On Internet Social Networking September 7, 2008

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

The New York Times had this extensive article on Social Networking websites. I wrote the following comment as my rumination on the subject. Surprisingly, moderators rejected it( to the best of my knowledge). Wonder why? Was it misogynistic? Anti Religion? Too religious? Would you know why? Anyhow, I am glad I can still post it and let the world read.

This article almost gave me headaches. It reminds me of Internet’s trillions of tentacles. Get to this Wikipedia link for a list of popular social networking sites for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

You get Facebook, then Twitter and then something else. Then another new site pops up providing the best of three and then yet again something else. It’s a NEVER ending quest. I think the book of Ecclesiastes in Bible was written when some prophet foresaw the internet and digital age of today: ”All things are wearisome; more than one can express…there is nothing new under the sun.”

Once a friend asks you to come look at his or her page, soon you realize you MUST register to view the page and you end up getting signed up for all the Facebooks and Twitters spread all over the face of this once green and blue but now all digital earth. Even newspapers (like Washington Post) and book sellers (like Amazon) offer social networking to their registered users.

Sometimes, a pioneering Social Networker (for some reason, They are ALWAYS women) invites the flock to some new social networking site (It might be Shelfari or Multiply or HeavenknowsWhat) and then gets sick of it and abandons it anyway, only to proclaim that the next one she’s found is the perfect one.

It’s like some lady Moses of the digital age messing about her flock through the eternal silicon valley of utter wastefulness and constant flux. But in this story there is neither Jehovah nor Jesus to save us.

And these things can of course become very obsessive. You must know what new ”moods” or ”twitters” or other updates there are. Even news websites and news aggregators act like twitters and heart beats of the world that get updated every minute.

Recently, Atlantic Monthly came with an article ”Is Google making us stupid” (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google) You bet it is. Reluctantly, I did an experiment to find out the truth. I actually switched off my computer (if I keep it on I must check all twitters and emails every 30 minutes)… so I switched it off (I was able to do it as I’d also gotten sick of the latest Spywares, Adwares etc. that afflicted my PC, by the way, my latest blog offers some good tips to fellow sufferers and surfers).

After having my digital contraption off… I was learning so much more in my spare time by simply being able to read books and sticking with the reading, newspaper articles, even just watching TV, listening to radio. And I relaxed a lot, enjoyed my coffee better… was able to productively and creatively think about many other things. Also, I was at peace.

You can do that too! Or else, Abandon hope all Ye who enter here….

Recent Readings, Bumpy rides of Internet: from Lust to Learning. March 22, 2008

What brings me to write this crude post with a crude title? I’ve been reading a bit of Tolstoy and he inspires me to tell the truth and be truthful. In the past two months I have read three classic writers that I’d always managed to avoid: D.H. Lawrence (The Rainbow), Charles Dickens ( Christmas Carol, Great expectations) and Leo Tolstoy (Death of Ivan Ilych and now reading ”Confession”) I avoided reading them because I grow to hate everything that has too much hoopla about it. If everyone yells it is VERRRY GOOD, then it must be bad; that’s my philosophy. Of course this rule does not always turn out to be true, but mostly it is. But well, I did read these three writers and I was quite impressed by D.H. Lawrence’s beautiful language and immensely candid thoughts about sex, lust, death, religion, spirituality etc. Many of his thoughts about Christianity were the ones I myself have secretly pondered over. But seems like the bastard clearly beat me to it. Well, good on him. I might be a teetotaler but I will still toast a black coffee to his blessed soul. May he rest in peace.

 

 

Charles Dickens is gooey and wordy. But his genius does shine in his humor, characterizations and of course story telling. I’m not sure if I would be reading more of his work though I must go through David Copperfield sometime in future.

