Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine Volume XII, Issue 2, AD MMVII Monday, December 17th, 2007 ISSN 1482-0471 ------------------------------------------- [02:30 - Mac-arena] 'Here's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: "near miss". They say that if two planes almost collide, it's a "near miss". Bullshit, my friend. It's a near HIT. A *collision* is a near miss. [crash] "Look, they nearly missed!" "Yes, but not quite."' ------------------------------------------- I like coincidences. They make me wonder about destiny, and whether free will is an illusion or just a matter of perspective. They let me speculate on the idea of some master plan that, from time to time, we're allowed to see out of the corner of our eye. ------------------------------------------- 1. Editorial 2. Facebook 3. A Thought on the Modern Computing 4. The Nature of Love 5. Why there will never be a Web 3.0 -------------------------------------------This week's Golden Testicle award: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/071212/health/health_science _skorea_cloning_1 Cats that glow in the dark ------------------------------------------- 1. Editorial By Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro It's been a long, long time coming, but here is issue 2, volume 12 of Capital of Nasty. I am hoping that this editorial will answer many of the questions I have received; questions which currently, a large chunk is sitting unanswered in my incredibly huge inbox. Things have been quite busy ever since we had to move our site. In May of 2006 we took CoN offline from our host in Norway who had kindly gave us a shelter for almost ten years since they were going to close shop. We found a new host in Canada, theorem.ca, who gave us a great deal between storage space and costs to run our site. The only catch that became immediately evident was the difference in technology used between our original host and our new provider. Our perfectly working website could not operate other than the server in Norway and we found ourselves with a fully finished website we could not use. Colin, who for the last decade (and then some) has been the invisible guru that has kept the website running, pulled up his sleeves, sat me down and explained to me what needed doing and the amount of work behind it. There were database conversions, complete new programming to do and a plethora of other things that could easily be summed up as this: we need a brand new site built from scratch using the current technologies at our disposal. Unfortunately, Colin and I are busy. We've been really busy a while, actually, but while the site was in Norway, we did not have to worry too much about it. A tweak here, a change there, a news item posted a day and the random issue of CoN, things pretty much kept running by themselves thanks in part to the great effort our readership put into reading, writing and commenting. I looked around for a programmer that would have been willing to program CoN for us. There was money involved, too, and not just a cheap "thanks for nothing" payment, but nobody I found was interested in working for something like CoN. For some it was too small, for others it was not a high-profile site, and so on. The vast majority just simply pointed me at pre-made blog software that did not satisfy a single criteria Colin and I had and left it at that. So, everything you currently see on the CoN website is thanks to Colin. Though he's busy with way too many things in his life, he is slowly finding a bit of time here and there to make changes, add new features and slowly grow the functionality of the site. A vast percentage of our content is now converted into the new database format. Things are, albeit slowly, taking place. I don't know how I will ever thank Colin enough for the tremendous work he has put behind the scenes of CoN for all these years. I wish I could be of more use instead of being completely hopeless when it comes to programming. What little I did try to make was immediately taken over by spammers and turned into their playground before I shut it all off. Frustrating to say the least. The lack of news items on the site and the complete radio silence in regards to the issues is entirely my fault, however. Shortly after the site was taken offline, the first priority became to get mail operational, then to transfer data over and make sure all our DNS changes had taken place. And then, in between a combination of work, school and other responsibilities, tied in with the idea that I'd build the site before sending out another issue, an incredible amount of time went by. I'm hoping this issue will prove the intention to resume where we left off and as a sign of things to come. I am, however, asking for everyone's patience. It took us more than a year to get back on our feet last time and it may take us just as much this time. I don't even have an ETA as to when the site will be finished. CoN is a labour of love and there are no real deadlines. Things will get