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Justin Goff
jbgoff@gmail.com
(sent via blackberry)

Alex Albrecht Gets Ganked

Alex Albrecht of Diggnation and Totally Rad Show fame getting ganked on his warlock in Duskwood.





In case you're wondering, its Drazgoul on Executus.

Pic of the ganker in action:

Dear Apple

Fuck you. Seriously.

I want my Macbook Pro to run Leopard. I don't want to spend 70 dollars for the silly upgrade for "features" that may or may not be even worth it. I have someone in my household who owns a copy. I want to install it. It is not, in my opinion, illegal to use that persons copy to install the upgrade to mine. I understand that the license says one computer. Still.

You wanna know how Microsoft is better? You can install XP and Office on multiple (3) household computers.

Game, set, and match. I don't care if you think your operative system can turn water into wine, stop being stupid and at least let people in the same house share copies. Be happy you have enough customers to have this problem.

Without Love,
Captive Apple User

The Real News

In waiting for the Macworld 2008 keynote, I spent some time around the interwebs just seeing what was news, what wasn't and in general what was going on in the world.

While everyone was drooling over Steve Jobs' new bastard of technological bliss something interesting happened in the world.

President Bush got dissed by the Saudis.

Not only dissed, but politely laughed out of the Arabian Peninsula. Here is the reason why you should care. Paying nearly 30 dollars for my silly 10 gallon tank (i'm sure 60 dollars for some people) is serious business. And the Saudis don't care. In fact they're response to Bush's plea for increasing production was

"Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, appeared to rebuff the president’s appeal, though he did so gently. “We will raise production when the market justifies it,” he said at a press conference after Mr. Bush’s remarks."(source, NY Times)

Read in they're not raising prodction now because they are comfortable with 3 dollar a gallon gas.

From first hand knowledge I know that gas is 29 baht/litre which comes out to around $3.70 per gallon so we aren't even seeing the worst of it.

Why Facebook is Just as Bad as Myspace

So here's the problem. I'm not exactly anti-web social. In fact more often then not I'm trying to tell people why its a cool idea to get in and get involved. That's not the problem, the problem is it's too inundated with so much bullshit. From ads to notifications about things that are nonsense, these social black holes create nothing but stress and popularity contests with its users. I feel kinda blessed actually that Myspace didn't get huge until after I graduated high school. High school kids don't understand the dangers of character assassination. And with these social networks, its easier then ever.

I guess what I like Myspace/Facebook for is because people are too lazy (present company included) to create a proper cool website about me. Well, I guess its the blog but no one loves to email or give their email. People love comments though, probably for the narcissism or something but in the end, it creates too man social pockets.

Back to my main point. Myspace used to blow because of it being incredibly slow, and a ton of scammers and spammers trying to get their 5 min of your time. Also was a haven for pedophiles. My favorite living comedian Demetri Martin said it best on a "Trendspotter" segment on The Daily Show. The downside is, there are a lot of sexual predators on Myspace, but on the plus side there are a lot of sexual prey. Now with Facebook letting anyone create an account (sell outs) and starting the whole "lets create an app lawl and spam it" motion....rest is never assured for people just wanting a digital presence.

The funniest thing is how Facebook monetize peoples stupidity. For a dollar I believe you can buy a digital e-peen booster for your friends and give them to you as gifts. These digital badges of shame show how many people "care" about you to give you said gifts. When the hell will you people wake up and realize you're being sheep. /sigh

I close with the thought of how much a necessary evil social networks become. Not only will they not go away, but more and more people seem to be joining them, becoming great targets for companies to do scary espionage research on you. Just know anything you post online can and will be read by all.

EDIT: The joystick that closely resembeles a pedophiles dream.

Learning Online

I'm wondering if right now this is the best way to learn. Online learning wouldn't be so bad but there is really no telling where things are as far as whats expected and what needs to be done.

