We know about those important technologies that have changed the world. But what about those over-hyped technologies that grab public attention but fail to have any sustainable cultural impact? The Onion’s uses one example to hilarious effect in their fake news video “Do You Remember Life Before the Segway?“.

This second essay from Matt Bunn considers the effects of the Internet on communication. Swirled throughout are interesting ideas concerning advertising, branding, democratization, and fundamentalism.

What do you think? Is the Internet “the birth of a new public sphere” or the creation of further “isolated milieux”?

If you are interested in further reading on the topic try contrasting these two bloggers: cluetrain manifesto co-creator and Internet Illuminati Doc Searls against the more dystopian flavor of Nick Carr.

Other featured ModernBizzle essays available here.

Continue reading ‘Guest Essay: The Virtual Cybernet of Democracy’

Library Elf is a useful free service that provides information about your library account via email, rss, or text message. It’s a great way to avoid late fines. Check out the list of supported libraries and find out if it’s available for you.

• Listen to Wilco’s entire upcoming album Sky Blue Sky on their website. It’s far more “chill” than any of their previous albums.
• See Beirut’s fantastic new music video for Elephant Gun.
• Discover some of my favorite new music from the U.K. namely Klaxons and Lily Allen.

I’ve been reading about Tim Ferriss’ new book The 4-Hour Workweek after seeing it mentioned on Scoble’s blog. There are definitely some elements of Don Lapre in the presentation but I did find his outsourcing life idea interesting and oddly humorous.

Despite my skepticism, I looked through Tim’s site¹ in a little more detail and stumbled upon his amazingly simple explanation of speed reading that actually works for me. I was so surprised with the discovery I wanted to keep it to myself–fortunately for patrons of the ModernBizzle the feeling eventually wore off.

This is an excerpt from the Low-Information Diet “manifesto” on changethis.com:

Reading isn’t a linear process but a series of jumps (saccades) and independent snapshots (fixations). To feel both, put the tip of your index finger on one closed eye and slowly trace a straight horizontal line on a wall with the other.

Reading speed increases to the extent that you reduce the number and duration of fixations per line. That is the verifiable science of speed reading in one sentence.

The process is simple. First, draw a vertical line down the center of five text pages, then draw two additional vertical lines to either side of each center line. Practice fixating only at the points where these vertical lines intersect the horizontal lines of text, then progress to unmarked pages of text. By training peripheral vision and consolidating eye movement, you will be reading at least three-times faster than before.

Download the pdf and go to page 13 to see an example of the “lines” he is talking about.

1. Tim’s site regularly refreshes the page for some reason. To increase pageview count? ↩

My friend and former roommate (and accidental god of thunder) Thor has finally joined the RSS “revolution” by using Google Reader for keeping up-to-date with at various websites including this one. In a way, he has increased the amount of attention he is pledging to “Modern Bizzle” by subscribing to the site’s feed. It’s akin to subscribing to a mailing list but less annoying and with more end user control. My LiveJournal friends are already participating in this way.

In order to better balance this attention-deficit on my behalf, I want to share something that I think might be of direct interest to Thor. One of Thor’s reservations about using a feed reader was losing the various unique experience each individual site may offer.

One way to keep this experience while still leveraging the benefit of RSS is the “Next Bookmark” offered in Google Reader. Just click the custom bookmark link and it will take you directly to the website of the next unread item from your Google Reader list marking it read in the process. Find the link for yours under “settings” and then “goodies.”

I imagine you could even share your “next” button. Here’s mine: drag this NEXT>> link to your bookmark bar and surf my small corner of the web.
Update: no, you can’t share your “next” button after all. Makes sense from a security perspective:  you are what you read.

“At first it was just exciting white-guy bull shit.”
NC State’s student newspaper, the Technician, has (finally) written a profile on an interesting old friend of mine, Dante Strobino. It’s surprisingly in depth: I was surprised to learn Dante and his family spent time in a shelter during his high school days. The Dante I knew as a kid was the video game-loving pogo champ of the suburbs.

Read the profile online

You can follow Dante’s activities on the Raleigh Fist blog.

Update:  According to a comment from Yolanda, my recollection of Dante was correct:  he and his family did not spend time in a homeless shelter.  This detail was a fabrication by the author.

I have a couple of invites to give away for the new beta of Joost.  Send me an email or leave a comment if you would like one.

Recent Google-suer Viacom cut a deal with Joost to make a handful of shows from MTV and Comedy Central available alongside more niche content such as a soccer channel and a style channel.  I found it a bit laggy when I was trying it out but I trust they’ll get that figured out.

Is this the future of television? Let’s wait to see if they make the Daily Show available.

The new Internet radio page I’ve added has already received its first rave review: my roommate listened to it all day at work. However, I must thank Last.fm, a social music site I’ve written about previously, for providing this capability.

I’m simply amazed - I don’t have to pay any licensing fees, upload music, or provide the bandwidth. The songs are automatically selected based on my music listening history. Last.fm handles the licensing and royalties¹. The upkeep on an Internet radio station is now as simple as listening to music.

Furthermore, I can listen to and share “radio stations” based on any other Last.fm user. Or I can generate a custom station of music similar to the artist of my choice. Pretty cool.

It’s especially impressive to see something like this considering the climate around music licensing on the Internet. See David Byrne’s post on the Copyright Royalty Board’s proposed significant increase in royalty rates affecting Internet, cable, and satellite radio. The legal issues can also be quite a burden for podcasters.

1. I read they’ve secured deals with Warner Bros, EMI, and some Indies ↩

I thought some of you may enjoy this short story I wrote when I was in 10th grade (or thereabouts). It’s a morality tale of sorts chronicling a group of young hackers. Oh, those wayward youths on the fringes of society…

Continue reading ‘From the archives: The Reign of Terror’