Van Johnson on the Future of Content Networking

This is already a bit old, but I was just alerted to it via slashdot.

Van Johnson, one of the people responsible for building computer networking as we know it today, gives a lecture at Google summarizing how we got to Web 2.0 and proposing where we need to go from here. His basic premise is that we're currently at a "Coppernican Revolution" moment in terms of content delivery, similar to where we were in the 60s and 70s when they were working on what would become the Intertubes as we know them today...and suggests that we need to change the way we think about networking.

He suggests that the biggest problem with networking as we have it today is that it is still fundamentally too "conversation-based", which worked fine for the pre-commercial academic/military/research networks for which it was designed, but in our emerging ubiquitous computing world, it needs to be more "data-centric".

For those who care it's well worth watching.

Huge in Korea

So my regular reader knows that I've been perplexed by my inexplicable traffic resulting from searches on "tiananmen square", we now have chapter 2 of the story. (Sidenote: I've still never managed to find this blog when searching on any of these terms, which is one of my key sources of perplexity)

The (apparently) Korean search engine naver.com seems to be sending a lot of traffic my way on searches for "Gorillaz".

To this I say: "Huttah!", and further... 환영, 나의 한국 친구

(This is likely one of those cases where babelfish totally screws up and that text manages to be some Korean insult.)

4/29truth.com - don't believe the hype

Unlike the situation on 9/11, we now know how to evaluate gas-fire-related structural collapses. As such, we now have a site devoted to debunking the "official story" on the so-called *accidental* collapse of the overpass leading to the Bay Bridge, only days after the actual event.

Was it Liberals? Or the Jews? Or perhaps George Soros, even?

I'm sure this site will get beyond the *official story* in no time.

Johnathan Coulton - First of May

exitramp's favorite musician, Johanathan Coulton, has new (?) a song appropriate for MayDay. He maintains and/or exceeds most favored musician status with this one.

Link. (Definitely NSFW.)

Ah, spring...

Viacom Takedown on Coulton/Mix-a-lot Mashup

I had planned to do a post on the phenomenal time-synched mashup of Jonathan Coulton's cover of "Baby Got Back" with the original video by Mix-a-Lot, but apparently Viacom issued a takedown, so it's no longer available.

Once again, I've missed the trolley.

To make up for it, here's a Coulton doing "B.G.B." live video from L.A. last year. Suck it, Viacom.

• Previous exitramp post about Coulton: (Re Your Brains, machinima video)


• Link to the took-down YouTube link: ("No such thing as bad publicity" link)

Is The Internets Be Making We Stupid?

For the last four or five days, I've been refusing to look something up on the Internet. Sometime last week, we heard a cover of "I Melt With You", and I realized I couldn't remember the name of the band who originally performed that song.

Please understand that I loved this song when it first came out   got "alternative" big, but before it was a popular song. At my parents' house, I have both albums on which this song was released. In summary, I used to be a fan.

As such, I was extremely pissed that I couldn't remember the band's name. I refused to look it up on the Internet or even try to find the CD. I've been using the Internet as a crutch for good memory for way too long, and I think my long-term memory is suffering as a result. Not wasting brain cells on the syntax for a given command is one thing...not being able to remember the name of a favorite band from back-in-the-day is a completely different situation.

Tonight, I finally remembered their name. (Modern English) I'm totally enthused about having remembered it without any crutches, and I think I'm going to try to avoid using the Internet as a memory-aid to try and avoid allowing my long-term memory to stagnate.

Yet Another Post

Dear Internets,

I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but...

I did just go through the archives here the other day and noticed that I've been really bad about posting for many months now.

Recently, I started a new job. This one will likely involve far less after-hours and weekend work, so hopefully I'll have more time to find clever things to say.

We should totally spend more time together starting....NOW

Sincerely,

mergenow

P.S. John Edwards is a total fag LOL!!!!

Suck It, Pandora

If you didn't know me in college, you may as well skip this post.

I personally enjoy pandora.com, as far as algorithm-based music-recommendation services go.

However, today, they pushed my music snobbery to the limit...

While following a link to get the full song title tonight, I was presented with a page that presented me with the following challenge via a banner ad:

"Huh!" my inner music snob screamed out, "My freaking ass other Pandora listeners like the same music I do!"

Instantly, an old college favorite came to mind:

A tense minute elapsed while the hourglass thingy clocked away....until finally:

Yeah. That's what I thought, punk.

Test of new blogger

Let's see how the new blogger format works....

Speed of a meme

This guy is attempting to measure the speed of a meme through The Tubes.

Since I'm sucker for such things, I am playing along. He would like you to do so as well.

Posting

Indeed, I've really been slacking on posting lately. I really can't blame anyone except for the failed policies of the Clinton Administration. Or maybe Denny Hastert's staff. Something like that.

To make up for it, here's Katie Melua's video for "Nine Million Bicycles."



She recently set a world record for performing the world's deepest underwater concert on a gas rig in the North Sea. (warning: annoying website that doesn't accomodate direct links)

**UPDATE Feb 27, 2007*** Youtube link updated

Carney and Biden @ Mid-Valley Rally

Curses!

I have not been checking the Chris Carney campaign website nearly often enough. Apparently, yesterday, I totally missed the "Mid-Valley Rally" @ Barrett's Pub in Archbald. He had Joe Biden along with him as well.

Well, whatever. I'm still waiting for the "Chili con Carney" Dinner/Rally.

Rendezvous + realtime (almost) google maps

Okay, so I know I haven't posted much lately, and whenever I do, it's been some link to a youtube video...but bear with me, okay?