 

 

Tolstoy, I find admirably truthful. As I previously thought he was no vegetarian saint but a totally flawed man who confesses in his memoirs that he has been ”adulterous in many ways”, lied, cheated, been violent, murdered people indiscriminately in battles as a soldier and so goes his list of sins. But to his credit he confesses to have no special authority on the meaning of life thing. I do not like him much as a writer and Anna Karenina slumbers on by book shelf not far from War and Peace, both unread. I find Tolstoy dull and sulky despite his genius and honesty. I cannot find any vibrancy or humor in his writings. Besides, translations always make the original writing more dull. So, Anna Karenina will be picked up if Ember gets reeeelly desperate, wink wink

 

 

And now to the second topic. I have been wondering what uses intelligent and responsible people have for internet. Is it normal for normal people to spend so much time on the internet? I mean turn the clocks about 10 or 20 years back there was no such thing as internet as we know it now. I for one got the Net bug from age 19 and I have never left it. It has blessed me in many ways. I can remember my first email (in late 1999) that got a reply was from some 30 year old girl in Sault Sainte Marie in Ontario Canada (very close to the border of Michigan, U.S.A.) who also taught me to pronounce it right (Sue saint Marie) How else indeed could I have learned so much about the world beyond my reach? As a nerdy 19 year old I spent hours reading foreign coverage of New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Washington Post. I can clearly remember some of the articles I read in 1999 and 2000 that I could never access all my life before.

 

 

Along with these good learning pursuits also came the junk. Porn that was never to be sought but was always there, thrown at me through innocent misguided searches, in emails and all over really. Also, useless time sucking internet chats, love affairs etc. etc. were to infest a teeny young man that I was. Fortunately I got rid of most of the obsessive chats and online romances by the age of 24. But still much of the internet clutter keeps boring into my mind to this day. Sometimes I am trying to research something and all I do is to be stuck in never never land for hours and learn nothing but end up signing up here and there or downloading new softwares and programs!

 

 

My favorite author Gore Vidal does not use internet or computer for that matter. Maybe that’s why he managed to retain a sparkling intellect, delightful humor and eloquent speech well up to his 80th year? Noam Chomsky who is considered by many to be greatest living genius of our times who has developed groundbreaking theories in the field of Linguistics and who has written most well researched and provocative articles on U.S. foreign policy, world politics considers internet ”a great waste” and does not bother to go online even as much of his works are available on the internet. Hmmmmmmmm…..

 

 

On the surface, this leads me to believe that no serious writer or scientist or intellectual would bother with the internet but it is not quite so. Even most of the aging legends have internet presence and are joyously hooked on the internet.

 

 

So my verdict in the end is that I will stick to it! My blog posts are mostly read by people who search things like , ”Sex”, ”big penis”, ”how to get white women” But once in a while people drop by and compliment me on my writing, get provoked by my views on religion and politics, leave some incisive comments. So, in the end my blog gets its due rewards. When I say my blog I mean my WordPress Blog because that’s where I mostly write the most dull, boring and political stuff that I do not wish to inflict on my social networking folks all the time. lol.

 

 

At last I would mention something interesting… one example how internet provides a nerd like me to do weird things. I often listen to radio stations (news, talk, politics, BBC, NPR) on the internet. The other day I managed to tune into BBC London which is FM station run by BBC in London. There is a talk show that runs from 2am to 6am British time. I managed to listen to it live one evening (it is exactly evening in New Zealand when it is morning in UK). It being me, I could not help sending an email on a flaming political topic. 10 minutes later it was read by the talk host as I listened to it live on the internet through my headphones. My name and email was broadcast all over wintry foggy London in early morning Hmmmmm….. It may not mean anything to you but I call it Nerd Bliss.

 

What you think of any of the issues raised in this post: literature, internet etc. If you have any opinions or feelings about it, feel free to write. TTFN as in ta ta for now.

On blog pimping and letting lose on the internet. November 19, 2007

**Plagiarism Alert** In the true spirit of blog pimping I am stealing my own content and posting the following from my new humor blog. I realize, whatever moderate traffic I get, occurs on this blog, and for this reason I will bare my post on here for the world’s reading pleasure. I think I will reserve my ”humor” blog for posts that maybe too dirty for too many. *wink* Anyhoo, here is my new post on blog pimping.

