We Should See Other Blogs

• "Hell, let's say it's two chainkatanas… attached by a chain to make chainkatanachucks." #quotes #
• I don't know why, but I've always wanted to punch Ben McKenzie in the face. #
• Film tech no longer surprises or delights me. You can generate an entire world? Meh. Call me when you can do it procedurally in a game. #

• Okay so "I See Rowboats" isn't quite what I was expecting. Also, I didn't know there WAS a bluegrass+postrock genre. #music #
• It doesn't matter if you say the church's ultimate focus is God when you preach fulfillment and gratification. #fb #
• Wow, that's a huge order coming down the pipe. Two huge orders, actually. Good stuff! #
• Why would you use a media centre that does all sorts of things badly when you can use FooBar2000 + VLC? I don't get it. #

• RT @laurastargirl "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME" <Kennith> #
• Oh you know The Unicorns "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone" from HIMYM the other week? Own it. Booya. #
• Listening to Vampire Weekend's "Contra". Good stuff so far. #music #
• Frasier made a crack at "Einstein on the Beach" once, but I take his point, you need to be in a specific kind of mood. #philipglass #
• Boy, Hillsong, like the toms much? Goodness. TOM OVERLOAD. #fb #
• You are victory. You own my history. Nothing is out of your reach. You are my prince of peace. #

• Printers are from hell: http://bit.ly/8Sh33P #
• Home run! #icecream #
• I dislike working with people from large companies. They all seem great at projecting an aura of frenzied activity without actually working. #
• You know what's fucked up? The way all US trade treaties are tied to strict copyright, pharmaceutical, and patent regimes. #
• There's always that one guy who makes a big deal about everything. Shut up, one guy! #
• Dear Fruit Fly, I regret to inform you that your decision to land inside my nose has led to a… sticky… situation. #
• Dear Morbidly Obese Woman, Tights are not pants. In fact, for you, pants are not pants. For you, tents are pants. #
• Dear Toilet, Your internal mechanism is stupefying. I do not understand how you were designed by actual people. #
• Dear Jay Leno, I hate your irksome smirking face, your cloyingly threadbare monologues, and the fact you ate up a year of prime time. #
• Dear Salesman, Commission. Get friendly with it. #
• Drumming along to blue rodeo? FUN. #fb #

• Dear Mr Obama, you can't change the way Washington works. The problem is institutional. #
• Anonymous Facebook employee interview: http://bit.ly/4NMQ61 #
• Dealing with companies in India isn't easy… but it's a lot easier that dealing with companies in China. #
• Hallo chaps! #
• I had forgotten the many, many reasons I had for leaving home. Thanks for the reminder. #
• Here's the thing, Sage. Your service department sucks. Badly. We'd rather pay a consultant a bit more than deal with you jokers. #
• SSH is a pretty cool thing when you think about it. Mobile SSH is even better. #
• http://twitpic.com/y2j91 – GFM + AYOR #
• She wasn't really joking, but my brother laughed anyway. http://bit.ly/7ytaDU #
• I'm going home. Can't be bothered rightnow. #
• Spam: 1 / Blocked: 1 #banhammer #

• Good morrow, tweeps. #
• Ambrose Burnside was a bit of a freak. #
• HELLO WORLD STOP I AM SENDING A #TWELEGRAPH STOP HOPE ALL IS WELL STOP WELL BACK TO SUBUGATING THE NATIVES STOP #
• So that was a long useless conversation, #
• Got my Phillips 24" 1080p HDMI screen in. Yay! #
• Keleem Rehman is a hermaphrodite. Not a lot of people know that. #