I want a list of shit I need to somewhere, including assignments and things clearly telling me what I need to participate. As it stands, I have three places where assignments can land on my head, and I don't appreciate having to babysit all of them. Plus its a programming class so it seems we would be better served if it was here. The worst of it all is that some classes aren't Mac compatible (only because the teacher wrote the stupid java) so, yeah no idea.

Heres to learning in the digital age.

EDIT: Scrap all that, I was able to listen to a lecture while taking a deuce. That is win in anyone's book.

The Cost of Keeping Sanity (on teh Internets)

To be honest, there are to many social circles.

I have Myspace, Livejournal, Blogger (rarely used), stumbleupon (seriously thought that was just a random button on the internet), uh...oh yeah Facebook (cleaner then myspace, can't do as much with it), digg (best news tracking site), and the least of which World of Warcraft forums (sorry, I play WoW). Crap, almost forgot pownce and twitter.

My attention span is divided enough as it is, I just can't keep up with it anymore. And to make matters worse, I've increased my load. I have a *new website called Stormcrow Accident that is a comic using the screenshots of World of Warcraft as my easel. I could draw the comics, but my wit would not show through as well, seeing as I am too much of a perfectionist to put slop like that up there. So I bend the rules and used Blizzard's intellectual property with a program that draws really well with comic bubbles and try to get a few laughs out of the masses. It was intended to create content by making me keep to a schedule because I have a problem with following through on projects.

Needless to say its easier to talk about the internet then make a webcomic, so I should be able to do both more often.

Sources and the Internet

There are few people in the internet that is worth it to read. Mark Cuban and his blog over at blogmaverick just talked about how blogs can form truth in a media that's turning away from journalism. If one blog reports it, then another reports on what that blog reports it, it must be true then, right? Well, unfortunately, there is a lot of that out there. Take a read over on his blog to get his take and the whole story.

Kinda makes me worried about reading print, just check your sources I guess.

Echo On the Internet

Washington Post's Peter Baker got robbed. He did the time and research for a well written article to all but have his by-line cut and a link at the bottom of the page that all but gives the Washington Post writer his due. The linking site, rawstory.com didn't deserve the 1200+ diggs. "This according to the Washington Post" and the link at the bottom doesn't absolve the fact that someone else's original research was being rebroadcasted.

I realize that a blog's purpose is to regurgitate the web for its own purpose, but at least give your constituency some level of opinion on the article instead of truncating it and posting. And grats on the Digg user for not having the brains to link the original article as it says in plain text on Digg's site when you submit an article (second bullet down).

I guess in the end what bugs me most is the lack of authorship on the web and seeing it get rewarded. You have people who blog under a company, people who do it like a pseudo job-hobby and seem to be doing well from it, and people who do it just to throw words out on the internet. Don't be the third category and just mince quotes into a new article. That is borderline disrespectful.

I'm all for voice on the internet, but if all you are is just a faint echo then what's the point?

Woman Arrested for WoW Love Affair

"She was a 31 mage, he was a 17 warrior. Unfortunately, we're talking about their ages."The synompsis is short, a 17 year old American NC boy meets 31 (admittedly kinda cute) Aussie from World of Warcraft and agree to meet in the States. In fact the 17 year old boy (or as the Aussie's family suggest, the parents of the 17 year old) fund the ticket for her to come and visit and immediately gets picked up by police. Unfortunately for her, a year is all that seperates prison and freedom. Now the big question, if it was an Aussie man visiting an NC girl, there would be an outrage. It'd be on the news everywhere and Hannity and Colmes would be interviewing everyone and their brother, touting justice has been served. Since I was 17 years old once, I feel like I could say how I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with the situation. If this was a 27 year old and a 41 year old, this wouldn't even be a blip in interest, so the difference? The law, apparently, and the fact that I wouldn't trust the love judgements from a 17 male WoW player. If I was a judge, I'd probably just extradite her and give her a year in prison or serveral years of probation. Yeah, 18 is the law but its not some magical number. In the end, I don't get the 'sicko' feeling and more like 'the law pwned you hardcore'. Life lesson learned kids: Wait another year IMO.

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