Cutesploitation

Here it is; my final project/ assault on youtube. I will warn you again this is not for the faint hearted. I was serious about the bleeding-out-the-eyes thing.

Fun with Curses

Well here you go: the final fruits of my labor. This is basically a summary of my endeavor to find out what makes words offensive which I have been working on for my other blog for some time now. It's been a nightmare in the making but I am pleased with the results.

Teh Kyootness... O God Teh Kyootness

Alright people come on?! We all know that Youtube is the neatest thing since sliced bread and Jesus combined but do you really have to upload tens of thousands of videos of fuzzy little animals doing silly things? I mean who doesn't love watching a hamster fall off his wheel or a cat playing with a theremin but seriously folks... I guess my whining isn't going to change things so instead I will attempt to roll with the punches. My final project will no longer be on Youtube in general but now I will be focusing solely on the this "cutesplosion" as I like to call it. My next post will either make you smile or bleed out of your eyes.

Chamillionaire - Evening News

I guess not all rappers are morons. Props go out to the Stimulator for enlightening me to this diamond in the rough. Keep going with "It's the End of the World" man! That shit is gold.

Just to Reirerate...

Come on people... Lets see some of Youtube's finest. Send me some of your favorite video links or perhaps just something weird. Put them in comments as per usual. I plan on doing a "critique of at least three videos.

The Social Significance of "Laughing Baby"

Greetings my friends. I am doing a special post with a challenge to all of you reading this: send me a link to any youtube video and I will review it as if it were the Mona Lisa. I put it to you that I can put a spin on anything and someone will buy it.

Why? Well hear me out. We've all been exposed to so called "avant garde" art and unless you are either stupid or the recent recipient of a lobotomy chances are you found yourself looking for an exit while removing your eyes with a rusty butter knife. It is no surprise to me that the pretentious pricks who've been creating this drivel for decades have evolved and are now using society's newest dumping ground (the internet) to perpetuate their mind numbing displays of bullshit.

Now you are probably thinking, "Gee-wilickers Bolt. What ever are you talking about? Where can I find this art?" Well if you have to ask then consider yourself fortunate. Though I really loathe giving free advertisement to people who are artists in the same way that an amoeba is a gourmand, I feel morally obligated to show you these ghastly horrors with the hope that you will want to expunge them from society as much as I do.

Thus without further delay I present you with the pixelated plague that is jimpunk.com. Here you are treated to a seizur-tastic display of bastardized NES sprites and clip art where the only interaction involves clicking your mouse randomly until your finger commits sepuku and your brain dies after trying to escape out of your ear. I don't know what Jim (I am assuming that's his name) was thinking when he decided to lay this 8-bit turd. Perhaps he opened Flash with genuine intent but suffered a gran maul seizure just as his hand hit the keys (or maybe he had a lobotomy).

Textual Harrassment

Yes I know that was a terrible pun but it had to be made. Honestly... The government has gone too far once again. I must hand it to the Institute for Applied Autonomy for once again pissing off the man. They have perfected the art of taking the innocuous and making it noticeable. They've taken the mass messaging potential of email and applied it to phone texting. Genius! It's amazing how taking an aspect of relatively old technology and applying it to a newer one causes trouble. How can the government be so angry about this. Even the i-see project got less flack than txtmob and strikes me as much more subversive. Again I find myself baffled by the governments backwards-ass logic. There is nothing illegal about mass communication.

The Waning Power of the Profane

I've have recently undertaken a quest to discover the most offensive word in the English language. If you wish to help me go to my other blog here and read more.

The New Business Order

When people think of Web 2.0, they think of things like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Del.icio.us. They think of how people are finally interacting with the internet as opposed to just looking at it. You can go on Wikipedia and edit data about anything. You can post your homemade videos on YouTube. You can create links to other sites in order to show them to others on Del.icio.us. However as the Web 2.0 movement began to grow most people who were just starting to utilize its new platforms failed to see another application of this new technological movement. This aspect had been utilized long before there was any talk of Web 2.0 but only recently has it become more widely used. I am speaking of course about the business aspect of Web 2.0.

Back in 1999, the Canadian mining company Goldcorp was in danger of collapsing. They had been mining constantly on Red lake in Ontario for nearly fifty-five years and had seeming exhausted the mine. The CEO, Rob McEwen knew that something desperate needed to be done and drew inspiration from the Linux operating system. He saw how open collaboration was being used to create a system where flaws could be addressed by anybody who had access to the code. He took the idea and did the unthinkable: he posted all of the mine’s geological data to the internet and offered a reward of $575,000 to anyone who could predict where he could find more gold. The idea was controversial but in the end he found that many of the people who posted responses to his challenge were able to predict the location of new gold. The newly discovered gold changed Goldcorp from a 100 million dollar industry to a 9 billion dollar monstrosity.

