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Geeks, Nerds, Internet, Technology, Society & Culture

(35 posts)

Started 10 months ago by pedanticKarl
Latest reply from pedanticKarl

Tags:

pedanticKarl
Member

Hello HotForWords fans,
In the context of the recent HotForWords video lessons, "Geek" and "Nerd", and since Marina calls herself a geek, I would like this forum to be a discussion of technology and society as a whole.

I prefer that this not turn into a religious flame war pitting one technology against the other, but do state your opinions, preferences and biases and why you prefer one technology over another. Do discuss sociological impacts, benefits and detriments. Lets keep the discussion civil as much as I have some choice words about the subject and I know you do to.

I prefer that this not be a nerd forum where technical minutiae is discussed as there are way too many other forums that do that already.

I encourage aLx, buzzword and others who have an understanding of society, history, anthropology, biology, liberal arts and languages to contribute their opinions.

Some things to ponder:
1. What circumstance caused you to become a nerd/geek. Has anyone become un-geeked?
2. Has technology delivered what it has promised or is this just a dream?
3. How has technology benefited you and / or society?
4. In what ways has technology harmed society?
6. What is your preference and why? (Mac, PC, Linux, browsers, cell phone, PDA, other)
7. What makes you angry or passionate about technology?
8. Provide links to interesting technology events, expos, news, blogs, videos and articles.

Keep in mind, you and I are not going to solve anything here. However, do include items of human interest where someone has made an impact through technology either for good or bad.

Perhaps, Marina should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Price for contributing in a positive way, having created the HotForWords community. In the words of Alfred Noble; "The Peace Prize should be awarded to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations".

Posted 10 months ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

1."Can't beat em, tech em to death" infamous geek cliche. Anyone become ungeeked? Howard Stern wishes!
2.Yes, technology has totally delivered the goods. Proof: Oscar Goldman said he could rebuild Steve Austin and NASA did. Now get me off this crazy planet! I wanna go home!
3.Technology benefits me and my blessed electronic friends I feel so connected now
4.Preference: realistic fem bots, female androids. Why?: Because they are well equipt to perform various "tasks"
5.Passionate- see #4. Angry- I get fed up having to wrap tin foil around my head everytime I want to listen to the radio!

Posted 10 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

MacWorld Conference & Expo is coming up January 5-9, 2009
Moscone Center, San Frnacisco, CA
http://www.macworldexpo.com/

Posted 10 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Please continue to vote for Marina for SexyGeek.
There are 3748 more votes to go before Marina takes the lead.
[url=http://wired.reddit.com/sexygeeks_2008/?s=top]

Consider this, on Phil's blog, one commenter said.
"I gave every Marina entry a thumbsdown just because
I felt like if her fans are so dumb as to make individual
entries for her, then they don't deserve to see her win. XD"

Unfortunately, that poster is wrong. At one point in the beginning, Marina was about 10,000 votes behind Phil. Since one can only vote once ever 24 hours, Marina would never have caught up without a new set of additional voters. By submitting multiple entries, which got rolled up, Marina caught up very quickly to Phil in terms of Up Votes and Marina has now surpassed Phil in up votes. Now, I think that was very smart.
Thank you to all of you who submitted multiple entries.

It shows how passionate we are about Marina and that we can take her into first place, but taking the "high and intelligent" road. The "we" refers to the collective participants who chose to participate, so there.

Posted 10 months ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

SexySmart
50 free HotForWords calendars "HELLO!-" 50 free calendars going out to some lucky folks if Marina gets our votes and wins WiReD Magazine's sexiest geek contest
So keep pumping those thumbs and we'll win this thing! (nuff said)
p.s. and index fingers

Posted 10 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

I'm sure many of you know about the Twitter phishing attack this past Saturday and a story on Twitter being compromised by a password attack.

Twitter hooked by phishermen, hackers.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/01/twitter-phishin.html

Weak Password Brings 'Happiness' to Twitter Hacker
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/professed-twitt.html

If you think your password is weak or that you might have been compromised, be sure to change your password just in case.

Posted 10 months ago #
NerdWithNoLife
Member

I think technology is a two edged sword. The more geniuses make it better, the more the rest of people can afford to be stupid (to put it bluntly). GPS is a great example. It's really cool how it works. But challenge an experienced driver who really knows an area, against a directionally challenged driver who is new to an area - and I'll bet the experienced driver will win in a race.

