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002.

One week on from my first post and so far I'm back. I'll make this into a habit yet! Blogging like a boss.

This week (for those of you who follow me on Twitter) you'll see I've been having a few issues with a guy who has started stalking me. It does make me very conscious of my privacy settings. I had believed that friends of friends would be harmless. Evidently not. Now he knows my really rather unique surname - of which there are two entries in the phonebook and if he wanted he could stake out my house. I very much hope it doesn't come to that. It has convinced me to become a lesbian... or just be in a relationship with my very good gay friend (currently the case as says Facebook the knower of all knowledge ever).

Still, other areas of my life will hopefully be looking up. More on that story later.

Now, on with the show!

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Review 2.

Facebook

Facebook. The mecca of Social Networking. It tries to cover as many bases as possible with chat, private messaging easy sharing of photos, even easier sharing of private information and this ability to show people what your interests and "likes" are. "Poke"ing has become the new way to flirt and if people allow it, it can become the main form of communication between people who DO know each other. Most social networking allows you to interact with complete strangers. You can take your chances on Facebook, more often than not, people don't and stick to friends only settings.

1. Ease of use
Facebook is relatively easy to use, providing you have a basic understanding of how to use a computer. Unfortunately for those who are not so up with technology, it can be difficult to work out how to post, message and chat. This isn't helped by Facebook's (Zuckerberg's?) ability to change everything just after you get used to it and make it either different, or just make it crap (exhibit A. sidebar chat). As an iPhone user, I find the app annoyingly limited in terms of privacy settings, regular crashing and slow loading.

Of course, this does result in brilliant hilarity - as regularly shared on Failbook. People say the dumbest things on Facebook. And I thoroughly enjoy watching people make knobs of themselves (schadenfreude). Call it a past time. I'm not saying I'm perfect. And I expect to have the piss taken out of me if I dork up. But it is fun when people say things they shouldn't on public/semi-public forums.

3/5

2. Quality of site
Facebook has slowly but surely dropped its standards like the Reserve Bank is dropping its interest rates. Ads have become more and more intrusive, as well as more and more stupid. If you put up your relationship status - you'll be targeted. Find singles in your area. I'm right thanks Facebook. Seeing as most of your advertisers are not based in Tasmania - and even if they were, Facebook is just about the most unreliable source of information that exists. I'd honestly trust The Onion first.

The site is also littered with spam bots. This is highly irritating when you do have someone who clicks on anything. And due to this, a large number of people are removed from my newsfeed due to repeated spam attacks and an obvious inability to learn from mistakes. Just clicking on it - even on your iPhone is enough to spoil everyone else's day. If it looks like exactly the kind of thing your friend wouldn’t be interested in, DON'T CLICK ON IT. Don't even put your finger or mouse near it for fear of clicking it by mistake. In fact, YOUR FACE. Ok that isn't a valid argument. But Facebook spreads viruses and spambots faster than anything else I've seen. Although just occasionally something like this little corker crops up to make your day. Not that you have to have a Facebook to enjoy. For these reasons, it gets:

1.5/5

3. Entertainment Value
If I'm honest the longer I spend on Facebook the less I like/respect it. Toyota is to Facebook what Volkswagon is to Google+. By this I mean Facebook is far more common to see on the streets and yes, as a social netwroking tool it is arguably the most commonly used. But Google+ is better made, if far less prevalent. I do hope this will change, as I prefer G+ - more on that story later. Facebook can be good for its ability to organise social gatherings (which it then encourages you to "check-in" at. I'm not a fan of checking in but allow others to do it for me). If you're anything like me though, you often don't look at your invites and miss things.
Overall, Facebook isn't that good at being entertaining.

2.5/5

4. Contribution to Society
There are positive and negative contributions to society as far as I can see.
Positive:
- ability to track down people
- greater social interaction
- easy way to organise events
- ability to share causes
- IF used right it's a great example of a new media format. Both in terms of how it could be used for advertising and news communication. Currently, I'd say it isn't used to anywhere near its full potential.

Negative:
- "tracking down people" also known as stalking
- social interaction is indirect
- allegedly used recently to insight rioting in the UK (not sure if this really counts because it's the tools using the tool that are the problem here). The gentlemen who used it each got about 4 year jail sentences. But no one actually responded via Facebook. It was also apparently used as a communication tool to tell other rioters to let people know where shiz was going down. But hey, mobile phones are just as at fault under this argument.
- Who can forget Corey Worthington? Who invited EVERYONE EVER to his party? Is this his fault? Or Facebook's for having dumb settings? Bit of both I suspect.

