People make mistakes, especially writers. They use the wrong word sometimes, or they don't realize a sentence came out meaning the exact opposite of what they meant to say.
Reporters can be the same way, of course. Maybe they got a fact wrong, or further revelations make something they claim in a story untrue?
In the era of print journalism, corrections would have to be made in later editions. They would have a corrections box that would say something like "in yesterday's story on President Obama's speech, he was identified as President of the United Kingdom. He is, of course, President of the United States. The Journal-Post-Picayune regrets the error."
They didn't report every error, and accusations of getting the story wrong (intentionally or unintentionally) could still be leveled at a newspaper, but the fact that the story was written in a certain way would be indisputable. Somebody could grab yesterday's edition and show what was actually written.
With online journalism? For some reason, journalistic institutions don't seem to feel the need to do that anymore.
Sometimes it's relatively harmless, changing a misidentified person or the spelling of a name. Other times, though, it's particularly egregious and could easily be seen as the outlet attempting to cover its tracks.
I think it's safe to say that none of us like criticism. If it's constructive criticism, we can accept it and use it to make ourselves perform better. But it still sucks to hear it.
When you get what seems to you to be unfair criticism, it must be very hard to bite your tongue and go forward with the "everyone's entitled to their opinion" attitude. It can be even harder when the criticism is on the Internet, where you feel just a little bit removed from everything even if the criticism isn't from some anonymous troll.
Is it really a good idea to respond to it, though? Other than a "thank you for your thoughts" or something like that? And if you do respond (say the person criticizing actually gets something factually wrong in the course of expressing their opinion), wouldn't it be a good idea to be professional about it?
If you're a volatile chef in a fancy-shmancy restaurant (yes, that is a cut above just a fancy restaurant), then the answer to that question is obviously "no."
According to the Telegraph newspaper in the UK, a Milan chef vented his wrath at what he thought was a stupid review by food blogger Samantha Wood of his new venture in Dubai.
On my way home from work today, I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts, the Lasertime show put on by a bunch of the guys who used to do Talk Radar. (For those of my fans who don't read my media/pop culture posts, please keep reading. I only use some of those for reference points in order to make a larger point)
The subject of this particular episode isn't important, but as usual they all went off on tangents anyway, and one of them was on the incessant need for some people on the Internet to hate things. Especially popular things. And to hold onto this hate beyond any sense of rationality.
It really is a phenomenon that I have seen from time to time, though thankfully not too much recently. The reason for that is more where I hang out than because it's quieting down. Because it's certainly not doing that.
I feel your pain, Benny
You find this a lot in relation to various pop culture things like movies, games, books, television, and things like that. People have this irrational need to get into long, pointless arguments about things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Who would win in a fight: Galactus or Darkseid? Did Han Solo really shoot first when he killed Greedo, or is Lucas lame for making that change? Which Star Wars movie is the worst one? Just how many women out there would love to date me if I wasn't already taken? (Believe me, those arguments are legion and have gone on for fourteen years or so. It's also been responsible for a catfight or two)
I've graduated beyond these for the most part, and I've never taken part in them. Now I read (mostly) civilized debates on policy and stuff like that. I still occasionally check out game fora and the like, and you've never seen Internet hate until you've seen the comments in a post about Activision's Call of Duty franchise. The anti-Activision rants can reach legendary proportions.
Sometimes it feels like we're living in an increasingly closed society where the only friends we have we've never met. Or we only communicate with them online because somebody's moved away. I may be jaded, though, as that seems to be the type of person I am right now. That being said, I think it is becoming more of an issue as time goes on, with people shutting themselves away.
Do you have trouble meeting people, like I do? I recently discovered a great new site that many of you have probably already heard of called Meetup. (Many thanks to an author and incredibly nice woman I met at V-Con last year and who I talk to on Twitter a bit, Sandra Wickham, for pointing me to this site). No, it's not a site for clandestine rendezvous or anything like that. Basically, it's a site where groups of people can find others with similar interests and get together socially. It can be for activities, or just discussing common things.
Sandra pointed me to the site because there is a Dr. Who group on there she thought I might like (my Twitter handle is whovian223, so she figured I was a Who fan). However, given the writing class I just finished, I decided to look and see if I could find a writers group too. As I mentioned the other day, I did find a group called the Vancouver Independent Writers Group, and I've had a blast at the last two meetups.