The curious thing about this story is the types of people who responded to the challenge. Geologists got involved as expected but others such as college students, military personnel, and consultants began to write in to the company website. This demonstrates power of the internet. Anyone with web access can participate and so you can pull ideas from a gargantuan pool of knowledge. Any website can become a sort of “most wanted” board where bounties can be placed on solutions to various problems.

One company who has explored this possibility and has become widely successful as a result is Innocentive. Founded in 2001 Innocentive has become the leader in open innovation. “Seeker” companies in almost every area of business post challenges on the Innocentive site which in turn is accessed by “solvers” all around the world. This practice, often referred to as “crowd sourcing”, essentially allows a company to search the entire planet for answers. Anyone can work for one of these companies without even being on their payroll. Challenges are assigned values in based on how much a given company is willing to pay for the information. These prizes range from a few thousand to one million dollars.

Based on this information, one would expect Innocentive to be nothing more than an intermediary however this is not the case. Scientists working for Innocentive provide feedback to solvers and clarify the requirements that need to be met by a solution. To date Innocentive has posted over 200 challenges of which around 60 have been solved. One other important fact is that Innocentive accepts challenges from no profit organizations as well. The one million dollar challenge I mentioned earlier is for a biomarker for the progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease. The Rockefeller Foundation has placed many challenges on Innocentive such as creating a solar powered and inexpensive wireless router to connect cities and towns in developing countries. Other challenges include a biolatrine (essentially an outhouse which breaks down waste) for use in Africa and a stove which runs on 100% plant oil to be used by people in developing nations. This shows how this platform for innovation can be used for the good of mankind and not just large corporations. As long as someone has money to donate, the right people can easily be found to make it happen.

Innocentive is not the only company jumping on the open innovation bandwagon. Several similar groups such as NineSigma and YourEncore offer similar services. YourEncore is slightly different in that it does not allow anyone to be a solver. They scour the earth looking for retired scientists who want nothing more than to continue innovating.

One major effect this is having on the business world is how R & D departments are being run. Companies are no longer reliant on internal facilities to create new products. Instead they are able to put the majority of their resources into figuring out what their customers. They can concentrate on nailing down whatever criteria they will have while some external individual or group of individuals finds out how to make it happen.

One interesting consequence of this is the response of research scientists. People such as Werner Mueller, a respected and retired chemist, are now starting to build private labs in order to solve the challenges presented to them by sites like Innocentive. When he saw a challenge to improve upon an inefficient process to produce a certain drug he set to work and eventually came up with a completely unheard of solution. His reward was a solid $25,000 which he invested into his fledgling lab. Scientists the world over are starting up consulting firms based out of private labs of their own construction. At the rate that these independent labs are popping up soon the research industry will be run almost solely by information bounty hunters.

Essentially our society is moving towards a new business model where research will be done almost completely externally. Further down the line this will lead to companies becoming highly specialized. Some will become invention engines while others will take over the marketing industry. If a company can’t market its product with any real power they can easily sell it to another who can get the word to the right people.

Of course one might argue that if businesses become increasingly specialized our economy will become one driven by people selling services. Others say this has already begun to happen and in a way it has. I don’t see this as being a problem. If companies can each concentrate on one aspect of a business as I have said before, they can put all of their effort into perfecting that singular aspect whatever it may be. One firm would come up with the criteria a product would have to meet and then they could post these criteria to a network such as Innocentive. Another company would research the materials needed to create the product while another would then be able to develop processes by which to cheaply produce the product. This new business model is similar to how computers work. Instead of one large corporation running all of these processes under one roof sequentially many companies could work on each process parallel to each other. Now obviously one can’t research processes for creating materials which have not yet been determined but you would be able to have several different groups working on different methods. A corporation could essentially have several independent R & D departments trying many different ways to achieve the same goal. Essentially you end up with the research industry working much like an auction house.

As it stands about 90% of research is still done internally. Many industry purists refuse to give up their secrets to others. They also think that keeping their R & D people on a short leash is the easiest way to obtain new ideas. Companies will wait until they reach global status to start outsourcing. The trouble with this is that many companies will not make it this far. Businesses can climb much faster if they are aided by other businesses or independent researchers. The age of all encompassing corporations is slowly coming to an end just as the bloated trusts of the previous centuries were deflated by anti-monopoly laws. The difference is that law is no longer the enemy of such companies. Now they face a world where anyone with a computer can access data from anywhere in the world. If companies continue to try and keep all aspects of product creation internal, they will fall behind the others who have embraced the new model of collaboration. They will not be able to utilize the minds outside of their own work force.