done when we have the time, the patience, the ability and most of all, the energy. For all of those that have stuck around with us all this time, thank you. Your patience will be rewarded and in a very close future, CoN will be back to normal, providing not just the usual daily non-sense we call news, but as well as the various articles and stories you've come to expect from us. There are new writers interested in participating and some exciting stories in the works. I am hopeful that normality will resume soon in every sense of the word. You can still reach us by replying to this issue with any questions you may have. As well, if you have ideas on new features on the site that we should consider, please let us know. Already there have been suggestions in using the news also as a place to post opinions, almost-blog style, with articles unrelated to the issues being posted. Until then, enjoy this issue. ------------------------------------------- 2. Facebook By Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro I've had it for some time due to my sister, but I hardly look at it. She's on the bleeding edge of technology, and as soon as something is out, she's on it. She invited me as a weird way to bond with her older brother. Every once in a while, tired of deleting "facebook" e-mails, I check and do a "maintenance run." I don't even know why I bother. By "I don't even know why I bother," I don't mean that facebook is so terrible, it should be hated. I mean that deep inside, even if I wish to deny it to be oh-so-cool, facebook does fascinate me. I mean, it's all about "me." In fact, I've already removed the capital and appropriated the name "facebook" as a common word much like e-mail and world wide web. A "maintenance run" usually involves the being surprised at who found you and added you, and wonder why they went as far as typing your name to look for you. Or wonder why they even wish to remember you. Or why are they even talking to me now all of a sudden, as if a long lost friend, when we hardly ever talked then? Half the time I'm thinking "and who the fuck is this person?" and honestly, I don't even remember them existing, much less sharing my existence with me. One girl described to perfection an event I did in high school in a class with a professor I all remember perfectly. But she might as well not have been there as the recollections of her even being there do not exist. It's amusing when you manage to give someone a lasting impression but you can't even remember their name. Seriously, take a moment and see if you can think of people you do not even remember existing anymore. Think back and look around your main memories. It also must be terrible for them. We're all about being recognized even for the smallest thing because in one tiny, secreted way, we all wish to be recognized. And there isn't a lot of recognition going on around in this world. So we hang on the little things. Besides, every person wants to think they're memorable with the people they encounter. So to not remember them, becomes a failure on their part. I'm saying that they go ahead and take blame on their own and not that we're actually blaming. But we all know what's going on and maybe in a deep, horrible-by-sweetness way, we love it. Makes you feel more important than you actually are. I usually add them. Then I make up some crazy shit about how we met and leave it at that. Despite the fact that 90% of the time, this person and I will go back at never talking to each other ever again, I have yet to reject anyone. I've even gone as far as pretending to remember one particular person just so she'd leave me alone. It doesn't matter, because it's all worth it. It's like a collection. Collect as many friends as you can. I'm lame, I know. I wouldn't call less than half of these people friends, much less acquaintances. The other rigour of maintenance is the groups you're invited to join. I've yet to reject a single invitation (and hoping for one from "I HATE YOU") mostly because I feel that rejecting someone's invite in their very own little group in which special little you has been so gloriously asked to participate in, would make the inviter feel in someway rejected. And who could be so cruel? Other than me, I mean. My group-listing is probably huge at this point. I'm a member of dozens of groups I never intend to ever participate in because I am too lazy to learn how to do it. Keep in mind that the navigation of facebook is desperately simple, hence the glory of its success. Yet somehow I've managed to prohibit my brain from ever grasping any memory about how to go about it. I'm that lazy. Next stop is private messages. I do not understand why people have stopped using e-mail ever since facebook but it doesn't make things better. It takes me weeks to get to a facebook message and by the time I read it, it's obsolete. Guys, there is this thing called e-mail... heads up. After that, you end up on either the "profile" or "home" page which I'll have to click repeatedly from one to