 

 

 

 

I admit, I’m a pimp. I pimp my blog. This phrase is not my own but the one I found from the entrails of the internet via the mighty Google. It is obvious now that even the best and most popular bloggers pimp their blog. Maybe this is why they got to be so popular indeed? Just a thought. But there are both civilized and sleazy ways to pimp. In the former category would be signing up for blogging communities, making comments on other people’s blogs (You kiss my ass I kiss yours and let the kisses multiply and the ass be happy)

 

 

 

But of course the fastest way to shoot your blog into stardom is to be the whore of the html world. It helps if you’re a woman or pretend to be one. Sexual titillation and enticement will carry you a long way in every sphere of life and nothing is more true about blog pimping. You see, most people on the internet do look for sex in all its manifestations, simply because it is so easy and no one is watching (A GREAT ILLUSION)

 

 

 

For this very reason, most of the adultery being committed today exists in digital form. It is very interesting to see that how even the sincerest people turn into dirty bastards just because they can and no one is watching, (SUPPOSEDLY). Thus people let their hormones, carnality and fetishes run awry on the internet. People get dirty. But why not?

 

 

 

It is better to get it out of your system than to take it to your grave or crematorium and create a great scandal in the spirit world.

Lost in the Cyberspace’s darkmatter and Vast Nothingness. November 2, 2007

Picture: Dazed and confused

I am sure many are the victims of Cyberspace whirlpools. Days ago, my buddy the Scorpion Queen (Kate) bemoaned the complexities of internet. Like many others the poor girl only wanted to maintain an easy to use webpage, social networking and ocassional blog post. But not that easy huh… I just thought well, sure these are the tough times for those who are not much into HTML, CSS and other technical juggernauts like that. But today, once again I found myself totally at loss and enmeshed when I tried to make simple updates to my blogs. All blog portals with different Blog stats, usernames, comments, font styles, lay out styles, colors etc………………………………………….

 

More choice certainly does not appear to be a good thing. Turn the clocks back to 1999. Simpler times. That’s when I got regular and personal internet access from my home. It was a lovely period. For email you only used Hotmail or Yahoo or your ISP’s email service like AOL. As for instant messengers ICQ was the in thing… then MSN was very nice too. If you felt like being more adventurous, you could get Yahoo Messenger as well.

 

Blogging wasn’t born yet. But people got the taste of marking their own internet territory with a Personal webpage provided by a few internet portals including Yahoo (Geocities). Simpler times: like, while watching a beautiful rainbow, splashing the the puddles of sparkling water with your bare feet. And listening to the little birds twitter, chirp and sing and watching them playfully hop across thetree branches.

 

Then things got worse. Free email services sprang up in a thousand places by a thousand companies, portals etc. Besides, if you’re working for a place or you’re a student in college or University, they give you your own official email address. The only question is, which one to choose and use? I was always very cynical about ‘’signing up” at new places. But discounting the many email accounts I have been deleting forever, today, I have email addresses at Vodaphone, Gmail, Yahoo (2 addresses), Hotmail (2 addresses) and further blogging and social networking Accounts at My Space, Blogger, WordPress, Multiply, Yahoo 360, Technorati, Beebo, Ringo, Flickr, Shelfari, Librarything, Mybloglog, His Stats, Blog Patrol, NetScape, Digg.com, MSN Spaces and certainly there are many more I can’t even remember!

 

Every now and then I keep getting emails from old friends informing me that they’ve signed up at some site, there are heaps of their pictures, new info and blogs etc. In order to view their page, I go to that particular website and it asks me to Sign UP in order to view content (As if I forgot to mention couple of more Friendster and Orkut and Facebook and Mash)

 

Can you believe that I ACTUALLY REMEMBER THESE NAMES. I swear I was not looking at some list to write all of this. I am typing straight away as it is. How many of my brain cells are being used merely to remember all this and their usernames and passwords (Ok I tend to keep them same, mostly, but still!!!)

 

There seems to be no help at all. I just realized it may not be all that simple just to quit Yahoo. They recently bought MyBloglog for about $10 million. And with their deep pockets I’m sure they’re up for something big, adventurious and jazzy when they upgrade our abandoned Yahoo 360 account. And then…? What are we gonna do with this Multiply. Of course we will keep this one too! And the plot thickens forever, ad infinitum.