• Video read forward and backwards with wildly different meanings: http://bit.ly/8GOUmE #
• Tea hangers. Nice. http://bit.ly/8lnj3u #
• Good morning, Seattle. I'm listening. #
• Work, you asshole. That's what's happening. #
• I want you to do something backwards and illogical for reasons I won't tell you about but will come back to bite you. Make it happen? #
• I'm going to whistle all day in C-above-C. I hope that doesn't annoy you. Actually, I don't care. #
• Can I ask you to do the thing I already asked you to do. Clearly you're not busy and asking twice is a great way to get things done. #
• I want to check a price with you. I know I just checked a month ago. I know you haven't changed your prices in five years. Just being safe. #
• Just pressed ctrl-shift-v (used to doing this in gnome-shell) in open office, and behold, it invokes the paste special dialogue. Who knew? #
• Ironic. Clutterpad cluttering up my follower list. Trashed. #banhammer #
• I hate everything. #
• I want a chemistry set for my birthday. How fun would that be! #
• Yeah, I needed to be nagged on. That's how things get done. #
• Wouldn't it be cool if I cut my leg! No? Oh well, I did it anyways. #
• http://twitpic.com/xtww2 – Things Iowa Has: #

• I come in to work and not five minutes later, on a Monday, I get a phone call. From… one of those. #
• The Blackberry Storm is among the shittiest phones I've ever laid hands on. What a joke. #
• Epic flowchart: What Soda Should I Drink? http://bit.ly/4oe00R #
• Another epic flowchart: What Beer Should I Drink? http://bit.ly/4xMAo8 #
• 01-11-10 : Happy palindrome day indeed. #
• Google tells us the difference between men and women: http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=704 #

• Waxing doesn't hurt as much as girls seem to indicate. #
• I don't get M*A*S*H. #
• Off to church. #

If there’s one thing I love about living in 2010, it’s the internet. Specifically, I love the number of experts that you can find on any conceivable subject. If you want to find a new site devoted to some obscure technological artefact, it’s probably out there. If it isn’t, you can start it.

Of course, when you’re on the internet, your bullshit detector is set to full. You don’t believe everything you read. It’s just a bunch of people talking. You don’t believe everything a random collection of people say, and that’s true of the web.

Plus, when someone you recognise is constantly wrong, you can correct them in the comments–the internet likes to pretend to be interactive in at least the most perfunctory manner–or just ignore them completely.

This is one area traditional media can’t compete. In fact when you’re used to the internet way, the traditional media model seems not just obsolete but downright silly. These people positioned as guards at the gateway of information: Who are they? Who appointed them? Why do they get to be there? (Sidebar: The further inside the media establishment you look, the less you’ll respect it. There are few institutions that deserve the position of gatekeeper.)

For instance, you know something about technology. Yet you read an article in the newspaper about some technological artefact and you realise neither the reporter nor the editor understands it. They don’t get the most basic stuff about it. So you dismiss the article and turn the page and read someone going on about politics and never think that if they can’t understand something as simple as technology, how in the world could they understand something so complex as politics?

We all have this sort of blindness, a kind of amnesia. When you read Wikipedia, the editors are ruthless. If a statement is unsourced, they delete it or add a [citation needed] tag. Either way you know that the phrase is suspect. There’s also a strict rule against weasel words and things like that. Yet reading a newspaper is an exercise in find a phrase with a citation, or finding an article without weasel words. Traditional journalism is pathetic. You practically have to read between the lines to get an accurate idea of what’s actually happening.

Internet news sites get down to business. Items can’t be long, for both attention deficit and bandwidth reasons. If something is complete bullshit, someone will say something. Probably lots of people. Some are saying? Well… who? Links help build context. If you really need context–if you’ve come out of a coma recently–you can follow the links or quickly google the subject at hand.

So why do we treat internet news sources as inferior to traditional new sources? Why do we assume a higher standard of truth–after all, journalistic convention is about better truth, right? I can’t see many downsides here. And I think traditional news media are scared of the internet not simply because it’s a different medium. The news media adjusted well enough to radio and television, after all. It’s because it’s a totally different way of interacting with news. I don’t need a 500 word article that contains context, quotes, and supposedly neutral blather. I need a basic summary, some links, and a well-thought-out commenting forum.

That’s going to be a shock for most short and long form journalists, and their editors. There will always be a place for investigative journalism and long human interest stories. But news? Nah.