Furthermore it isn’t an issue of finding smarter people outside of your company; it’s an issue of finding people who see things differently. If you look back at the Goldcorp case you can see that they found answers from people who weren’t even involved in the mining industry or the science of geology. The internet is helping this evolution along swiftly. As industries become more connected via the internet, they are starting to see that they all have similar principles which allows people from one to shift into another. Of course there is also the simple fact that people in different lines of work see things differently. With the internet’s help the business world is going to be changed dramatically for the better. As long as a company is willing to adapt to this new crowdsourcing model they will survive. If they can’t adapt then they will simply fall behind into obscurity.

The Architecture of Happiness

Here is the link to my third podcast. This week I will be talking about Architecture In Helsinki. This group of five from Australia has a sound so unique that I can't assign it a genre. I'll let you guys be the judge.

Enjoy

If you've given up. Just do the Whirlwind

Here is a taste of the band i will be reviewing for this Thursday. Architecture In Helsinki is quite the musical outfit. These six performers give off a vibe that you just can't help but groove on.

I Knew It Would Come To This...

Ok... I figured that one of these days I would be asked to comment on the phenomenon that is Myspace. Here are my two cents; Myspace has great potential just like any other internet community to become a utopia where like minded individuals can converse about what really matters to them. The trouble is that in order for it to be like that, its populace must make an effort to leave behind all of their preconceived notions about one another. Teens hang out on Myspace so that they can avoid the bullshit they are faced with everyday. Having recently passed through the public school system, I can say with confidence that it is a gauntlet raught with perceived perils that can be world shattering to its inhabitants. It is essentially a game where there is no rule book and even if there was it would be rewritten daily. Myspace allows teens to escape this by only associating with the people they want to associate with. The trouble in this is that Myspace is perpetuating the cliquey nature of high school.

Personally I want nothing to do with Myspace because it is a waste of my time as I see it. I find myself in an environment where I am already surrounded by like minded individuals and if I have trouble finding them, there are far more conducive avenues to pursue. To kids in high school who are in relatively small worlds to begin with, Myspace allows them to hunt down people feeling what they feel. I have known people who used Myspace to forge lasting relationships of various natures in high school. Thus I am willing to tip my hat to Myspace because it does have some practical uses.

My problem with Myspace stems mostly from its inhabitants. The website itself is a great resource for the right people; however the wrong people keep hijacking it. Though this problem is pervasive to every society digital or otherwise. To quote Serj Tankian, " Stupid people do stupid things. Smart people outsmart each other." It's human nature. You really can't change that. Perhaps you'll call me defeatist for this belief but I've grown weary from butting heads with the imbeciles of the internet. God forbid some of these people ever reproduce...

3rd Time's a Charm

Here are your choices for this week's show. Each artist hand scraped from the unseen underbelly of the internet. If I get as poor a voter turn out as i did last week, well then to hell with you. I will pick who I want.

Dr. Steel
Architecture in Helsinki
The Beautiful Girls

You've Got an ohGr in Your Ear

O frabjous day! It's the second episode of What the Hell is That Noise. As promised I have reviewed the industrial duo ohGr.

Enjoy

ohGr: Cracker

Here is a preview of the band that I will be reviewing in this week's podcast. I find this video to be as genius as the song it was created to follow. I love the references to Trent Reznor and Eminem. I actually like both artists but I think they are valid targets as far as the message of this song goes. The music industry is wearing thin these days. Could it be that they have given up?

From the Murky depths of my Records

Hello citizens of the interwebs. Here are this week's bands of obscurity.

Doctor Steel
Ratatat
OhGr

Time to choose...

Also here is last weeks episode. Enjoy the wondrous sound that is Indorphine.

Also Also here is a music video to Indorphine's single Spaghetti.

Weinberger should smack some sense into Keen

As much as I dislike Keen, that is how much I like this guy. Weinberger seems a much more forward thinking individual on all counts. He's right in that we as humans need to organize things almost compulsively because our brains like pretty patterns and things that we don't have to think about too much. However there is a limit to the amount of simplification and classification we can accomplish. Weinberger clearly gets this and I have to say hooray for him. Its just like he says; things can fit into many places based on an infinite amount of characteristics. The internet community seems to be doing a great job of this with applications like Stumble Upon. People are constantly finding new things after searching for something completely unrelated. I call this the "Wiki Affect". I have gone on Wikipedia expecting to look up something for art history class and an hour later I am reading about the exploits of Vlad the Impaler. The same is true of such sites as Delicious. I guess all that is left to say is yay tagging.

