Media Mashup for the week ending February 28

Every week, I consume massive amounts of media online. Most never make it into this blog, often because I can't figure out how to build an entire blog post around them. Seems such a waste. So I've decided to start a new feature: my media mashup for the week previous.

So without further ado, here's what I learned online last week:

Does this blog make me look old?

One of the joys of taking classes at a community college in my thirties is that I get to annoy "Millenials" with all sorts of pseudo journalistic questions about their generation.

I'd like to think their answers help me stay relevant.

But sometimes, their answers just make me feel obsolete.

For example, this week I took a survey in my journalism class to find out how many of my young classmates read blogs (self-serving question, I know). The answer: none of them.

Oh, and Twitter is for "old people." And Ashton Kutcher.

That's what I get for asking self-serving questions.

Strangers no more: A new app that IDs faces

When I wrote this post a few days ago about our dwindling 15 minutes of anonymity on the internet, I almost included a bit on how the coupling of facial recognition technology and smartphone cameras will enable us one day to obliterate the anonymity and mystique of any stranger we encounter on the street. One day.

But that day is already almost here.

Five reasons I won't be blogging today

1. Only celebrities can get away with being boring.


2. There's a place for blog posts that are mostly just links to the creativity of others--It's called Tumblr.


3. I'm not part of the 24/7 MSM news cycle. If I were, I'd get fired, because as a creator I am slooooow.


4. I already know I can do half-baked. My next post is in the oven, spending as many days there as it needs, for a change.


5. Olympic women's figure skating starts tonight. Canada's skater just lost her mother. South Korea's skater has the rabid gold-medal expectations of every Korean on the planet (including my parents) piled upon her willowy 19-year-old shoulders. Drama, drama...

Does self-esteem reside in the left brain?

Science is confirming what I've long suspected: the left half of my brain has a bigger ego than the right.

When the left hemisphere is in charge, subjects are more likely to associate themselves with positive attributes, such as "capable," according to a study published in Cortex. When the right hemisphere is in charge, subjects gravitate more toward negative attributes, such as "boring."

In other words, the left hemisphere has confidence that it's awesome, and the right hemisphere mostly has self-esteem issues.

That explains so much. I've had two careers, one very right-brain and the other very left. At the left-brain job, I knocked shit out, no problem. At the right-brain job, it was round-the-clock angst. If I could transfer the big ego to my right brain and give all the humility to my left, I'd probably get a lot farther in life. Sigh.

If you have any comments to submit, please do. Just remember: All mean comments should go to the left; All nice comments should go to the right.

15 Minutes of Anonymity

They say the Defense Department invented the Internet, but I have an alternate theory: I think Al Gore made a wish on The Monkey's Paw, and one day we'll find out the ironic price to be paid for that granted wish.

Happy 20th Birthday, Photoshop

Unfortunately, you're still one year away from taking a legal drink, which you'll probably need after seeing my first attempt at photo painting. But this is what you've unleashed on the world...

Can there be an app for Serendipity?

I think of technology as the ultimate Enabler, in both the positive as well as the AA sense of that word. If you want to be a shut-in, no problem -- you can shop for groceries, earn a living, even socialize from the comfort of home without uttering a single face-to-face word. If you crave intimacy, but find the psychic price of IRL interaction too steep, there's a (porn) site for you. And if having hundreds of Facebook "friends" truly gives you a sense of connection... well, obviously you're in sync with the masses.

But here's the kind of enabler most of us need: the kind that helps Opportunity find our door, that lets us know when we're actually in the right place at the right time, that nudges us to chat up the adorable stranger on the subway platform now instead of posting to "Missed Connections" later.  Everyday another hundred+ people get onto our trains, or walk through our parks, or lounge at our spots. Some of those strangers could offer us a job, produce our screenplay, share our love of Lego art, end our loneliness -- whatever. Not likely, perhaps, but possible. Facebook, et. al, covers the people we do know -- what about all the people we don't but maybe could? With all this GPS tracking and whatnot, technology has the goods to be that enabler, doesn't it?

Well, if location-based social networks/apps like StreetSpark take off, maybe technology will one day meet my high expectations.

Dashboard Confessional

Last night I went trolling for more dashboard widgets, culminating in yet another episode of binge downloading.

Yes, dear reader, I'm a widgetwhore.

A "widgetwhore," as defined by Urban Dictionary:

"A Mac user (OSX 10.4+) who fills up the dashboard with widgets, of which many, or at least some, are unnecessary or ridiculous. Most common among new Mac users, particularly recently converted windoze users. Commonly, but not always, characterized by cuteness or bouncyness."

I'd say I'm a textbook case -- except for the cutesy/bouncy bit (all those cutesy icons I've downloaded onto my Mac don't count, right?). What fuels my addiction? Boredom? An empty, shallow existence? The delusion that somewhere, out there on the interwebs, is a widget for each and all of my heretofore unfulfilled (and bottomless) needs?

My down-the-time-hole project for today was to purge all unused widgets (Ooh! A goldfish aquarium!) and whittle my dashboard down to these seven six favorite and neither ridiculous nor unnecessary widgets that I use on a regular basis:

Get thee to a nunnery

A Nun Prepares for Lent. 

Either The Church is relaxing its standards or someone in the blogosphere is having a little fun with a nun costume and/or Photoshop. Regardless. If I were a nun, this is probably the kind of nun I'd be...

[10 Examples of Nuns Behaving Badly]

The Tao of Twitter

There are 23.7 million tweets per day, on average, mostly human in origin. But that could be changing, if this post on HuffPo is any indication.

Animals, beds, toilets, trees, shoes, chairs and even bathroom scales are increasingly invading the Twitterverse. Apparently oversharing, self-promotion and narcissistic solipsism are not traits exclusive to homo sapiens.

Love in the time of 140 characters or less

Will flittering be the new speed dating?

Imagine walking into a dimly lit, swank lounge packed with 300+ singles, everyone wearing a numbered tag and holding a mobile device. A giant Big Brother screen looms, displaying a live-feed stream of the flirty tweets (aka "flitters") pinging about amongst the crowd. You spot an enticing stranger, and with thumbs poised on mobile device you begin to compose in your head the perfect in-140-characters-or-less come-on to #157....

Got Beer?

Move over milk, there's a new bone density booster in town

Drinking beer may increase bone mineral density and help prevent osteoporosis, according to a new study.

The key ingredient contained in beer: silicon (who knew?), which increases bone mineral density.

Pale ales contain the most silicon; light lagers, wheat beers and non-alcoholic beers the least.

Sounds about right -- if beer drinking gives you Homer Simpson's belly, your bones are gonna need the extra strength to lug that shit around.

I sense a new beer-lobby ad campaign a-brewing. Paris Hilton sporting a beer 'stache? Seems only a matter of time.... [Reuters]