If you haven't seen Rendezvous yet, it's a short film made in 1978 by French filmmaker Claude Lelouch, in which he mounted a camera to the bumper of a Ferrari and had an (unspecified) Formula-1 driver friend drive balls-out through the early morning streets of Paris. It's a mind-blowingly stupid exhibition of some severely badass driving.

This guy has made a googlemaps realtime (almost) mapping of the drive.

Enjoy.

Onthaal aan mijn lezers van de Lage Landen

For some reason that I have yet to figure out, I seem to be getting a lot of traffic from the Netherlands. Specifically, a lot of my Dutch Homies seem to be searching on images.google.nl for the searchword "tank" and wind up coming here. This site doesn't seem to be a significant search result on that word, as near as I can tell, and the word seems to mean the same thing in Dutch as it does in English. The search result situation seems to be in response to my posting about the Tiananmen Square tank guy a while back.

If there are any English-speaking Nederlanders out there who would care to clue me in on the significance of "tank" in the current Netherlands idiom, I'd appreciate it. The most likely result I can find seems to be a club in Australia.

roomba love

Okay, truly there has never been an invention more practical and geek-fun than the Roomba. I got mine last week, and the sumbitch is probably the most fun thing I've ever bought that actually does something useful.

Admittedly, the algorithm it uses is best utilized in a room which is open in the center and has a few small items of furniture at the periphery. And it's not the most efficient vacuum cleaner I can think of...it tends to clean the same cross-room path and vestibules over and over. But tarnation, people...a robot vacuum cleaner with a remote control...how much cooler can you get????

Their Own Reality

Even given the already surreal quality that politics have had for the last few years, the Republicans have managed to blow my mind further in the last few weeks.

Just to recap, it was only a few weeks ago that Sen. Ted Stevens, who chairs the committe responsible for regulating the Internet, delivered his "series of tubes" speech which revealed that the old boy ain't quite got a handle on this new-fangled Internet-doohickey, yet. Disturbing as this exhibition of cluelessness may have been, it spawned countless inspired works of art dedicated to making fun of him, so it was all good.

More recently, Karl Rove: told the Denver Post that “recent studies” show researchers “have far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells.” The Chicago Trib, perhaps confused by the fact that these studies must have slipped under the radar of every major news outlet, talked with some stem cell experts who all shot that idea down. So yet again, we've got a Presidential Advisor who is either intentionally lying about something, or has no idea what's going on in the actual world the rest of us live in.

And finally, in the last few days we've heard from Senator Inhofe. The Senator is the Chairman of the Committee on Environment & Public Works. Despite the seemingly weekly release of studies which state unequivocably that global warming is real, it is caused by human activity, and it is likely to fuck shit up on this little planet of ours, the good Senator believes that global warming is a "hoax." Recently, he proved Godwin's Law and made a comparison to the Third Reich. Intriguingly, he refers to climate scientists who are expressing the conclusion supported by overwhelming evidence in the absence of any substantial counter-arguments as being "on the other side of the debate." I never participated in the debate club in high school, but it sounds like that "other side" might more properly be termed the "winning side." This was a debate 15 years ago. The debate is over.

At this point it's hard for me to tell if they are intentionally attempting to lie about the facts, or if this bunch of smug know-it-alls have so completely surrounded themselves in their own bubble of Yes Men that they actually believe their own crap.

At family holidays when I was younger, I'd always get into arguments with my uncle's extremely republican father. At the end of any of these arguments, no matter what my argument was, he settled into his self-satisfied composure, secure in the knowledge that he had made his mind up about things in the 70s, and by gum, nothing was going to change that mind. We now only discuss the weather and the good old days. In the case of my uncle's father, he is mostly retired and his attitude is mostly harmless. He is not, however, responsible for running the goddamned most powerful nation in the world.

I get the sense that a lot of people are starting to come to the realization of exactly how incompetent this crew really is, and how dangerous they are to our national well-being. At any rate, I sincerely hope so, because otherwise Canada is going to get really crowded.

Furthering the Cause

Over at dailykos, bonddad provides some helpful economic talking points for the democrats. Hopefully, it will help frame the future discussions about the bush economy.

This Blog is Not a Truck

I am particularly taken by this techno homage to Senator Ted Stevens' now-classic speech about the Internets. Brought to you via your favorite series of tubes.

All we wanna do....

funniest. machinima. evar.

I can only describe it as a touching annoying office co-worker zombie stripped-down rock opera machinima video made using WoW.



bds, I'm talking to you, here. disgustedem and geo, you will still wet yourself.

(I believe I got this from pinko punko in a poorman comment, but I closed the tab and I'm too lazy to go back and verify.)

Axes of Evil to Grind

Too much newsworthy stuff happening today, and I'm too out of blogging lately to do any justice to these items.

For now, I'll just take this opportunity to address the low-hanging fruit. Probably the biggest news of the day was the fact that North Korea took the occaision of the 4th of July to test launch a number of missles into the Pacific. (As of the most recent news reports, the final number appears to be 7 missles.)

Of course, all of the news articles make a point of mentioning that these missles may be capable of reaching Alaska. As such, I feel obligated to comment on this in the way only my deep geopolitical insight can truly cover with any amount of gravitas:

Setup: Kim Jong-Il has a Taepodong that can reach Alaska.
Punchline: OH, SURE!! MAYBE IF HE'S STANDING THREE INCHES AWAY FROM THE BORDER!!! LOL!!!11!11!