What Facebook really has really done is pave the way in social networking. You didn't need to be able to program in basic html to write. You could talk to your friends or just make a vacuous statement. Your choice. It is evolving, but my feeling is that it's not evolving fast enough anymore to keep ahead of Social Networking 2.0 sites such as Google+ and Diaspora. My expectation is that the lie of the Internet land will be decidedly different in 5 years.

3.5/5

Facebook gets a total of 10.5/20. This is still a pass mark.

Things that I could do with my life but probably won't #47 create a killer robot to DESTROY THE WORLD!

Thanks guys. Hope you enjoyed. Next week I'm looking at Google+

Ciao ciao

~na

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Starlog entry 001.

(please note, this is mu old blog and there are plenty of old blog on here - my apologies to anyone new to my blog for anything old I've said in the old days)

It seems after some years of hiatus I'm returning to the old ways of blogging.

Deciding what to blog about has always been my downfall. What makes me think I have something worthwhile enough to say, that others may want to read it? Nothing. But isn't that exactly the point? We all sit here trying to be the philosophers of our time in this age when nothing is original. At the same time, nothing is better for creativity than pulling down the walls that stand between the individual and publication. Sadly this does result in a number of people who can charitably be described as beige nongs or uncharitably be described as a group of total spazzes who shouldn't be allowed to interact with Internet, or society... or oxygen (I do accept that one person's idiot is another's martyr Oprah... martyr... whatever and I welcome the Internet's ability to bring greatly dispersed, likeminded people together).

Yet if none of us blogged then those few magical people who are original and brilliant (consider them unicorns) wouldn't have the courage to come forward and make my day.

This being the case, as a first project, I plan to review social networking sites for their ability to allow people express original thought. Along with actually connect as an Internet community. And I welcome all opinions.

Ratings will be taken on:
1. Ease of use
2. Quality of site
3. Entertainment Value
4. Contribution to Society

All will be rated out of 5 for a total rating out of 20.

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Review 1.

Twitter

Twitter is a simple concept which brilliantly restricts each post to 140 characters. Seeing as the Library of Congress is archiving all public tweets for posterity (although whose posterity, I'm uncertain), it would be very grateful that the millions of tweets are length limited.

1. Ease of use
The concept of tweeting is quite easy and has been adopted by plebs, celebs, media outlets and emergency services without hesitation. It's not hard to be proficient and once hashtags are understood, it's not hard to jump on a bandwagon. The ability to make your tweets followers only is useful but it's more fun if someone round the other side of the world to reply to or retweet your thoughts. 4/5

2. Quality of site
The site itself can be a little difficult to personalise, but as far as tweeting goes, it definitely is simple. In fact, the iPhone app is in some ways easier than the website. And makes it easy to follow trends (although if something trends very quickly the iPhone app can't keep up - see #qanda as a prime and repeatable example). I very much appreciate that there are no adds, but the ease with which bots are able to make accounts, search keywords and target people is annoying. 3.5/5

<1>3. Entertainment Value</i>
Twitter is the ultimate home of one liners. A recent example is the prolific number of posthumous Amy Winehouse jokes (sad though her passing is). Twitter lends itself excellently to celebrities connecting with fans. Some celebs are in fact quite chatty. Bordering on spam. But if this person is one of your favourites, the more they talk the better (and you can always choose not to follow someone - unlike Facebook it's not as rude to unfollow as it is to unfriend). Twitter offers that tiny little glimmer of hope that you will get a tweet noticed by the celebrity object of your affection (even though they may receive thousands of tweets an hour). If and when you do get a response or, even more exciting, retweet, the chance of joygasm is quite high - mind the fake accounts though. I do admit, some of my favourite famous moments have only been possible due to Twitter. 4/5

4. Contribution to Society
It would be quite easy to write Twitter off for the amount of inanity which is excreted in the ether. If you really feel the need, following the #tag #SaturdayNightConfessions will keep you either entertained or dispairing at why people think anyone would want to know that @Inzlou is pretty sure she died tonight or that @TeamZmerrick doesn't go a day without listening to All Time Low. Not that i can talk. At over 1400 Tweets I've said very little of substance. Yet I still thow it out there. Just in case.