What do you think of when you hear the word "lurk?" Does it give you the willies as you imagine some dark stranger hiding out in your house? Or do you think of somebody who reads, but doesn't post, to a discussion forum? People who read discussion forums but don't bother to contribute to them are called "lurkers."
Yesterday I was in a discussion where somebody used the term "lurker" to mean the latter, to be a member of a site but not actually contribute to it, at least right away. He said that she would be "lurking" on the site. It made a couple of the women in the discussion uncomfortable, and a mini-discussion about the word started. I came out and said that, having been on the Internet almost since its inception, the word "lurker" doesn't mean anything bad to me, unless the context of that use demands it, of course. If somebody tells me that an evil-looking guy is hanging around the school lurking in the corner, then obviously that's bad.
But just the word itself? Especially used in the context which it's been used for the Internet for years?
It just struck me as odd.
I was even told by one of the women that "if you were a woman, you'd understand."
That may be, but I don't think so. Who knows? Maybe I would.
So I'd like to throw this out there to all of you.
Is the word "lurking" a bad thing, in and of itself? With all context removed? (Even though I think the context was plain anyway)
Now, if you've never heard of the Internet "lurking" definition, then your opinion may be skewed. I'd still like to hear your viewpoint, though.
It's weird how we can be completely blind-sided sometimes, discovering the weird permutations of something that we've been doing or saying for years.
(edited to clarify that I'm mainly talking about the *word* "lurk," not the act of lurking in general. Sorry for the confusion!)
One of the first things I did when I went to V-Con 36 this year was agree to be interviewed for a documentary on web video series and their audience. Web video series used to be niche products, watched by very few people, but they're becoming more and more popular as a way to get around the usual bureaucracy of dealing with television networks. Even big name stars are doing them sometimes. The added attraction for the viewer is that each episode is generally 5-10 minutes long, so there's not a lot of time invested. Yet the story quality can be quite good.
I spent some time talking to the couple behind the "Mind My Brains, Darling" webseries, Mary and Paul Higgins, and Mary interviewed me for the documentary. She asked me if I was familiar with webseries and whether I watched them. I had to answer that while I knew they existed, I never watched them. One of the prominent webseries people, whose name pops up whenever webseries are discussed, is Felicia Day, and Mary asked me if I had ever seen "The Guild."
Now, it's three weeks later, and I thought back to that meeting, that interview, and that comment. I went looking for The Guild, not realizing that it was a webseries (I'm not sure why that took so long to sink in, considering the setting of where I found out about it). When I discovered that it was on Youtube, I decided to watch the first season and see whether I'd like it or not.
All I can say is, wow. My inner nerd is on fire.
The Guild is about a woman named Cyd (Codex), who is immersed in an online gaming world. So immersed, in fact, that her therapist "fires" her because she won't work on breaking her addiction to the game. She's a member of a guild of six characters who go adventuring in the game world together, and who all know each other through the game but have never met in person. Until Zaboo shows up at Cyd's door, that is. And he's in love.
The series is completely written by Day, and she's gathered a great set of actors to play the other characters in the guild. They have wonderful comic timing, and it's simply a hilarious series. Day is a big-time gamer, and the love for gaming really shows through.
Here's the first episode of the first season, introducing the whole thing.
The first season is great, and there are three more on Youtube, with a fifth that hasn't made it to Youtube yet but is available on Zune and Xbox, as well as The Guild's home page. It's well worth checking out.
In fact, Day is quite prominent in the webseries world, as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Web Television.
She's also makes a hot elf.
Day is starring in a webseries that's based on the Dragon Age 2 game, called "Dragon Age: Redemption," as the Elf assassin Tallis. The first two episodes are out and I've watched them too. Really good stuff.
I will be catching up with the Guild over the next little while, and I know I'll enjoy every minute of it. If you're a gamer, you will love this series, and possibly recognize people that you know.
If you're not a gamer, you will probably still get a laugh. Check out the first couple of episodes.
Hell, it's only seven minutes out of your day to do that. And even if you decide to watch the full season, that's only an hour.
I joined Classmates.com a few years ago, but first sprang for a paying membership last year. It's a great way to keep in touch with your old classmates, whether it's high school or college (or any other schooling, actually, at least older than high school). You can post pictures (old and new), keep people up to date on what you've been doing since graduation, all of that good stuff.
Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has recently been quoted as saying that anonymity on the Internet is "dangerous" and that it will soon disappear. In an article on the International Business Times web site (though there are articles about this all over the web), it says:
"Arguing that anonymity on the Internet is dangerous, Schmidt had reportedly said, 'In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you.'
He also said governments may eventually put an end to anonymity. 'We need a (verified) name service for people," he said. "Governments will demand it.'"
He goes on to say that this is different from privacy, and that privacy is crucial on the Net, and that people's private information should be secured. (Given their recent issue with private data, I think he's partially covering his ass there, but who knows?)
What do you think of when you hear the term "troll?" I guess it depends on your mindset, but almost universally in modern times people know it's referring to those irritating Internet idiots who post intentionally provocative comments on blogs, discussion forums, or whatever. They are loathsome beasts, and like the trolls of the Fantasy genre, they regenerate so easily that even a killing blow doesn't put them out of our misery.
Or better yet, do you have a Google Alert set up for your name to see when it comes up?
I do. Of course, anybody who posts stuff online, like reviews or articles or whatever, should probably do this just to see where their work is showing up (Amazon reviews show up on a *lot* of Amazon partner sites, for example). But increasingly, "regular" people are doing this as well. One of the pieces of advice given to those starting a relationship (advice especially given to women, though it's good for both parties) is to "Google the guy" before doing anything more than meeting for coffee (or even before *that*!).
Mashable has an article about this, "Majority of Adults Now Google Themselves [STUDY]". Most of the article is about online privacy, which is surprising given the headline. However, it does say that "57% of adults have used search engines to find information about themselves online," which doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, I'm surprised it's not more (though the article does say that this percentage is increasing).
So what about you? Do you check yourself out online? If you have an unusual name, like Joe Shlabotnik, it's probably easier. My name? "David Roy" doesn't show anything about me for at least 5 pages. "Dave Roy" is right there on the front page.
That will probably change when I become rich and famous.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about blogging communities and how some bloggers band together to form their own little social circle, as well as the best way to attract new people to it.
But it didn't start out that way. I went off on kind of a tangent. While I did like what I ended up writing, that was not the initial inspiration for my post. I'll post the beginning of it again:
"As human beings, we strive to organize ourselves into communities, whether they're actual ones (a town or city, for example) or social ones. The Internet has done much to foster the social communities we form, but even before that, we would have our own little groups of friends and fellow travelers, be it in high school, college, at work, or at play. We strive to be with people of similar minds, or those who complement our own personalities even if they aren't similar.
Some of these communities we form out of necessity because we are all forced together, such as in school. We form these communities because that's how we deal with shared situations. A group of people trying to handle the same situation all as individuals never really accomplishes much.
Other communities we seek out on our own, to give us another place to belong or because we have a certain inclination and we want to share it with others who feel the same way. You join a club, or a gaming group, or whatever. And sometimes you blog."
If you've been around the Internet at all, I'm sure you've seen them. There's a German movie called Downfall, about Hitler's last days in the bunker. There's a very memorable scene whether Hitler goes off on a rant to his underlings. It's truly brilliant. Since the movie is in German, it's subtitled.
Some wiseguy on the Net decided to take that scene and add his own script to it, making Hitler rant about something or other (I have no idea what the first one was about). Soon, it became a Youtube standard, used for everything from the NHL Trade Deadline to Michael Jackson's death. These videos were all over the place! There was even one where he ranted about becoming the subject of a Youtube meme. Most of them were hilarious, though they were starting to get old.
Have you been filling out a form on the web, maybe a comment on this very blog or some other blog, or maybe a question to a business through their "contact us" web form, and had your browser crash in the middle of it? Or maybe hit "submit" and your browser responds with "there's been an error", and when you hit the "back" button, everything you typed was gone? Doesn't that just piss you off? All that typing, and you have to retype it?
If so, then I have the browser add-on for you. It's called Lazarus, and it's available for both Firefox and Chrome (maybe for other browsers as well, but those are the browsers I use). This simple add-on will automatically save everything you type into a web form. If it crashes or something, you can reinstate everything you just typed with just a mouse click!
What happened yesterday has brought up one problem I have with Internet arguments that I really wish I could change about myself. Yet it always seems to pop up even when I try very hard not to let it get to me.
And before I say what that is, I want it to be clear that not all of what I say below is about yesterday. It's about any argument/discussion/debate that I get into online, where the feedback is not immediate. This was just prompted by yesterday.