On Mac/PC preference, I'd rather have a stickshift than an automatic. This makes me more inclined to have a PC. While the Mac is a finely tuned powerful machine, it often doesn't have the same controls and customization potential of a PC. For example, you cannot build a Mac in the same way you can a PC. But if I had loads of money, I'd probably get both, and use them together. I used to, but now my Mac is too old to have any real advantages over the PC.

But I love technology. Some people hate change because just when they get something figured out it all changes (like say... YouTube?). However if none of that changed, HD wouldn't be affordable to people like me - for recording or display. Plasma TV's were a bit more expensive 10 years ago than now, eh? But have you ever seen one of those old projection TV's that were standard definition? The ones you couldn't hope to see unless all the lights in the house were dimmed, and you could clearly see very scan line? Remember when a 30' tube TV was $1,000? Remember when VCR's were $1,000? Do you want to go back to watching VHS? I say: heck no. It's exciting to see what's within reach now to the average consumer. So your TV and computer will be grossly outdated 10 years from now. The key is: by then, better technology will be affordable. I don't care if the old cassette decks are solid metal and will last 20 more years. I'd rather listen to CD's, or losslessly compressed music!

Posted 10 months ago #
Captain Jack
Member

@PK, As long as stupid people of the earth continue to do stupid things this will continue on for ever until we dump this stupid Log & Pass system that is obsolete form of secure access. I also think that the people who program Twitter are in the same category as a stupid person. For they can set up their system to force the user to pick a secure password. Phishing will always win over stupid people for they don't thing before they click.

NerdWithNoLife, You know little about new Macs I presume. What mac do you have may I ask?

Mac can run in automatic and stick shift mode. I run Unix programs on my system. You can't get more stick shift than that. As for price comparison to a store purchase PC, mac are very competitive. You must compare feature with feature on store bought systems. As for home built PC, yes PC are way cheaper for you can buy lower quality parts and just replace them when they fail. In the long run I found it more of a pain to do this type of maintain than to just buy a good machine at first. Also a mac now can run Windows either in boot up or emulation mode. Nice to have two machines in one! One thing I dislike about Windows is I spend more time fixing the damn thing than getting my work done. I've used PCs in the past as a tinker/hobbies toys and Macs as serious work machines.

Posted 10 months ago #
NerdWithNoLife
Member

I have an old G4. You're right that Mac is a good value for its price. But for as for a basic $500 dual core PC - there isn't a Mac equivalent. There aren't cheap Macs - which is a dealbreaker for me. I'm nerdy enough to get by with less, so I do. Someday it would be neat to get a mighty Mac Pro, but in the mean time I'm going with a slimmed down PC.

Mac/PC debates are a great way to get techie people ranting and raving though. To keep it going - if Windows is such a hassle, it must be a pain running it on a Mac, eh?

Posted 10 months ago #
popzzz
Member

Windows probably runs better on a mac LOL!

Seriously though, I went straight from win2000 to vista and it drove me
nucking futzzz LOL!

After wrestling the $^&$# thing for a coupla months, I got it whipped
now and I'll have to say it's really stable compared to previous boxes.

When I first cranked it up it was running like 140 something processes with
NONE of my stuff and now got all my stuff with 72 processes at startup.

Posted 10 months ago #
NerdWithNoLife
Member

Vista? Well there's your problem, Vern. I've still got XP. A word of advice:

No matter what the system (Mac/PC), do not be the first guy on the block to upgrade to the latest OS. You will be a lab rat. Upgrade when none of your stuff works on your version. Upgrade only when you're dragged kicking and screaming to the OS that everyone else is using. Because if most people are using it it's probably and indication that it's worth getting, plus some of the bugs should be worked out thanks to the willing test subjects who boldly went where you wouldn't dare venture.

You're right about Vista. It is a gargantuan failure. MS is getting ready for a new release, and surely soon they'll be calling Vista "the version that shall not be named."

Posted 10 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Dang, is it that time of year again?
2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
About CES
With more than four decades of success, the International CES reaches across global markets, connects the industry and enables CE innovations to grow and thrive.