another to figure out which one of the two I am. I'm a failure to good GUI I guess. As I glance without reading any of the "events" other people have so meticulously put together, I check the wall. Who doesn't love the wall? It's so awesome. So many people can write so many things and the more you have makes you just as cool without needing one-hundred and one friends. Other people will visit your profile and die with envy to see how many wall writings you scored. That's regardless of the fact that most people write lame shit on other people's walls. Final stop is the "pokes." I keep them there for weeks, then poke someone back and forget about it. Some people stop poking, others are repeated offenders. Maybe they're playing the same game I'm playing. It's the equivalent of playing solitaire, to escape the monotony of data entry in a third party website. Seems like facebook has become almost a job. Where's the fun? But it must be all worth it; it's about "me," after all, isn't it? -- You should join Mark Cidade's Capital of Nasty facebook group. ------------------------------------------- 3. A Thought on the Modern Computing by Chris Cummer Last night I got around to getting my venerable G4 desktop up to some semblance of modern-ness (modernity? modernality?). Took a couple hours but it all went smoothly until I upgraded to the latest version of QuickTime and now no video plays back at all (PPC + 10.3.9 + QT 7.1.5 = bad). No worries, I've got nothing better to do tonight than muck about with that. As a command-line text editor I happen to like nano. Actually that's not quite true. I just dislike nano less than I dislike all the others (and if you're the sort who just started spitting at your monitor over how much vi/vim/emacs/pico are better and I'm a luser schmuck for not using [your editor of choice here] take your finger and jab it in your eye firmly and you'll have a decent approximation of my position on that issue). And I like editing text files as much as the next guy so I figured I'd just whip nano onto the G4 too. How hard can it be? It's only 117 k in size. Installing nano 1. Install DarwinPorts 2. DarwinPorts won't work without the Apple Developer Tools 3. Download 600 megs of Apple developer tools 4. Install the developer tools (with ten minutes of system optimization) 5. DarwinPorts won't work without X11 6. Download 50 megs of X11 (with ten minutes of system optimization) 7. DarwinPorts won't work without X11 headers 8. X11 headers are part of the developer tools, but not part of the default install (duh) 9. Re-download 600 megs of Apple Developer Tools (mea culpa, I figured after it was done installing I was done with it and trashed the installer) 10. Re-install the developer tools, this time with X11 headers (with ten minutes of system optimization) 11. Update DarwinPorts 12. Install nano 13. There is no step 13 Piece o' cake. 1.1 Gigs and 2.5 hours to install a 117 k of text editor. For my next trick I'll install GIMP by next Sunday. Anyhow, enough of that. That's just the long of way of getting to... . Having to use all three major operating systems daily I've finally come to believe deeply and resolutely what I think I've known for years about the Operating System wars we all engage so heartily and smuggly in: All operating systems suck. Yours does, mine does. In fact all of mine do. The one used by the smartest person I know does, as does the one used by the stupidest person. All our operating systems suck. We're like cavemen who've recently just invented the wheel: all our wheels are still hand-carved by bashing rocks together and we're arguing about who carved the wheel the smoothest and which type of rock is best for wheel-making when in fact what we really need is 4-ply all-season radial run-flat tires attached to some decent shock absorbers. The OS wars are not about who's OS is best, they're about who's OS sucks the least. All we're all doing is trying to find the one that sucks the least for us, as individuals. And an argument at that level is not an argument worth having. So I hereby apologize to everyone whom I've ever implicitly or explicitly offended by deriding your OS choice. I was wrong and mine is no better, it just happens to suck less for me. But it still sucks. And if anyone ever implies you're somehow defective for not being able to use a modern computer, poke them in the eye really hard. They deserve it. The software is defective, you are not. When it comes to modern computing, I think Han Solo sums it up the best: "Good luck, [we're] gonna need it." Part 2 Evidently I need to clarify some points above since some people seem to think I'm attacking the developers of our modern operating systems for software-related issues or bugs. I'm not. That misses the point entirely. Those developers are in the same boat we all are: their tools are also just as bad as ours and their OS is just as bad as ours. It isn't about the specific software per se. If the caveman analogy didn't make the point clear enough perhaps this one will. The