Ok, maybe not. But for your Friday night amusement, here are a couple of (obviously bored, or maybe slightly drunk) Chinese college students having a little fun with a cam and a Backstreet Boys song. Special note for the completely oblivious guy in the back. He looks awfully preoccupied. Can they get Internet porn in China, or is that filtered out too?
Anyway, here you go. This is an oldie, but a goodie.
Incidentally, they appear to be even more of a sensation on Youtube than they were when I first saw them. Secondly, this is really surreal without any sound.
I know I've posted about this on my Facebook status before (and, since these posts get sent there eventually, this will be too!), but I'm currently listening to some interesting stuff while I'm at my desk working. It's on the Shoutcast Internet radio network, and it's the "Polskie Radio" New Age & World Music station, using Winamp.
What's most interesting on this station? Apart from the various Celtic and other New Age music that I've always enjoyed, it's very interesting to hear "popular" music in Gregorian Chant. Chant versions of a Cure song, Eric Clapton, REM, and many, many others. It's quite an interesting take on the songs.
Have you tried "This is True," Randy Cassingham's email newsletter that brings the world of weird and interesting (in a funny way) news to your inbox every week? If not, you should be.
I first discovered This is True sometime in the mid-90s (Cassingham started it in June 1994, so I'm thinking it was probably sometime in 1995). Basically, Cassingham compiles a variable number of news stories from around the globe, summarizing them and then adding a little comment at the end of the summary. All of these stories are weird in some way and most are funny as hell. Many will make you stop and think a moment as well, even as you laugh at the absurdity of the story itself (these are mainly stories on "zero tolerance" in schools, where the slightest infraction of often inane rules will result in suspensions without the administrator(s) even thinking about the situation, but there are other topics like this as well).
There are two versions of "This is True" that you can subscribe to. The Premium version costs $24 US a year, but you get 7-9 stories per week as well as other useful benefits. The other version is free, and you get 4 stories without the other benefits. If you can afford it, I very highly recommend the Premium version, but if you can't, the free version is well worth your time reading it every day. It may even inspire you to spring for the Premium eventually, when money isn't quite so tight.
I was a free subscriber for many years, then I dropped away for a bit. I rediscovered it, however, and have been a subscriber ever since. Five years ago (or somewhere around then), I upgraded, figuring that supporting a weekly habit that is both fun and educational, which has given me great pleasure when it appears in my inbox every week, is worth the money.
I greatly encourage you to go the site and explore, seeing what Randy has to offer. There are even sample stories to give you an idea of what you'll be getting. I'll include one here, just to entice you to go to the site:
"A woman had her husband's ashes made into an egg timer when he died so he could still 'help' in the kitchen."
So give it a try. I think you'll be glad you did. I write this not as an advertisement, but as a fan. Thank you, Randy, for the many years of enjoyment you've given me.
And I don't mean at the reception, but at the freakin' wedding itself! What would you think if you're a guest at a wedding, and the entire wedding party comes into the church to the tune of Chris Brown's "Forever?" To quote a certain Greg Gutfeld, "Take a look, take a lookers..."
The creators of the video disabled embedding, so I can only give you the link. Take a look and see what you think...or see how much you can stand, anyway.
Bill O'Reilly's up in arms about it (ok, that's an exaggeration, but he did have a segment on it; he actually seemed fairly subdued, for Bill), but personally I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I might if I was actually there and was forced to watch it in its entirety, but that's another story.
I don't think there is any crime against wedding protocol here. I do think there are some crimes against the art of dance, though. I may have to flush my eyes out with something to remove some of those images.
What would you think if you were there in the audience? Especially if you hadn't been warned in advance?
(The following was posted on my Livejournal blog on April 19, 2008, during a late night when I was up all alone in the living room, listening to some good jazz. I think it's still pertinent today, so I'm re-posting it here)
So it's 1:15 in the morning, I'm tired but I'm up anyway, as I'm not sure I'd be able to sleep. Listening to jazz on the radio and everybody's sleeping (well, the wife and cat, anyway, as the rats are being rambunctious). So of course, I'm feeling sentimental. Aren't we all like that if we're up, alone, in the dead of night with nothing on TV?