The International CES is produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the consumer technology industry. CEA represents more than 2,200 corporate members involved in the design, development, manufacturing, distribution and integration of consumer electronics products. All profits from CES are reinvested into industry services, including technical training and education, industry promotion, engineering standards development, market research and legislative advocacy.
http://www.cesweb.org/

All of the networks and most of the media will be covering that show.
On YouTube, search "Consumer Electronics" and you'll see several video channels that will be covering the show. If you have a favorite video channel YT or not, post it in this forum.

Posted 10 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

@Captain Jack said:

One thing I dislike about Windows is I spend more time fixing the damn thing than getting my work done. I've used PCs in the past as a tinker/hobbies toys and Macs as serious work machines.

Hey Captain Jack,
Thanks for the info regarding the Mac. From what I am reading and seeing about the increasing popularity of the Mac, I think a lot of people have and are finally making the distinction between playing around (tinkering) versus being productive, especially when it comes to the PC being a liability in many areas such as security and user friendliness. It is unbelievable what I see in corporations every day where productivity goes out the window due to mismanaged technologies. No one is being held accountable.

Posted 10 months ago #
NerdWithNoLife
Member

When AviSynth can frameserve to Final Cut Pro, I'll be happy. Until then, the only solution is huge intermediate files. Premiere and After Effects however, can be frameserved by AviSynth to avoid those in between files, and take advantage of its superior processing, like native YCbCr noise filtering, and inverse telecining. Ever used TempGaussMC_betamod1? It's awesome.

Now do you see why I have a PC? You'd be surprised what I can get done on my little machine, on a shoestring budget. I get stuff done, believe me. So for me the tinker toy argument doesn't hold water. And I can upgrade my motherboard without buying all the other stuff again (tower, power supply, drives, cards).

Posted 10 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Here are three articles regarding YouTube videos that promote products.

The Video Evidence: Why YouTube Is Concerned About Product Placement
The Washington Post - by Rory Maherm paidContent.org May 5, 2009; 5:06 PM

Excerpt
On Monday, we reported that YouTube was notifying some of its more popular content partners that it planned to start enforcing its policy of not allowing product integration into partner videos unless YouTube got a cut of the action.

Who: Marina Orlova, an easy-on-the-eyes philologist whose show Hot for Words explores the meaning of words. ?Comment: In this episode, "Sleep With Me," see that bottle of Neuro Sleep right next to Marina? That's a paying sponsor whose other products (including Neurogasm) have also appeared in Marina's videos.

- - - - - - -

YouTube Cracks Down On Sneaky Brand Integrations
By David Kaplan - paidcontent.org - Mon 04 May 2009

Excerpt
YouTube has a warning for its top content partners: don’t include any branded integration without getting our permission first.

- - - - - - -

YouTube: Placement Police
Web video company looks for a chunk of integration ad revenue
By Mike Shields - MediaWeek.com - May 3, 2009

Excerpt
Kevin Nalty, a marketing director at Merck & Co., who produces a series of sophomoric videos on YouTube under the moniker “nalts,” recently received a slightly scary e-mail from YouTube about one of his videos containing brand messaging. But he understands YouTube’s need to protect its business. “It’s not unreasonable,” he said. “They are paying these high bandwidth fees, and they don’t want to be seen just as a dumb pipe.”

Some producers complain YouTube is inconsistent in its enforcement. Popular video creator Cory Williams, known as “Mr. Safety,” said he’s worked multiple sponsors into his videos, and YouTube has never bothered him as long as he runs overlay and banner ads during his clips. But advertisers that purchase overlay ads on YouTube don’t necessarily want to sponsor videos that are already sponsored. “We’re very sensitive to that,” said Pickett.

Sometimes, producers say, YouTube deliberately turns a blind eye to paid product placements but refuses to promote those videos. That can significantly limit a video’s reach, leaving sponsors unhappy. “YouTube has so much power to push videos to the right audience,” said Tim Jones, COO of digital producer Animax Entertainment, which recently featured brand messaging from Hardee’s in its Nascar-spoofing series SlotCar—without YouTube’s prior knowledge.

But Jones recognizes that some sort of revenue sharing model is inevitable. “YouTube should participate in revenue that is generated on their site,” he said. “This is something that would never happen in TV.”

- - - - - - -

Posted 6 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

A Dedication To Marina

This index of Bill O'Reilly TV appearances is dedicated to Marina for her many long hours of hard work in which she brings to us, the HotForWords community, new and interesting word origins. I have watched these videos again and again and I have learned something new from each of these lessons. This video series is a great learning experience in of itself.