Before you write it off though, I remind you of its ability to be a communication service for emergency services. Tweets were vital for Queensland Police and the Queensland State Government to communicate relevant, and more importantly correct, information about the floods at the start of the year. And let's not forget, during the bombing in Oslo and shooting in Utøya, some of the most reliable information was from Norweigians Tweeters good enough to Tweet this shocking event in English.For this reason it gets 5/5

If you have the time, Twitter has some brilliant gems and usually you will find them through recommendations. And truly is a good social networking site for basic communication. Its ability to link to other sites is also a brilliant plus.

Twitter gets at total of 16.5/20

Thanks for tuning in to my first proper blog. Stay tuend guys.

Things I could do with my life but probably won't #173: Climb Mount Everest

Free thought.

~Na

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My mum just asked me what do I want for my birthday?

And I really have no idea. It's really snuck up on me this year. And I'm quite busy organising Jen's hen's night. So I haven't really given myself a second thought.

I don't need clothes (I've just cleaned out a whole swathe of clothes I no longer use). I don't want her to be buying any personal entertainment for me because she doesn't support it (ie wii, ds, dvds etc)

I don't buy music in shops, hardly ever books...

I want a lot but hardly ever need anything. Maybe I could get her to put some money towards my car (tyres, auto-electrics, insurance, rego all coming up). But that's so practical...

Maybe money for my next holiday?

*explodes* I just don't know.

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Lush has opened up in Hobart! :D

In other news I'm planning a hen's night.

I'd really appreciate game ideas for the night. It'll be out and about and we'll only be able to organise to bring so many things with us. So preferably things that require as little stuff as possible.

*yawn* I'm getting through my Christmas shopping relatively well at the moment too. So it's all coming together!

:D

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...

Tripod are weirding me the fuck out.

Their new Christmas album is just wrong. Seriously scary shit.

I think they've actually lost it. :(

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I went yacht racing yesterday.

Anyone who was alive and in the Hobart area will be aware that the conditions were pretty rough.

Wind speed picked up to about 25 knots. We had a brand new Main on to try out and, after a gust that was about 40 knots, we busted four or five of the shackles that hold it to the mast. Had to take it down and finish under Jib alone (we were still pulling 5 and a half knots in speed).

Both my shins are massively bruised. And I think we're all stiff and sore all over.

But it ended up being worth it. We thought we'd come third... (there were only three boats that raced our division due to the weather) we were well and truly last across the line for our division...

We won on handicap which is FANTASTIC! :D Pennant wise - which is what we're racing for.

....

The thing that REALLY pissed me off about yesterday? After we'd worked SO hard... and it was SO rough.. I read the paper today - there's a picture and story about the yachts out in the wild weather. They talk about all the placings and all the divisions... EXCEPT OURS YOU MERCURY BASTARDS! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY????!?!?!?!?!


little cuntmonkeys

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Avevnue Q will open in Melbourne in June of next year. I'm getting tickets monday hopefully for opening night. any EoIs?

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27454802/

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO




T_________________________T


got that?!

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well... I was gonna update. Thing is, I don't really know what to update. Work is still work (I'm vaguely looking for a new job, but I'll stay there until I find something I really want to do..

life is good. I probably should go to the dentist... but they're just gonna tell me I need bracers or to put up and shut up.

*yawns* I need to clean out my wardrobe on the weekend.

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la... new album out on the 18th.

love.

I'm back from my holiday by the way. Hello. ^_______^

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Ninja kitteh is stealthy and cannot be seen moving!

coolest lolcat evar.

I'm off to townsville in a bit bai *waves*

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ever found something you desperately wanted but just think that $150 is a bit much to pay?

*big sigh*

I've found the first three box sets of Animaniacs on dvd, from the US but in regions 1 & 4 so will work here no probs.

I desperately want.

any opinions on me buy?

I want the Avatar box sets as well but they're not in region 4.

*dies*

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I find it amazing how different songs can resonate with the heart. And that they change. I'm relatively eclectic and yet I will go through fazes of loving some songs, hating others, and even avoiding genres that I previously loved. And vice versa.

Anyway... doesn't matter. I like it when a song can completely seem to over take your senses. Specifically all it's doing is blocking out other songs and yet... even though I'll be sitting here writing, it feels somehow inspired by the music.

Ash might be able to answer this... but do you think there's a word link between muse and music? As in one coming from the other? Or do they have different histories all together?

ramble ramble ramble.