it’s a great source for local news.

All my best,

The King of Spades



Once again, JoHo reminds me of something that is easy to forget, but a basic truth:

The Internet is not a medium. We are the medium



JoHo points me to this article, touting the death of web 2.0 next October.  And truth be told, it’s hard to take the date seriously (more in a moment), it’s really a measure of the mentions of the phrase “web 2.0.”  And while that may be true, I think we’re here to stay, at least for a while longer.

Although, just to add, it’s hard to take the article seriously, since it seems to seriously consider Orkut a big-time social network.

Anyway, I tend to agree with JoHo on this, just because this period of the Internet is more focused on user-driven and user-created content, does not mean we’re going to leave that.  The Internet is a conversation, and this period is a time when those previously consuming are now engaged, for good or for ill, and actively participating in the conversation.

Will the conversation ebb back to the other side?  We’ll have to wait and see, although I’m thinking we’re going to see a mix, and something new, in the future.  I do like how the ending of the article was phrased:

The big question, of course, is what will Web 3.0 be like? And the answer, I suppose, is that if we knew that then we wouldn’t be here.



Quick update for everyone, check it out:

I know this is being used at Occupy Seattle, not my cup of tea (I’m not a fan of the type of sleeping bag), but it’s pretty cool:

This might be the best tip ever:

io0 has a picture tour of the seed vault: humanity’s only hope if we lose agriculture

Not much to add to this, it’s the trailer for The Avengers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89_zqLk7k5A

Mikey Welsh apparently predicted his own death, with striking accuracy.

A filmmaker pits Siri against his real life assistant.

Iran is calling Occupy Wall Street (and the Occupy movement) the “American Spring.”  And so many people agree, including (the cows of) Ben and Jerry:

 

And finally…what if Dr. Seuss….had written a book on Sex Ed?



Couple new items for you today:

Check out this awesome parody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_0i5WqiIcc

Wonder why Campbell’s changed their labels?  Wonder no more.

This was a really fun read, check out what happens when a 33-year-old goes back to High School.

And don’t forget, Ignore Stephen Baldwin:



Alright, here we go again:

Couple newspaper updates.  First, McSweeney declares that the newspaper is the best e-Reader, bendable paper-thin screens have been invented and the Chicago Tribune tries their hand at a special, long-form intensive edition for Sundays.  Kind of like the early news websites.

Celebrities talk with IGN about their favorite Star Wars characters.

Click here to watch 35 movies in 2 minutes, pretty awesome.

Check out the second part of the strangest sights in Google Earth.  I’m surprised more companies haven’t followed the lead of number six.

I can’t add anything to this:

 

And, there’s a twin site to Stonehenge.

 



Another fun update for everyone, hope you enjoy!

Amazing XKCD wedding cake:

XKCD web comic wedding cake 

And some other cook cakes from Nerdist.

I’m not sure if this is somehow connected to the book about the Subway system, but there is an indy documentary about the font “Helvetica.”  I need to find a way to see this!

Lifehacker has a good article about how to protect you stuff.  I especially like the idea of setting up a fake porn folder with your contact and reward information on a flash drive.  Genius!  And here is their article about free apps, check it out.

This is scary, there are squid that can jump out of the water.

Hardcore Gaming, which is a strangely very static, web 1.0 type of site, ran an article a while back about Myst.  Check it out if you’re interested, and haven’t heard enough about it from me before.

Here’s a cool video about what if Mozilla made a cell phone:

Need to mix up your board games?  This book will help.

Here’s the projected timeline of the death of newspapers around the world.  We’ll see how this plays out.

And finally, a week without Facebook?  MSNBC tries it out.



Just a couple things right now, first up, a trailer has been released for the next Lego Harry Potter game:

Coming out of Ohio: Amish on Amish violence: cutting beards!  Good gravy.

I’m not a huge political movie fan, but this poster looks just awesome:

 

Need help finding a Sci-Fi or Fantasy book?  Answer a few questions and NPR has you covered here.

That’s it for now, happy Homecoming SVC (thinking back, they’ve had awesome weather every year, which is amazing!)!



Nike comes through with another awesome ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9B5fkWjnDI

Want to have the Dr. Horrible remote control on your phone?  Just use this bookmark.

Oh, American’s aren’t so smart about our own country.  But I think we knew that.

Copyranter discusses an anti-war ad, but really, I think it does better promoting the need for a better VA:

 

High school students in Boston were working to get rid of their abstinence-only sex education, because they were fed up with not knowing anything…and having to learn everything from porn.  Awesome, and sad, story.

This is pretty awesome, Super Mario Bros. 1-1, in first person perspective:

And super awesome, on Ash Wednesday, if you can’t make it to church, just grab this QR code instead.  I love augmented reality!

 



Hello everybody, another update for you!

Check out this really cool interactive billboard from McDonalds, pretty awesome.

Here’s an incredible little story.  Father and son at the first and last shuttle launches:

 

I think we all knew this was coming, and honestly, I think it may even make reruns more relevant, and fun to watch to spot them, but now there are new ads inserted into old sitcoms.

Your daily dose of politics from me:

 Okay, one more link for you.

Worried about what will happen to your online life after you die?  Here’s the Dead’s Man Switch and a way to help plan your funeral.

I missed this the first time around, but part of the big news is that Scissor Sisters are doing some of the soundtrack for the New Fraggle Rock movie.  The other is, how did I miss there is going to be a Fraggle Rock movie?!

If only this shirt was still true:

 

Oh yes, how very true:

 

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