I've been thinking a lot recently about friendship, especially how the Internet has made it possible to have friends all over the country, and even all over the world. It also helps you keep connected to them if you move away. I look back over the years that I've been online, and I have a varied tapestry of people who have moved in and out of my life. All of them have been special at one time or another, but most of them have dropped by the wayside. I made quite a few friends on IRC when I was on it back in the 90s, but most of them either disappeared or I lost touch with them when I dropped off. I've often wondered where some of them are, especially a couple who were potential girlfriends at the time. I assume their circumstances changed, but did they change for the better?
I had one friend who was involved with somebody online, both of them keeping it a secret from their spouses. They talked a lot, even said that they were in love with each other, but she told me that they would never meet. Neither one of them wanted to, because that would all of a sudden make everything "real" and I assume that meant that they would have to then make decisions on whether to move forward with their relationship (i.e. divorcing their spouses) or ending it for good to stay with their spouses. I always thought it was a relationship that was teetering on the brink of something, and that both of them were deluding themselves a bit. I lost touch with her, however, so I have no idea how that turned out. That's one of them that I truly do wish I knew what happened, but I guess I never will. Hell, I don't think we ever even shared our last names, even though we did talk on the phone a bit. So I couldn't even look her up if I was curious.
Online friendships can be very easy, or they can be very hard. Of course, it depends on where and how you meet them. If you meet on a site where you're already sharing your name (such as many people do on Epinions), then you're already one step ahead of the game. But what if you met semi-anonymously? Like in a chat room, or somewhere where names aren't necessarily shared? You find the person interesting to talk to, maybe in a group setting or just one on one. You share some things about yourself, but you always are a little careful, as you never know what people are like for real at first. Will this person be a stalker? Identity thief? You guard carefully what you reveal at first, trying never to reveal something that will allow you to be tracked down if the other person does turn out to be a psycho.
But as you talk, you slowly begin to trust (assuming the other person actually is trustworthy, of course). You reveal a little more about yourself. They reveal a little more about themselves. Everything seems to check out. Depending on how often you talk, this process can take a few days or weeks. If you're interacting on a site like Epinions or something else where there's a community, this process may be abbreviated as everybody is fairly open about themselves, at least to an extent. What you contribute to the site can be included in what that person knows about you.
In this age of identity theft and Internet stalkers and such, one of the biggest pieces of information revealed, that shows that you now trust this person, is your last name. With that last name, it's a lot easier to track you down if somebody really wanted to. When you reveal that, it shows that you believe that the person is overall a good person and that you have faith they won't do that to you. Of course, revealing other things, such as specifics about your employment (rather than just "I work at a university in Education") can be equally trusting, but it starts with the name.
In a way, it is so much easier to meet people online than it is in person, especially if you're shy and introverted like I was (and still am, to an extent). It's not always healthy, but the friends you do make can be very special. Whether you meet them in a chat room, web forum, or whatever, you discover the shared interests that bring you together, and hopefully as you get to know them, you'll like the rest of what you know about them too. Chat rooms and such can be harder for that, however, since often you won't know if you have any common interests until you actually talk to them. Sometimes, that initial meeting can be quite awkward, but hopefully you can get through it. But sometimes you strike gold, and it's even sweeter for that.
I have a lot of friends online, in a variety of places. From Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, Texas to Washington, and even back home in Iowa. Hardly any are that close, where I can just call them up and chat (though an email's always welcome, I'm sure). I've met a few at the one Epinions Meet & Greet I went to in Seattle, but otherwise I've never met any of them in person, nor spoken to them other than online. With only one exception, I don't interact with any of them every day, and most not even regularly, but I know they're only an email away if I really needed them. Four of them even served as beta readers for the one short story that I've sent out to magazines (all of which soundly rejected it, but such is life and at least my readers said it was good).
So to all of my friends out there, close or just mere acquaintances, know that I value you and what you have brought to my life. Whether you are ones from home where the Internet lets me keep in touch with you, or if I met you online, you are all special in some way. The close ones, and you know who you are, I love you dearly and you'll always have a special place in my heart. And even those not so close bring something good to the table, add some bright light to my life and I thank you for that. Maybe it's just the occasional funny review. Maybe it's just some fun interaction on whichever site I know you from. Maybe you want to be the beta reader for my next story, whenever that happens (give me a few years :)).
Whatever it is, you're all good people. You like me, so that shows you have taste. :P
With that, it's now 2:15, and it's time for bed. I think the later it gets, the more sentimental I get. And I'd better not get asked on Monday "what's your excuse for the daylight hours?" :) But these are just the thoughts that run through my head in the dead of night, and I wanted to get them down.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for being there.
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