Wright brothers invented the airplane (our computers today are their airplane). But undoubtedly they had some issues with flying long distances in the fog, at night. That's us, trying to create stable, easy, unobtrusive consumer computers and operating systems. it's perfectly reasonable for the Wright brothers to put a light on their plane, and then a brighter light, and then a whole bunch of lights to help them fly through the fog. That's us, improving languages, creating better compilers, doing more usability testing for the users. But in hindsight the best way to fly through fog so far is by using radar, GPS and aircraft auto-pilot systems that can land a plane even if the pilot can't see the ground. That's... exactly where we aren't in computing and, and this is important, it's no one's fault. No, I don't have a solution. That'd be like expecting the town doctor to tell Orville he just needs to pop up a few geo-stationary satellites and he'll be hunky dorky. Things just don't work that way and my whole point here isn't to lay blame but in fact to point out the very futility of doing so. That's why the OS wars are so pointless. We're not at a point where being militant is useful since we're all suffering, perhaps in different ways and with different degrees of technical savvy, but all of us. So when I say the modern OS sucks, it's not an attack on the makers, or the users, or to imply I somehow magically know how to fix it all. Statements like that are useless, just errant bitching. Rather it's a statement of perspective on the state of our infantile knowledge about computing in general compared to where we might hopefully end up one day, far far away. I am, in fact, celebrating that our operating systems, our software, sucks. Try it, say it, dump the emotional personal investment you've made in your operating system as a reflection of your personality and world-view, take a step back and laugh at what we've created. And then marvel at how incredibly far we've come in the last fifteen years. It's a good time for suckage. -- This rant is courtesy of Chris Cummer. His blog--one of many--Binary Code, can be found here: http://www.postal- code.com/binarycode/ ------------------------------------------- 4. The Nature of Love By Marcus Green A young girl recently asked me what love is. She'd never felt it and wanted to know what it felt like so that she would know it when she came across it. The question then is how do you define love, classify it, describe it? Is it an emotion? If one checks the dictionary they find that there really is no concrete definition, only over two dozen examples. So I thought for a moment and replied: Love does not exist. When we look at happiness we have simple contentment, cheerful, joyous or even exultant. When one is sad one can merely be down or they can be distressed, depressed or even morose. The all cases of emotion, be it jealousy, sadness, happiness, anger, the definition remains the same; only the intensity differs. Why are there so many different types of love? Familial love, Erotic Love, Platonic Love, the Love of Fellowship, the Love of Country... How is it that love can change over time, not just in intensity but in form? I tell you, love does not exist. It is a construct. If admiration was a ribbon; if erotic desire was a ribbon; if familiarity and security are ribbons, then the braiding of these ribbons into one whole is love. Love is the bond created by these emotions. Further, bonds of common interest also form strong ribbons. What's more admiration can be upon many levels, one can admire a person's body, their mind, their personality. In this way love can change over time. If a love is based entirely on erotic desire, a single ribbon, the cutting of this ribbon severs the tie. As a couple gets older they often find erotic desire and raw admiration fades but these "ribbons" though thinner are compensated by the ribbon of familiarity and the bond remains as strong as ever it was. The more ribbons one has, the stronger they are, the stronger the love between the pair. A love consisting of mutual respect, admiration, erotic desire, familiarity, and common interests is a mighty thing indeed. Unfortunately, as with all things, there are also equally unhealthy ribbons and it is up to us to cut them and strengthen other ribbons to weave a stronger bond. Thus, I told her, "love does not exist". It is a name, a word; we apply to already existing bonds we choose to acknowledge as being "love". --and yet... Though as logical as what I said was I cannot embrace it, cannot fully believe it. Or, if that is love, I have to wonder what it is that I have felt. I have felt a sensation, one greater then I have ever known. I felt as if I had spent my entire life deaf, listening to music through my skin only to suddenly find my ears opened to its siren song. I've experienced a single kiss so encompassing that my own flesh could not contain my essence and I wandered outside of thought and mind and heard the sound of the cosmos as one hears