1st appearance: Apr 15, 2008 - Bill O'Reilly words
video host: sarahwoome
Keywords: 43 million hits; The magic of it; They look at me and they learn something at the end of the day; Blooter; Popinjay; Jackanapes; Pecksniffian; Pinhead;

2nd appearance: July 31, 2008 - Political Edition 1
video host: sarahwoome
Keywords: 90 million hits; political words; political edition; feckless; codswallop; loon; democrat; republican; gulag; "You gotta love her";

3rd appearance: Sept 23, 2008 - Political Edition 2
video host: sarahwoome
Keywords: famous word lady; political words; vote; liberal; conservative; William Crocker; tories; libertarian; necessitarian; liber; socialist; socius; Robert Owen; commune; capitalist; sagacious

4th appearance: Dec 11, 2008 - Christmas words
video host: sarahwoome
Keywords: Christmas spirit; words of the season; HotForWord lady; 15 million people per month; discuss vocabulary; 2009 calendar; Christmas; mass; celebration; fesitval; Christ; annointed one; Xmas; Greek spelling of Christ; dreidel; German word drehen; Kwanzaa; first fruit; Santa Claus; Dutch origin; Saint Nicholas; In Russian, Father of Cold;

5th appearance: Feb 13, 2009 - Valentine words
video host: hotforwords
Keywords: St Valentines Day; named after two priests; married people; Emperor Claudius; 14th of February; beginning of spring; romantic; romanicus; chivalry; helping women; passionate; pati means to suffer; patience; suffering; love hurts; desire; de sidere means from the stars; infatuated; obsessed over something; look foolish;

6th appearance: Apr 10, 2009 - My beef with O'Reilly
video host: hotforwords
Keywords: beef; meaness on the net; terrifying; rudeness online; Pew Internet and American Life Project; people are ruder online than real life; annonymity; cowards; educational channel; hurt my feelings; obnoxious; response out of you; ignore it; thick skin; pay attention to the positive comments; ignore the stuff; universal; rough, crude uneducated; rude means lacking of knowledge; beef originally meant to slaughter, to fight; now means complaint;

Posted 6 months ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

I think its fun to see Marina go through different hair style changes.

Posted 6 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

I proudly present to you the HotForWords YouTube Honors
for May, 2009.
Marina is the #1 Guru for the "Most Viewed" videos for May, 2009
and is #9 in all of the categories for "Most Viewed" videos for May
with 7.5 million videos views. As you can see, there was some tough
competition along the way.

Click for a larger image

Posted 6 months ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

Marina #1 Guru on YouTube
Ommmmmmm Marinahhhhh Padmeeeeeee Hummmmmmmm...

Posted 5 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Google Wave
On May 28, there were several announcements at Google I/O Developer Conference regarding Google Wave.
This site contains the 1 hr 20 min video previewing Wave.
Google IO on Twitter

What is Google Wave?
Google Wave is a product that helps users communicate and collaborate on the web. A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
This site contains the 1 hr 20 min video previewing Wave.

Google Wave blog (not affiliated with Google)
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Google Wave is a new communication service previewed today at Google I/O.
This blog contains the 1 hr 20 min video previewing Wave.

Exclusive: Video Interview With The Google Wave Founders
by Michael Arrington on May 28, 2009
But the product is important - not only does it do fantastic new things in a browser care of HTML 5, but it also proposes a new communication paradigm. The founding team behind wave like to say that this is what email would be if it were invented today.

Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today?
by Tim O'Reilly May 28, 2009
Google plans to announce an HTML 5-based application - still very much in the early stages of development - that represents a profound advance in the state of the art.
Tim O'Reilly has quite a long page about Wave and goes into some details.

Posted 5 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Google Wave is a hot new topic.
It is a hot topic on twitter. The live search just keeps on scrolling.

Google Wave: A Complete Guide
May 28th, 2009 | by Ben Parr
This is an excellent Mashable article on wave that goes
into much more details and some new buzzwords.
Here are some of them.

- Wave: A wave, specifically, refers to a specific threaded conversation. It can include just one person, or it can include a group of users or even robots (explained below). The best comparison I can make is that it’s like your entire instant messaging (IM) history with someone. Anything you’ve ever discussed in a single chat or conversation is a wave.

- Wavelet: A wavelet is also a threaded conversation, but only a subset of a larger conversation (or a wave). It’s like a single IM conversation - a small part of a larger conversation and a larger history. Wavelets, though, can be created and managed separately from a wave.