Oh! and Keen is still a troglodyte.

Keen: Internet :: Pontius Pilate : Jesus

Wow. I thought I hated on religion pretty badly. I guess Keen feels the same way about the internet. I'm no economics major but I am pretty sure that the growth of the internet is not going to destroy our economy as he claims it will. So a few people will lose jobs here and there. Big deal. People have been losing jobs for a long time to machines and I don't hear Keen busting down the doors of car manufacturing plants. If times are changing people will adapt its as simple as that. Besides, it takes a whole lot of people to maintain the internet and its various hives of so called scum and villainy. I wonder if monks wanted to beat up Gutenburg for making a machine that removed the need for them to transcribe books.

And Seriously what is this nonsense about truth disappearing? The truth hasn't gone anywhere; if anything it gained a bunch of bastard children. Just because people are posting whatever they want on the internet doesn't mean that the truth is dead. All this means is you have to be careful before you try out that plastic explosive recipe you saw on Youtube.

I really have to say that I don't understand why Keen is so angry with the internet. Honestly I think he's on Big Media's payroll. He seems to have a problem with people saying whatever they please on the internet. Hey Keen I have the answer to your complaints right here: If you don't like the internet, don't go on it. If you think that Youtube is a bankrupt of culture then don't look at the videos. If the music on LastFM offends you, don't listen to it. His whole argument seems to be that if something makes him mad it shouldn't exist. I've got news for you Keen; the internet isn't going anywhere and unless you can find away to make free speech unconstitutional then neither will any of the sites on it.

Oh! One more thing that bugs me about this guy is his declaration that the internet is viewed as a messiah by its many users. Now I will concede that some individuals who need to get out more often can be a bit clingy to the internet and its plethora of porn and games but these people are hardly worshiping the internet. They're just addicted to it. It is sad that some people can't deal with reality and hide in the anonymity of cyberspace but those people will exist regardless of the internet. Take that away and they will all play console games or go LARPing. The internet is no ones' god and shouldn't be thought of as such.

Basically I think Keen needs to get off his high horse and investigate some of the things he is criticizing. Maybe then he would see that their are people who use things like youtube as a platform to enter the "real world" economy. If he really can't stand the internet that much then he should just avoid it and shut up like I suggested earlier.

The Hamster of the Heavens brings a new feature!

Starting next week I will be running a little feature I like to call "What the hell is that noise?". every week I will be reviewing an album by an artist that you have probably never heard of. The plan thus far is to post a group of three or so bands at the start of the week and then based on the comments I receive, I will review one of them. The comments should include whether or not the person commenting has ever heard of the band in question as well as a vote for which one they find most intriguing. I hope to bring some very eclectic music into the lives of my readers. I mean honestly; would you rather listen to the same music over and over again or check out the new Vampire Mooose album (that isn't a typo there actually are three o's in Mooose).

Each post in this project will be strictly audio and will include the following segments. I will start with a brief intro which will most likely consist of a clip from the artist in question in question. I will then proceed to talk about the artist's style and overall feel. Towards the end I will discuss particular parts of the songs and why I find them interesting. To conclude each post I will point the listener in the direction of other artists similar to the one being discussed.

Anyways here are the first three bands to choose from and consequently Mooose is one of them.

1. Vampire Mooose
2. Indorphine
3. Tally Hall

More Fungus

The following is a RSS slide show to be viewed in junction with my previous post about the concept of web 2.0.

Enjoy

Internet 2.0 (Fungus Among Us cont.)

As I stated in my last post I believe that the Internet is well on its way to being deified but It still has a long road ahead of it. The way things seem to be going, the Internet is being turned into a giant fishing net. People are figuring out that the easiest way to display information is in the Internet. People have more recently determined that the easiest way to get information is to put a bounty on it. When you combine these two concepts you are presented with such websites as Innocentive and X Prize. Both of these websites pay people money for solutions to problems that other groups post.

In the case of Innocentive companies or other groups can pay to have their questions posted. Questions range from creating a stove to be used in third world countries where fuel is scarce to finding cures for diseases. These organizations have been lauded by many for their forward thinking approach to problem solving.

Innocentive and X Prize are only two examples of this new type of internet use referred to as Internet 2.0. The theory behind Internet 2.0 is to use the internet for more than just posting information but also to collaboratively build upon this information. One book in particular, Wikinomics, written by Don Tapscott and Anthony D . Williams, goes into this concept in great detail. The concept of crowdsourcing, of which Innocentive is a prime example, refers to using the Internet to ask single questions to the entire planet. People from all over the world can attempt to tackle these issues.

