Author: wuog

In light of Ruckus being shutdown, I’ve decide to post something here I wrote about DRM for StandUp a while back. It’s a crash course in DRM and how to get around it.

Digital rights management, DRM, is software employed by many copyright owners to protect their content from being pirated. Nearly all Americans come into contact with DRM on a daily basis. Enjoying music bought from Apple requires the use of DRM; even laughing at Garden State on DVD requires the use of DRM. So, DRM is good… right? Hardly a person exits who legitimately supports piracy; however, most DRM is extremely restrictive and takes away from what consumers can do with legally acquired content under their rights of “fair use.”

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Sure, not everyone ‘gets’ Twitter. Lets face it; some people were born cool and into awesome, cutting-edge, social new media sites and some were just born to be on MySpace. But, who are these merchants of cool that crowd the Twitter-space with glorious witticisms and links to things you think are cool and witty and beautiful?

Luckily for those of you who like these kinds of answers answered in easily indexable and reference-able lists, SF/J has a completely compiled list of people on Twitter. Need an exemplary excerpt? Fine, have one:

people who are just back from a really awesome run

people who are involved with “computers”

DJs

DJs at the airport

DJs who are drunk

people who don’t have anyone’s email address

people who are mad at television

The full list is rather entertaining as well. Which Twitter user are you? Me? I’m split between ‘people who like Battlestar Galactica’ and ‘Rachel Maddow‘.

Wikipedia provides articles on everything from the UGA literary societies to Truthiness. But, this article on “Drinking Culture” stands out.

Generally, people drink for one or more of six reasons — to quench thirst, to get drunk, to enjoy a social occasion (social drinking), to enjoy the taste of an alcoholic beverage, to participate in a religious or traditional ceremony or custom, or because they are alcoholics.

[via Most Days]

This may sound like a joke, but it’s not: researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have found that too much Facebook usage can leave you more prone to anxiety and depression…that is, if you’re a teenage girl. In a study, a group of 13-year old girls were evaluated by psychology professor Dr. Joanne Davila and her colleague, Lisa Starr. A year later, the researchers followed up with the girls, testing them for depressive symptoms.

Wait, what? Using Facebook makes you depressed? How am I not dead by my own hands right now? I mean I know that the ads can leave you feeling lonely with the massive attack on your singleness; but, I’ve never been gotten down by Facebook.

[via Read Write Web]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVY97zYV0tQ&feature=related[/youtube]Mark Adams chews each bite a 100 times, but why isn’t he on twitter?

[via @hodgman]

Scott Merrill has a great new post on CruchGear about early adoption and “Alpha Geeks.” He inspects why and how most people don’t really care about most sites. It’s well worth the read and his in-depth analysis/example of Google’s Grand Central is spot on.

Here’s an excerpt:

There are a dizzying number of cool new services, applications, and gadgets available to citizens of the world today. New stuff is coming out all the time and it can be hard for us Internet experts to keep up, let alone average human beings. For example, my dad — no Internet slouch — had no idea what Hulu was. How is he expected to care about the difference between Twitter or identi.ca?

I take a generally pessimistic view of new sites, assuming that I’ll either not like them, or they won’t stick around long enough for me to appreciate them. I have a few friends who are compulsive signer-uppers, gladly agreeing to the Terms of Service for any new site that comes along. One of these guys does it specifically so he can claim his preferred username, lest some other Internet a-hole tarnish his good handle. Another friend signs up for stuff with the expectation that he’ll actually use the service being offered. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.

How many of us fall into one of these same patterns? I’m rather saddened to notify you that I probably have an account on well over 100 social networks/tools. Yeah… I’m on/was on Plurk, Jaiku (RIP), Twitter, Identi.ca and Pownce (RIP). I loved them all yet I only update Twitter now.

[via  CrunchGear]

Everyone loves Twitter. And the biggest political users of twitter so far have been members of the GOP in Congress. But, is it OK to Twitter comments while in a “private” meeting with President Obama? I think that it’s great and I want to see more of it.

“Audiences usually treat presidents to a round of polite applause, but when President Obama addressed House Republicans on Tuesday, they started Twittering,” according to The Hill.

“While Obama implored Republicans behind closed doors to consider supporting his economic stimulus bill, GOP thumbs worked overtime, tapping updates onto the microblogging website for thousands to read.”

[via Political Wire]

So, the internet is for porn. Apparently, according to certain cable companies, the Super Bowl is also for porn! Yeah, apparently after one big score, the viewing audience was treated to another. Links and more info after the jump. (more…)

A new way to blog about things.

Almost everyone has a blog. And almost everyone goes weeks or months at a time where they post nothing on their personal blog out of sheer lack of ideas. That’s where Plinky comes into play.

Plinky is a simple concept: A question is posted each day for you and answer and then publish (with rather nice formatting) via whatever means you choose. They support Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, Twitter and just about every other free/not-so-free content publishing platform out there. Here’s an example post from Plinky on my Tumblr.