Thieves, Dreams, and Dawkins

My Weird Day

I went to the store to buy some provisions for my sick girlfriend. While in the produce isle, I spotted a elderly man putting what appeared to be produce in his jacket. In seeking some bullion, I also did some soul searching about my moral obligations.

With some quick typing on my quirty keyboard, I directed the checker to read my note, "I think the guy in the trench coat is stealing" The message was received, I payed for my groceries and left.

After caring for my girlfriend, I managed to purposefully pass by the store without peering in, but noticed a cop car parked in the corner. My walk home was filled with the contemplation of the old man's guilt and the driving force that motivated my reaction.

Later, I passed out for several hours. My dreams centered around having a broken neck and included night paralysis. A four hour affair.

My day ended with fighting with my roommate, cooking chicken noodle soup, then surfing the web. I watched a Richard Dawkins youtube video (my roommate is a rabid fan).


My roommate's description of Dawkins rivals an epiphany of logic. I can see how his thesis on neo-purpose (29:26) makes sense. My actions at the grocery store were morally driven and served a neo-purpose. Dawkins' goes on to say that neo-purpose may be subverted by virtue of it's flexibility.

One can argue the same is true of religion. It provides moral foundation to which people can realize their own neo-purpose in an environment that champions life. Of course, it can be a double-edged sword. Dawkins' decides to fault religion rather than look at it objectively. I regard it as painfully biased and unscientific.

I don't disagree with his model, but he asks that I forsake religion. Why is that necessary? Dawkins' says to me, my way describes life as without purpose. By the way, cast aside your God/religion.

I can prescribe to Dawkins' description of human evolution. However, it does not offer me values, or the fortitude to defend those values. I become the indifferent shopper. I might turn you in if I feel your stealing with change the price of my goods. That's ass-backwards to me.

Obama at White House Correspondents' Dinner - Hulu

retweet hack - add text to someone's retweet

I'd like to share how I, a common user, can send hyperlinks that will link to twitter and add text to the input box. I learned this trick by looking at twitter_tips. In the example, the retweet URL will bring the user to their twitter homepage and pre-enter their tweet with the wordage. Take the hyperlink from the example above and input it in longurl.com.

My example:

Twitter about Jello Werestling!!!!

Why would you want to do this.

This can best be summed up as it helps your event or link become "viral."

Three reason you'd want to do this. One, it lowers the barrier to participation. This means rugby players -or anyone- can now promote your event without trying (two clicks). the easier it is, the more likely people are to retweet. and the more likely they retweet, the more your message gets out there.

The second reason is message consistency. You will be controlling the message, linkage and grammar.

Third, most rugby players AREN'T Twitter users, the ones who are, haven't logged onto their account since they heard it mentioned on Jon Stewart. A single hyperlink will bring the user to the loggon screen and place your message in the input box.

If you want to do this to:

1. type the words you want your twitters to enter on a text editor/word processor.
2. place this text into this site here. Now you have the correct syntax.
3. make a link in your email or tweet or tinyurl that includes your message (from #2) preceded by: http://twitter.com/home?
4. If it's going on twitter, then the link should be shortened. I recommend burnurl.com because it lets you track the clicks and offers options to share.
5. Use this hyperlink in emails or directly on twitter.
   

D9C

download and save music from myspace, playlist.com and last.fm

Rip songs from Myspace, playlist.com, and last.fm -

This is much simpler than any other method I found.
I've been having a lot of fun with this trick for a while. While posting this might eventually lead to more people using it the music distributors catching on, and eventually leading to the demise of this hack- I can't not share it with the people who read my blog.
**for informational purposes only**

Myspace:



What you'll need:

• Firefox
• Downloadhelper add-on

Once the add-on is installed, visit any Myspace page with music. Play the song that you wish to download. At this point the downloadhelper button will detect the mp3 and start to animate. Next, there is a drop down menu arrow just to the right of the button. Pushing it will reveal the name of the mp3 file. Click on the file and a window will open allowing you to save the song. All the artist and album information are stored in mp3 itself. Still, I recommend renaming the mp3, it will make finding the file from the others you download much easier later on.