- Blip (BLIP reviews): Even smaller than a Wavelet, a Blip is a single, individual message. It’s like a single line of an IM conversation. Blips can have other blips attached to them, called children. In addition, blips can either be published or unpublished (once again, it’s sort of like typing out an IM message but not yet sending it).

The Google search term "Google Wave" is on a sharp uptrend.

Posted 5 months ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

@Karl

Any feedback on "You Tube XL" yet - where does one even begin(?)

Posted 5 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

@greatestpotential
YouTube XL(extra large) is a format intended for large screen TVs.
Here are a few links regarding YouTube XL

This is the YouTube link that one would use to watch
YT videos on large screen TV
youtube.com/xl

YouTube XL Released; It’s YouTube Made for the TV

YouTube XL Brings The World’s Most Popular Video Portal To Your TV

Posted 4 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Mashable posted an article about a Twitter Guide for Business.

The Mashable article is here:
Twitter Launches a Twitter 101 Guide for Business

The Twitter Business guide called "A Special Guide" is here:
"A Special Guide" for business by Twitter.com

Mashable has their own guide for using Twitter:
The Twitter Guide Book by Mashable.com

Posted 4 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

YouTube videos public statistics - July 22, 2009
By clicking the Statistics & Data link below each video, YouTube is now displaying statistics in graphs and other formats.

It looks like the data is turned on by default for all videos uploaded prior to July 22 and can be turned off. When uploading a video, the stats can be turned on or off.

Being analytically oriented, of course I like the new information. I looked at a variety of videos and it is interesting to see the demographics for different videos and users.

Posted 3 months ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Continued from above:

7th appearance: July 28, 2009 - Summertime Edition

summertime; bikini; 1946; island of bikini; french designer; Louis Réard; vacation; empty work load; vacare; beach; pebbles worn down by the waves; picnics; french pique-nique; pique to pick; nique rhyming ending.

8th appearance: August 23, 2009 - Back of the Book Segment

New book out, Uncle Sam 1813; 1812 war with Britain; John Bull; initials U.S.
same as Uncle Sam; America; Amerigo Vespuci; crocodile tears; fake emotions;
Roaman and Greeks were writing about crocodiles with tears; break a leg;
hatzlakha u-brakha, "Success and Blessings"; humbles, unwanted part of
meat; humble pie; humble meaning lowly;

Posted 2 months ago #
leonard
Member

To theh*O*t f*O*r w*O*r*d*s :P@pedanticKarl
Member...I think with all your brains
using the [center]the nouns--geeks and nerds, keeps people confused. Why have diversity and professionally "name-call"? So, we learn to be assos by segregation.
I want to be funny, but, then again. thanks for the stingy white way of tech and currencies [/b] W~A~V~E[b]

Posted 1 month ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

What? Mashable's 3rd Annual Open Web Awards
Who? I am nominating HotForWords
When? Now. Nomination period is: October 14th - November 15th, 2009
Voting period: November 18th - December 13th, 2009
Winner Announced: Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Where? mashable.com/owa/
Categories: mashable.com/owa/categories

I am nominating HotForWords for Most Educational to Follow

How you can help:
Click in the Mashable image below. It will take you to the awards site with a pre-selected category of Most Educational to Follow

In the "Nominate" text box, enter: hotforwords Then, click the Submit&Tweet button. Your Twitter account will authenticate the voting.

Remember, the submission is for voting for a nominee. Once a nominee is selected, then the final voting begins according to the timeline above. Voting is allowed once per day. See detailed rules on the Mashable site.

Click image to nominate HotForWords

Posted 1 month ago #
Captain Jack
Member

There is no image to click on. How about posting just the url?

Posted 1 month ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

@Captain Jack
I can see the image. It is a PNG image created by Mashable.
The generic URL is given above where it says; WHERE
The generic URL is: http://mashable.com/owa/

This is the specific URL that preselects the nominating category.

mashable.com/owa/votes?v=hotforwords&c=5

Note:
It looks like Mashable was/is having some problems.
One is allowed to vote for the nomination once a day,
but it wouldn't let me until today.
Their encoded URL is supposed to preselect the candidate as shown,
which is "hotforwords", and that appears not to work. One has to
manually key in "hotforwords"

Posted 1 month ago #

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