the ghost sound of the sea in a conch shell. So then my question, if love is the bond that I described, what was it that I felt then? ------------------------------------------- 5. Why there will never be a Web 3.0 by Colin Douma In 2004, O'Reilly Media played host to a series of conferences which birthed a notion that forever changed the way we think about the online space. Scribbled on a piece of paper and taped to a door, the topic for discussion read: "Web 2.0". The result? Talks that have continued to inspire the web, the marketing and, most recently, the advertising worlds. Revolving around companies such as Google, Amazon, eBay and more, the seeds of Web 2.0 were sown on the core principles of the aforementioned "dotcoms," which grew, survived and even thrived through the bubble burst of the late 1990s. Some of the notions which were captured are summarized below. Web 2.0: 1. is an attitude not a technology. 2. incorporates the notions of "the Long Tail." 3. realizes the content is the brand. 4. is in a state of "perpetual beta". 5. supports software which gets better the more people use it. 6. often grants the right to remix with "some rights reserved". 7. tries to provide the feeling of "play". 8. allows granular addressability of content. 9. is emergent; user behaviour is not predetermined. 10. offers a rich user experience. 11. trusts the user (radical!). Perpetual beta suggests that these principles, and all those that may follow, are simply extensions of the original notion. In other words, Web 2.0 does not mark a place in time, pre- or post- bubble; instead it simply offers a label for these proven principles and encourages exploration from there. To suggest that your company offers or sells "Web 2.0" products or services may be technically true, but it sounds terribly na‹ve. In effect, you're simply announcing that you build web properties that work. Shouldn't that be a given? Could you imagine a car dealer selling a car by saying, "now with engines that run!" To sell "Web 2.0" as a product suggests there was a "Web 1.0." To say a website is "Web 1.0" is like saying that product is failed or doomed to. So, if you sell "Web 2.0" as a service, are you suggesting to your client that he/she may opt out for the Web 1.0 version? This brings us to Web 2.1, Web 2.5, Web 3.0 and all the ridiculous version numbers people are tossing around nowadays. I wish these principles were never labeled Web 2.0 because it implies (without further understanding) that there can be a Web 3.0. A property that is in "perpetual beta" does not allow for "versioning". If only that note scribbled at O'Reilly's conference read "Web That Works" or "Social Media" or "Schicki-micki" or anything to prevent the name from being harvested and exploited by misinformed marketers as is being done today. This basic misunderstanding has led to many headaches for those trying to develop web properties that work. Lacking a workable lexicon, it's difficult to get the concept past two very dangerous audiences: - The first audience has no clue what Web 2.0 means, often rejecting the concept as "too risky". (Creating websites that will actually work is "too risky"?) - The second audience understands exactly what Web 2.0 means, but dislike the term because the first audience has bastardised it - and who can blame them? Since schicki-micki is too hard to spell anyway, I propose we move on from the designation of Web 2.0 (and thereby eliminating its unfounded sequel Web 3.0), and stick to a common term like "internet," or websites that "work". If you continue to insist on utilizing a new term, consider "social media". -- This rant is courtesy of Colin Douma. You can read more at the Canadian Marketing Blog: http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/ ------------------------------------------- CoN would not be possible without the great help of ... NOBODY! CoN: All it takes is one match. Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine "media you can abuse" In memory of Father Ross "Padre" Legere Published every second Monday (or when we get around it) Disclaimer: unintentionally offensive Comments, queries and submissions are welcome http://www.capnasty.org ISSN 1482-0471 A bi-weekly electronic journal. Subscriptions available at no cost electronically. Available on Usenet newsgroups alt.zines and alt.ezines. This mailing is sent exclusively to those poor souls who chose to subscribe to the Capital of Nasty mailing list. Spread the word! If you have friends who would like to receive CoN, ask them to e-mail distro-subscribe AT con DOT ca and subscribe themselves. If you'd like to unsubscribe because such email aggravates your lack of CoN intolerance, simply e-mail distro-unsubscribe AT con DOT ca and unsubscribe yourself. Brought to you by C.C.C.P. (Collective Communist Computing Proletariat) Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro Colin Barrett leandro AT con DOT ca colin AT con DOT ca ZimID 708EC8D1 1994/09/14 EC B0 97 59 1D FE 7C 32 7E 04 2C 66 47 41 FB 7D