Filed under: Internet, Technology | Tags: amazon, firefox, pirates of amazon, the pirate bay
Repository of satirical genius the interwebz often is, it is also home to some exceptionally humourless gits.
Amazon’s lawyers, for example.
Twitter users will have seen the update from torrent-track service The Pirate Bay last week, revealing a funky Firefox add-on. The Pirates of the Amazon app stuck a ‘download 4 free’ button onto Amazon search pages, directing users looking for merchandise to the relevant torrent on The Pirate Bay where they could get it…for free! Stuff you, supersaver delivery.
Filed under: Technology | Tags: elephant, google earth, mumbai, terrorism
India, 1996. When I stood just inside the red gates of my grandparents’ house in New Delhi, I could see the hordes of traffic which passed outside. Mopeds, Marutis, Ambassadors, cycle rickshaws – all everyday features of clunking roadways utterly devoid of logic.
But a wide-eyed ten-year-old couldn’t fail to be captivated by the startling image of a temple elephant shambling alongside cars speeding around potholes at 60mph.
Filed under: Internet, Social media, Technology | Tags: geeks, MUDs, online, twitter, warcraft, web 3.0
The internet jungle is full of predators these days, and it’s best making sure you’re at the top of the evolutionary scale before venturing into it. Are you predator or prey – or are you off the geek radar altogether?
Geek 1.0
The grandaddy of geeks, who used MS DOS and played Lemmings off a floppy disk – and that’s the whizzy ones who weren’t playing table-top role-play games like Dungeons and Dragons. Geek philosopher Douglas Adams knew what he was about when he said these people ‘still thought digital watches were a pretty neat idea.’
There are very few female samples of geek 1.0, it being more of a hobby than a way of life. Geek 1.0 has moved with the times, in that he is now a 40 year old manchild more obsessed with Warcraft than painting his high-level elf warmage precisely the correct shade of red.
Primitive and pot-bellied he may be, geek 1.0 is still worth paying attention to. It’s old school graphics designers and coders like him who have created some of the most viral fantasy games on the market. And some slightly less viral ones which are nonetheless an excellent way of wasting 5 minutes. Sadly, he should have spent more time bringing up his kids properly, who have grown up to become…
Geek 2.0 
Just to wrench Chuck Palahniuk hideously out of context, this emo kid in the family tree is probably best described by Tyler Durden:
We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.
At least, this is what 2.0 likes to think when he’s hideously overanalysing in his smelly hovel darkened bedroom. I should know – I am one. It’s only just become acceptable to confess to being socially challenged a 2.0 nerd, if your BO hasn’t given you away already. And even then, there are levels. You shouldn’t, for example, reveal that perhaps you didn’t spend your 90s childhood raving to Prodigy but in multi-user dungeons, which would mark you out as roughly the social equivalent of plankton.
You should also never, EVER admit to having been in a chat room. Even I would shun you.
When it comes to communication, 2.0 comes into his own as the inventor of the weblog, MySpace and Facebook. But there are drawbacks which haven’t yet been resolved. I, for example, have spent so many years communicating online that I now can’t think clearly when writing with a pen. No really, it’s a real disease. The mainstream press says so.
And now, 2.0 is in a state of crisis. Because suddenly there’s a cooler younger brother on the scene who goes by the name of…
Geek 3.0
Social life: I haz it, says 3.0, sashaying about with an iPhone and an ego to rival that really talentless guy from Razorlight. Because 3.0 uses the net to splat you with his opinions where possible. In any format possible. And he’s absolutely certain you’ll want to know the depths of profundity he can achieve in a mere 140 characters.
Not that a 2.0 like me is bitter or hypocritical in any way. But it’s a little disconcerting to see 3.0 journalists treading all over what should be your territory, worshipping the non-event that is Second Coming Life. And even more disconcerting to have your users talk back at you.
But I are serious cat, and this is a serious blog. Beautiful as interaction between writer and reader is, there are implications of 3.0 reporting which sees the spread of information to the general populace at breathtaking speed. And live blogging about terrorism even from the highest quality dailies risks making news into entertainment. At what point does constantly refreshing for an updated death toll become less about accuracy and more about the thrill of immediacy?
But there is no more terrifying evidence of 3.0 dialogue between content-provider and content-consumer than on YouTube. I mean, you really want to know exactly what kind of animal the online public is? Just go to any YouTube video and read the comments underneath. That’s the voice of the future, my fellow geeks. Phear.
Filed under: Internet, Technology | Tags: gaming, lessons in modern geek, lolcats, Technology, warcraft
Us journalists love to think we’re geeks. Really up down with the kids. A casual Twitter update here, half an hour on the Wii there.
O rly? Know what the above says then?
I’m still coping with the turnaround of geek becoming cool. I blame the Matrix; apparently no one’s recovered from a trilogy of Keanu Reeves in leather. You’d think he might have bandied about some actual hacker terminology but no. Not even a sniff of 1337. Just guns. The closest real geeks get to Desert Eagles is crytography – once defined by the US defence department as weaponry.
And now everyone’s all over the new WoW expansion – lots of positive press coverage. But then a marriage breaks up – lots of negative press coverage. Traditional media is still slightly confused in its approach towards technology. The red tops barely touch it. The Telegraph and the Guardian try to be cool uncles. I’m currently trying to discover some kind of financial link between Rupert Murdoch and Second Life, because there is no earthly reason why the Times should continue to obsess over such an unreservedly naff game. The BBC delivered its online tech coverage long ago into the hands of a single journalist. Ever see that happening in News?
I’m definitely not a nerd. Real geeks get better paid jobs than me. But I also know that new journalists aren’t, by and large, nerdy enough. To distinguish ourselves from the Luddites over at the Times (who asked me during one internship what ‘lolcat’ was), we need to be aware of the subtle difference between levels of nerdship. We should know that Weezer’s Pork and Beans references almost every YouTube meme that has existed, ever. This is not even remotely like David Cameron posting up a video about his kids. And if you want to know what the title says, try copy/pasting it into this.
Let the trolling commence.
Filed under: Technology
There are some fashionable buzzwords being bandied about by the press this week. Leading the league table of overused phrases is ‘narcissism’, usually in reference to Barack Obama’s image heavy presidential campaign. Outdoing even Narcissus, not only does he coo over his own reflection, but inflicts it on the global public.
As Big Brother has sadly demonstrated, self-obsession is no longer a celebrity attribute. We all want a slice, and no one does vanity quite so well as the British teenager.
Which brings me to buzzword number two, ‘Generation Y’. The cohort of Generation Y spent an angst-ridden, spotty youth communicating its woes through the Nokia 3210 (remember that?) and MSN Messenger. Ten years later, it is extremely internet-savvy and responsible for a complete revamp of what is considered to be alternative culture.
They are the teenagers and 20-somethings who spend hours on social networking sites, feeding an appetite hungry for online entertainment and stimulation. A prime example of a Gen Y whiz kid is Mark Zuckerberg, the 24-year-old CEO of Facebook.
Here users can post photographs, artwork, manipulated images and whatever else they want others to see. A consequence of this is the ‘MySpace photo’ – you know, a bunch of teenage girls holding out a camera at arm’s length while pouting into the lens. If deemed acceptable, this photograph will find its way online, possibly in flattering black and white. There it will scream, “We are having fun! Look! So much fun!” to envious friends who will go out and do precisely the same thing.
This is simply one example of how we choose to present images of ourselves – only partially reflective of our true appearances and entirely manipulated to our own agendas. Through text and photos, life is reflected as Generation Y wants it. Technology has enabled us to change not only the image, but the mirror itself.
