Tag Archives: internet

remember these?

  By Sarah | October 25, 2010 - 2:33 pm | Findings, Pics & Toons
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This guy comes around too infrequently. Christoph Niemann is a cartoonist, realist, humorist, etc. He can basically explain slim regions of adult life with cartoons, in a respectable publication nonetheless. Isn’t it wonderful? We really are all children. The more we grow up the younger we become. Basically the more I become the proverbial adult, the more I realize what a child I am. Happy to see that IFC airs Freeks & Geeks and Arrested Development, it’s those little things us children look for. Its the stupid jokes we still laugh at and make. So when it comes time for cartoons in the paper, you can count on me.

About Yourself

  By Riley | April 9, 2010 - 10:47 am | Quotes
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Months ago, Facebook introduced a feature – a box below one’s profile picture for users to “say something” about themselves. For many, this is a place to publish a personal creed, a meaningful quote, or a maxim summarizing the way they live their life.

For others, though, it’s just another way they can try to be funny. For example, Adam Berley took the invitation to “write something here” as a simple command. Below his profile picture reads, “something here.” Jim Walker’s confusion regarding the text box is evident: “what the fuck does this thing do?”

And then there are the more philosophical, the emos, the creative types. These are the types of people who put an ironic nickname in between their first and last name, or (even worse) spell their name foNETickly (phonetically) for Facebook’s sake. A fellow intern of mine from L.A. (who shall remain nameless and “nameless”) had a text box that reflected her concern for all of mankind: “My manifesto was not meant to be written in a 160-character text box.” Harrumph!

What does your text box say – more importantly, what does it say about you?

Mastication and Rasterbation in an Asterisk Nation

  By Riley | March 8, 2010 - 6:16 pm | Pics & Toons
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Chew on this:*
At a get-together this past weekend, I took notice off a wall. Once barren, it is now covered in dozens of sheets of paper.

Portrait of 149

“Where did this come from?” I asked Rob – who lives there, spilling some Beast foam on his Adidas.

“It’s a site called rasturbation.com” I didn’t hear it right. “Like masturbation, but with an ‘R’,” he tells me.

“Ohh.”

You just upload a picture and choose how big you want it. This one is 10×10 – all you’ve got to do is staple or tape all the pages together and voila – you’ve got your portrait. And it’s cheaper than a poster, that is, if you print it on campus. Just try not to get caught rasturbating in the computer lab.

So of course when I get on to my computer I enter rasturbation.com into my browser, assuming this seemingly new-age artform is hosted by some bohemians creating a website based on some wordplay (who does that anyways?) Turns out, the aforementioned site doesn’t exist, and the correct spelling is rasterbation.com, and the tiled artform has been around for years. (Almost makes me think of the museum scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.)

*

. . .

This might become pretty popular. It might even replace tapestries as the most common piece of room decor and also as the most flammable textile to be hung from a wall.

Pro-War! (read on…)

  By Riley | January 29, 2010 - 9:23 am | Rants
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In the days of the Ithacan’t I offered an opinion piece on why marijuana should stay an illegal substance. That is, if it is decriminalized, what will gangs do? Most of their business is dealing drugs, but if marijuana can be bought in stores now, what will the gangs do? That’s right, be more violent.

Now let’s talk about the war. Pull troops out? End the war?

Incredible advancements in technology, medicine, weaponry, etc. have been made due to wars. Remember the Internet? Yeah, that was because of the war.

In short, end the war, end the next greatest invention the world could see.

I jest of course. But damn do I love the internet.

I No Longer Understand Facebook

  By Riley | January 23, 2010 - 11:06 am | Rants
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Facebook, much like cheap beer and it being a hilly walk to get to wherever you’re going, is something I will immediately associate with being in college. I check the site daily and as regularly as I check my e-mail. I’m not an addict, nor do I accomplish much on Facebook. It’s just become a habit, I suppose.

With changes to the format and different/new/more/less applications available, Facebook has changed a lot since I first logged on in the summer of 2006. With each new wave of changes brings feedback, resistance, and retaliation; it’s an e-revolt (r~E~volt?). Perhaps the most popular new features are the option to “Like” something and the ability to comment on a post.

I admit, I “Like” stuff that I see on Facebook. It, at the very least, provides a conversation starter next time I see the person (what’s up Scott Walker?). But the “Like” feature transcends forums, leaving cyberspace and entering everyday conversation. Just as people have begun to literally say the phrase, “LOL” instead of laughing out loud, I’ve noticed people saying “if this were Facebook, I would ‘Like’ that.” Well guess, what, this isn’t Facebook – it’s real life. Leave the lingo on the laptop, and don’t tell me to STFU. It really makes me sick when people can’t sever ties from cyberspase. I love the Internet as much as the next person (unless the next person is Alex Spamponito – that kid loves the Internet), but I don’t let it affect the way I speak in person.

What’s worse is when people “Like” the wrong things: Rest in peace, Uncle Steve! – “Like.” Broke my leg, in crutches for two months – “Like.” Horrible, I know, but I’ve seen these and worse on the site. And I’ve seen aforementioned retaliation in the form of official Facebook Groups: “If this group reaches one million members, Facebook will install a “Dislike” button!” No they won’t, and you know it. Decent way to show your support, though.