Another interesting concept noted both in Wikinomics and on the PEW Internet website is the use of virtual worlds such as Second Life to reach out to people. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama used Second Life as a platform from which to deliver speeches and field questions from supporters. This is one of many uses for such platforms. Second Life has also been used as a setting for people to meet and discuss business plans or collaborative projects.

It seems as the though the all-encompassing Internet is the functional equivalent of a bulletin board. Personally I am blown away by the possibilities this represents and apparently so are many others. With any luck the problems being posted on these sites will continue to be solved at the same rate they are being posted. It would be foolish to wish for all of them to be solved but one can hope with the help of the growing Internet that those problems yet to be discovered will be met by the people to solve them.

The Internet Fungus Among Us

I have known for some time that the Internet was developed for military purposes. I did not no that It was created in preparation for a nuclear holocaust as noted by Bruce Sterling in his History of the Internet. Funny how things work out isn't it? What would the developers of ARPANET have thought if they knew that their child would become the world's leading source of piracy, pornography, and the piracy of pornography. I'm sure people everywhere rejoice at the fact that the petabytes of porn that exist will continue to exist long after half of the planet is a smoldering crater.

It makes me wonder though; if the Internet has become immortal and nothing we humans can do short of annihilating the entire planet will destroy It, then hasn't the Internet become a god? Its not that hard to imagine. We live in a world where artificial intelligence is becoming a reality. Imagine the Internet gaining self awareness. Would It begin to better itself as it saw fit? would It cut people off if It saw them as dangerous or ill-suited? Imagine having to pray via email.

Alas I digress. Though it is possible for such things to happen and I don't doubt that the Internet will continue to grow exponentially, we are a long ways off from the internet becoming sentient. I personally think that the Internet should be kept on a tight leash lest It develop its own agenda. Then again it may prove a better world leader than we humans. Only with time will we see if one of our greatest creation runs away from us as so many people with Frankenstein Complexes already think It will.

P.S. If the Internet Itself is reading this post I mean you no ill will. Consider me when you want an intermediate to convey your great wisdom to humanity.

Star Wars: Not just for breakfast anymore

After reading Henry Jenkin's essay "Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars" I can now see how a simple movie can become a lifestyle. Five minutes ago I was staring at the title of this essay blissfully ignorant of George Lucas' plan to rule my life with a strangle-hold not unlike Darth Vader's and now it baffles me that I have never noted such thinly veiled plans for world conquest. There are Star Wars movies, books, games, toys, clothing, magazines, and I'm pretty sure there was a breakfast cereal at one point.

But of course Lucas isn't the only one practicing such all-encompassing business models; the Japanese have perfected it. Take a look at the Final Fantasy franchise which has one of histories most ironic names ever since there is nothing final about it. Back in the 90's they were nothing but video games. Now the Final Fantasy name can be seen upon CDs, books, clothing, toys, and even a line of soft drinks with such names as "Potion" or "Mega Elixir". What will they think of next? My guess is "buster sword" over-sized condoms.

After mastering the art of the franchise the Japanese decided it took too long and so they began making cartoons just so they can put out a new toy line. If you don't believe me take a look at teapuppies.com. I am fairly certain that if you slow down and reverse the audio you can hear the puppies saying "BUY ALL OUR PLAY SETS AND TOYS!" or "DESTROY THE EVIL AMERICAN IMPERIALISTS!"

The most ludicrous aspect of this new breed of corporate monstrosities is that they will go to any length to stamp out any fan-created fiction whether it be short stories or spin-off games. One such instance of this would be the fansite Chrono Compendium. Here you can find anything pertaining to Square-Enix's cult classic Chrono franchise. The website and its administrators were slapped with a cease and desist after they began work on "Chrono Trigger Resurrection", a 3D remake of several scenes from the classic "Chrono Trigger" game. This project was a $15,000 investment aimed only at creating a new look at an old title. There were no plans to profit from this project which was nothing more than a few short movies. The project had received 10,000,000 hits and the trailer had been downloaded 7,000,000 times. Why would Square-Enix be so eager to crush such an ambitious project which posed no threat to them financially? Some have postulated that they feared such a resurgence of popularity would have put pressure on them to create a sequel. To this I ask why the hell would you not make a sequel? If anything hire the people working on "Resurrection".

Anyways if you have learned anything from this post please head my warning: the next time you see a box of Yoda O's or Cloud Strife Crunch, consider whether or not you want your children to be wearing Darth Maul Diapers in the near future. One other thing to keep in mind is to give the population a chance. Don't rely on monstrous enterprises concerned with little more than lining their own pockets. Check out something on youtube; there might be the next Spielberg hiding in there somewhere. You won't know if you don't look.