Playlist.com
What you'll need:

• Firefox
• Downloadhelper add-on

This is the exact same approach. but on playlist.com you can locate pretty specific MP3s without all the myspace CRAPPY personalized designs and bloated code to sift through. Good news everyone! Sony has just made all their recording artists available to playlist.com!


Last.fm




What you'll need:

• Firefox
• Downloadhelper add-on
• a Last.fm account
• Fire.fm add-on

This technique is a bit more of a hack than the others. While the last.fm library is huge, it has many protections setup to keep downloadhelper from working all the time. When you set up an account fire.fm is a great add-on to Firefox to give you a pandora.com experience, delivering full songs (instead of 30 second snippets) through your browser. It also is easier for downloadhelper to detect the mp3. Just let the music play and hit the download button as soon as you hear a song want to download.

D9C

5 steps to becoming a web 2.0 early adopter

The VoodooLogic Method to becoming an early adopter:

I feel my method is as bare-bones as in order to surf sites quickly, organize your account credentials, publish and share your findings.

I wrote this because it's become apparent that there are so many applications out there that end users don't need to be techie to create really cool/useful sites. We are digital DJ's, mixing user apps on web pages to rock our audience. All you need is a good sense of style and utility to dive in. And now is a great time to be an early adopter who is well versed in the best the web has to offer. Have fun being a power user and remember, never pay for software.

I am assuming you have plenty of social networks that you enjoy using. If not, you won't really care about Web 2.o.

1. Firefox

Firefox is a highly customizable browser. The additional add-ons help you customize your browsing experience. The best way I've heard Firefox explained is that it is like vanilla ice cream and its add-ons that act like toppings to make the browser a real treat.

2. StumbleUpon- surfing with speed

StumbleUpon is an add-on for Firefox and is the essential key to this post. Based on some initial criteria you set, Stumbleupon will display a random site with a click of a button. It gets rave reviews on the web and with the right settings you can become a guru.

Setup your account and select some interests. Make sure to include web development, Internet tools, and Firefox. Additionally, select humor - because it's funny. :P

That's pretty much all you need. By pressing thumbs up, you direct traffic to those sites you like. While at the office, you can stumble 3 pages in the time it takes to print an average work document. Even the busiest person can passively surf through the bleeding edge of the Internet. This kind of frequency lets you peruse websites quickly and getting to the real web gems. (You can even give this post a thumbs up!!)

3. Keepass

Once you discover a site to try, Keypass is going to help you keep your account user-names and passwords organized.

• How to import firefox's saved passwords into a keepass file.
• Intergrate keepass with firefox

**But you can't leave it there. You'll need to prove among your friends you know what's cool right now.**

4. Delicious

Set up an account. Next, add the delicious firefox add-on. Now, you aren't just pressing "thumbs up," now you can catalog sites you like into your personal online bookmarking system.

Great, now we've created two layers of bookmarking. Stumbleupon's 'thumbs up' (an RSS feed) and delicisious' bookmarks for when you want to return to a site. The add-on also integrates your browser's bookmarks with your delicious account.

**This is the next layer is going to solidify your reputation of being a someone who's always in the know.**

5. Sharaholic

I really like the sharaholic add-on. make tagging websites your various social networks easy. real easy. This tool give you simple access to your social networks to share your web-app gold.

"As a certified social networking and link-sharing addict, Shareaholic has become my favorite new enabler!" - Veronica Belmont, Host of Tekzilla on Revision3 and Qore on PSN

This 5 pieces of software are layered by relevance. Firefox being the most critical because it is the platform I built the entire model on.

There are many other ways of familiarizing yourself with the latest technology. For instance, I could tell you to bookmark an RSS feed like Makeuseof.com, this is a very informative site that lets you check out lots of new stuff. However, my strategy incorporates this by bookmarking these feeds in delicious as you stumble them. I would consider this to be another layer of relevancy that is a bit too cumbersome for my bare-bones method.



D9C

Also, be sure to check out Linux as a free desktop solution. I've found it an adequate alternative to Windows XP and Vista for several years now. I'm just waiting for everyone else to catch on to the trend. ;)