And I don’t even know how to respond to wall posts. This is the cornerstone of Facebook activity, unless Status Updates have surpassed wall posts, in which case I’m even further out of the loop than I originally though. In the past, if someone wrote on my wall I’d simply go to their profile and write on theirs. But now, with the comment feature, I don’t know what to do! Some people will respond to the wall post simply by commenting. Is this the protocol? Is responding to a wall post by writing on someone’s wall old-school? Is it unacceptable? I don’t know!

I just don’t get it anymore. Soon, I’ll be graduating. Maybe then, LinkedIn will take over. I’d “Like” like that.

New Years Resolutions

  By Riley | January 12, 2010 - 4:42 pm | Rants
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I’ve finally decided what my resolutions for the remainder of the year will be. Yes, I know it’s almost the second week of 2010, but I’ve been using the last twelve days as a test run, to make sure I can sustain my intention for the next forty-nine and two-seventh’s weeks.

1. To eat inorganic

2. To not waste time

3. To clear the snow off my entire car

1. To eat inorganic. With all this hoo-ha and jibber-jabber about buying local, shopping organic and being aware of where our food comes from, I’m going the opposite direction. It’s not that i don’t care about my well-being or that I want to eat poorer quality food, it’s that I’m a college student. With the exception of some produce (organic onions cost the same as equally-delicious pesticide-sprayed onions), most organic food costs a lot more. Take this chicken I bought at Wegmans…

ba-gahh

The cost: $3.95. Wegmans also sells an organic chicken ($9.85) and an organic free-range chicken raised on an Ithaca Farm. As delicious as that sounds, the hefty price tag ($13.45) made me wonder, “how much better does this chicken taste?”

I do understand the merits of eating organic. I have yet to see Food Inc. (ignorance is bliss…) but I do know that I’m more susceptible to disease, inection, what-have-you. If it’s served to me, or on someone else’s dime, I’ll eat organic, but if it’s gonna dent my wallet, inorganic is the way I’m going.

2. To not waste time. I spend a lot of time on the internet – I won’t deny that. But I don’t think this is a waste. Allow me to break down my time spent on the internet: 50% of my time is spent on the websites you see linked on the right margin of this site. All of these sites are informative, entertaining, and hell, they provide great conversation-started topics. Another 20% of my time is spent checking, responding to or crafting humorous e-mails. Another 20% of my time is spent on Facebook, creeping on people like you, (Aaron, Erica, Alexander…) but half of my Faceboxing time is spent playing Bejewled Blitz – which, after a long day of internetting, is therapeutic. The other 10% is spent on AIM, oftentimes sending links to aforementioned sites.

That being said, the only time wasted is the non-therapeutic time spent on Facebook (a mere 10%)

d'oh!

I also spend a lot of time sleeping, too , but my doctor said it helps me grow.

3. To clear the snow of my entire car. As I was driving back from Wegmans to buy my reasonably-priced aforementioned chicken, I saw a white car with a clean windshield and rear window, but a cube of snow on the roof… Idiotic, really. What’s worse is when it flies off the car once you go more than twenty-five miles an hour – especially if it’s frozen over and it flies off in huge sheets.

eedeeott

Really, it’s not hard to run the snow-brush over the top of the car and the hood. Granted, this resolution is seasonal, but ’til spring I guarantee the Volvo will be clean on the roads.

Happy New Years to you, I know mine will be.

stuff to end the year…again.

  By Sarah | December 28, 2009 - 6:07 pm | Findings
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Alright. OK. It is the end of the year and there is endless press about the ending decade that keeps fueling my fire. How can I not? When I come across something new, I like to add it here. Now, I have a bit more for you.

GOOD magazine: start reading it (if you haven’t already!) Here is a link to their homepage. The topics that they have put together are a listography including: the environment, design, culture (already posted) and of course politics. You may think that they sound boring, but even ‘design’ surprised me in how interesting and important design changes have been in the last decade.

Fellow IC students and, well let’s be honest, superior bloggers from notdrugs have also been sharing their end of the year lists and some Christmas fun. Check it out.

The New York Times will always be it. At least to me, it is the end all be all of a news source. And if you creep around enough on their website you can find some pretty interesting stuff. The online version of the Times is the best example of how (and why) modern papers are better off online: free, easy to use, an endless plethora of information, and did i mention free?  My personal favorite are their interactive features. This summer at the 40th anniversary of Woodstock we couldn’t get enough of them. This hails from the op-ed area, my other NYTimes favorite. Every once and a while they feature art, graphs, charts and visuals in the ‘op-ed’ (opposite opinion) that can simplify information. ‘Picturing the Past 10 Years’ is a chart with doodles and images on a yearly time line. With such a small space there is a lot going on.

click the pic to enter the caption contest for this cartoon...

click the pic to enter the caption contest for this cartoon

And of course there is the New Yorker. An old favorite, I’ve realized that this magazine is like play time for grown ups. It has some of the best movie review writing (the latest) and well, some of the best writing overall. And what other publication can you think of with a national cartoon caption contest for adults (you all know that I love me some adult imagination and cartoons, or as some readers prefer mature instead of adult?) Here we have a ‘What Do You Call It?’ about naming our decade. And ‘2009 The Quiz‘. Also a great contribution from readers, its readers’ photos from the decade.

mmmmmmm vegetables

mmmmm vegetables

These are just some of the things I personally enjoy, like the above And now I’ve realized that I don’t need an excuse to post about food, health and nutrition. So here’s something new: the C.E.O. of Whole Foods John Mackey has something to say. Check it out.

Hope that everyone had a Happy Christmas, etc. Also- Happy New Year!