 August 26th, 2010 by Newbs -
Digg is some kind of social media/link sharing mega site founded by TechTV’s Kevin Rose. On August 25, 2010, version four of Digg.com went live. The redesign brought about a wide range of changes both great and small, from a layout cleansing (that looks infinitely better in my opinion), to a refocus on following the activities of your friends and favourite websites rather than the hive mind of the collected Digg community.
The transition has been shaky from a technical standpoint, with Rose and co. re-launching Digg seemingly without adequate preparation. Despite a lengthy testing period, the new Digg has been up, down, and glitchy ever since it went live. The extra click required to hop from your personal stream to the site-wide most popular submissions is also somewhat annoying. Speaking of personal streams, and as a means of being completely self serving, I want to recommend you follow Shufflingdead on Digg.
But this post isn’t just about Kevin. It’s also about the legion of basement dwellers who rely on his site for distraction while their youths slip away. You see, Diggers, like all geeks, are a ravenous bunch of haters. Change of any kind is to be reviled. Digg’s revamp has garnered nothing less than a torrent of whining from its millions of users. A quick scan from this comment page garnered these gems (after the jump):
→ Continue reading Shameful Human(s) of the Week: Kevin Rose and the entire Digg community
August 19th, 2010 by Newbs -
Meet Chris Anderson, he’s the editor-in-chief of Wired. You know, that magazine that’s also a very successful website. Chris recently blasted out a massive article declaring “The Web Is Dead.” It’s a rather dull piece with a stunning headline designed to grab lots of attention here on the highly profitable web. Anderson argues that the “web” part of the internet (that stuff you see in your browser) is quickly vanishing, and being replaced by isolated apps that use the internet but don’t live in the “web” ecosystem.
Chris begins his argument with a graph demonstrating that web traffic has dropped significantly compared to the rest of what the internet is used for. Have a look. Huh. It appears to be a chart of bandwidth usage, demonstrating that the web take has lessened relative to significantly more bandwidth-heavy uses. Hardly shocking. An even funnier thing about that bandwidth usage is that most of what the web has lost appears to have gone directly to video. You know, those moving pictures you watch all of the damn time through your browser on the web. Poor “other” has lost even more ground in recent years according to his chart. I wonder, where do all of those apps and X-Box connections Anderson claims are taking over fit in?
Don’t worry, my fellow interneters. This isn’t the first time a tech journalist has declared a technology, tech company, or tech trend dead a little prematurely. How many times were Nintendo and Apple declared dead during the ’90s?
Chris Anderson is a thoroughly shameful shameless attention grabber. At least the lengthy list of ironies inherent in his argument have given swarms of people something to talk about on this very lively web.
August 5th, 2010 by Newbs -
This week’s Shameful Human is author and professional internet-hater Andrew Keen.
To Andrew Keen, This whole web 2.0 thing, with its YouTubes and swarms of blogs, isn’t the time-wasting bliss you and I perceive it to be. No, it’s actually dangerous, and even Marxist.
You see, as Keen argued in his 2006 The Weekly Standard essay, the participatory internet “worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer.” Sounds great, right? Sorry, but according to Andrew’s novel The Cult of the Amateur, all of this creative energy is putting hard-working experts out of business. Craigslist robs papers of their personals sections, Wikipedia takes jobs from encyclopedia editors.
Keen has rightly argued that web 2.0 “suggests that everyone — even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us — can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves.” Well, there’s no doubt that a lot of idiots produce a lot of shit on the internet. You’re reading a product of that dangerous phenomenon right now. Having said that, the internet is also a realm (relatively) free of corporate control, a place where true free enterprise can flourish, and a place that gives rise to new small businesses every day. There is nothing less Marxist than that.
Keen himself has participated in many internet start-ups. How he considers himself to be any different than the people making careers out of blogging and vlogging is beyond my comprehension.
July 22nd, 2010 by Newbs -
The Supreme Court of the United States is set to rule this October on a California law that would “ban the sale of certain video games to children under the age of 18.” This week’s Shameful Human is a particular supporter of that law, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (what is it about Attorneys General and video games?).
Mr. Blumenthal is running for senate, and is behaving like a classic politician taking advantage of the “think of the children” crowd. He’s also displaying some pretty amusing ignorance along the way. To show his support of California’s law, he released a statement to the press in which he hails the law for its ability to prevent children from buying games featuring the “slaughter [of] nude female zombies,” which, as we all know, is a disgusting act, well beyond the relatively tame practice of killing nude male zombies.
Another highlight from Blumenthal: “California’s law doesn’t broadly prohibit minors from buying ‘violent’ games — but a subgenre of games that encourages players to commit graphic acts of homicide, rape, and sadism.” Huh, I’m curious to know what games the Attorney General is referencing. Perhaps its those Japanese rape simulators that are already unavailable in the United States. I’m not entirely certain.
Regardless of what Blumenthal thinks video games encourage, it’s obvious he either doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to know, how the regulation of sales of video games currently works. Just like with movies, an industry which Dick B. points to as a potential example for gaming, the ESRB is voluntary and actively enforced by retailers, to the extent that potential buyers are IDed before they pick up M-rated games.
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July 15th, 2010 by Newbs -
I hate to be this obvious, but the Shameful Human of the Week is American/Australian actor, director, racist, anti-Semite, and sexist Mel “Blow Me First” Gibson.
The world first became aware of Mel’s anger issues in 2006 when he was arrested for driving under the influence. It was during his arrest then that he claimed that Jews were “responsible for all the wars in the world.” Well, it turns out that that little tirade was just the beginning.
Now Mel’s being investigated for domestic violence against former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, and some secret force in the universe is releasing clips of the insane rant conversations he had with her to the media. Thanks to these recordings, the world has now learned that Mel feels Oksana’s breast implants put her at risk for gang rape at the hands of a racial minority. Did you also know that Mel once had an urgent sexual need to be “blown fast… before the fucking Jacuzzi”? The situation was so dire that it needed to be performed before he burned down his house.
Yeah, Mel’s apparently a pretty scary guy to date. I’m sure that in the days and weeks to come, we’ll hear plenty more about wacky Mel, but he’s already made it entirely clear that he deserves the title Shameful Human of the Week. Then again, his movies pretty much did that already.
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July 1st, 2010 by Newbs -
This week’s Shameful Human is actually an entire corporation of people, it’s Nintendo Co., Ltd. In its arrogance, this once great company has done the unthinkable, and actually spoken ill of its competition.
Sony’s Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida found Nintendo’s words at E3 2010 to be hurtful. Frequently reminding consumers that their new 3DS handheld device allows users to play games in 3D without glasses is simply too much. Yoshida feels the company shouldn’t “bash some small part of what the other company is doing,” referring to his own company’s with-glasses 3D tech.
Sony just wants to play nice, after all. Yoshida would like to “work alongside Nintendo in promoting the new technology.” Pointing out how unfairly Nintendo treats 3D glasses, he also notes that they are “light and you kind of forget you’re wearing them after awhile.”
It’s about time someone stood up to Nintendo and their over-the-top trash talking. It’s embarrassing, and, frankly, unprofessional. Sony has shown nothing but kindness to Nintendo in every regard, betraying the company, stealing their tech, and entering the gaming industry as a direct competitor was a compliment in the highest regard.
Of course, its unlikely a company as reprehensible as Nintendo would actually do right and work with Sony. The company appears to be pitifully obsessed with minor misspeakings over the years from Sony personnel who have repeatedly implied that Nintendo products are gimmicky and kiddy.
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