HEY YOU, PERSON.
The Media Show, the snarky puppet-based media-literacy show of which I'm part, has launched a campaign on that Kickerstarter thing all the hip kids are using to launch and support cool stuff. Please have a look, spread the word, and help us with your help!
For more info on our show and what we're all about, you could check out my page about it as well as the show's own site.
There's an unfortunate post going around by someone known as @thomasmonopoly on Twitter. It is an open letter to Google regarding their apparently unexpected and arbitrary decision to shut down his Google Account, and the disruptive effect that has had on various important aspects of his life. Read his open letter here.
I feel there is really no excuse for things like this to happen; however, I'm not at this point partiularly aiming that criticism at Google. Sure, I'm not particularly a fan of Google and this does seem to be a really crappy move on their part, but it's just a symptom of a problem larger than Google. What I find most unacceptable is the general trend of @thomasmonopoly and countless others like him getting into the position in which something like this can be allowed to happen.
I've been warning people since the old pre-bubble days of Hotmail, Yahoo, and Geocities of the dangers of depending on freebie third-party services for actually important material. Sure, I play with stuff like social networks and other online freebies, but ultimately they are not being used for majorly important aspects of my life. If all those freebies got shut down out of nowhere one day, I'd still have hold of all my actually important data, contacts, and content. I could still seek and perform work, handle my banking and other responsibilities, and I'd still be within easy reach of anyone who needed to get in touch without so much as a hiccup. I'd even still be blogging, for whatever that may be worth.
You do not become a Google customer by using their search engine or social network or document sharing site; that's how you become a Google user. You become a Google customer by paying them to show your ads to their users, or to otherwise share the massive streams and harvests of data constantly given to them by their users with you. Other free services work in very much the same way. So far as commercial services go, someone called blue_beetle on MetaFilter put it best: "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold."
These days, starter Web and email hosting costs less than you'd pay to put a bottle of juice in your fridge every week. For less than you might spend on one big lunch, you can register your own domain name for an entire year. Add the countless legal, ethical, and practical bonuses to retaining full control of your content with all the rights of a paying customer, and handing all the major keys to your life over to some megacorp with no real obligations to you starts to look like less of a wise decision.
On the other hand, the fact does remain that not everyone who needs an Internet presence has the ability to pay for one. I'm not saying that those individuals have any less right to a safe, secure Internet presence, I think there should definitely be ways to provide free, clear, and full access to every member of society. I do not, however, think it's okay to accept the current state of ad-encrusted, data-farming, user-exploiting freebies as the closest we can get to that ideal. As the case of @thomasmonopoly shows, users of freebies - even from one of the most generally "respected" freebie providers - are still far too prone to being left shut out and powerless with no real notice or recourse.
There is lots of talk on this modern Internet of ours about how online access has mutated into a resource which is unquestionably necessary for full participation in modern society. Some places have already started referring to it as a human right; something that should be available to all of society right along with clean water and public roads. That is definitely the road we should be going down, but we should not mistake the presence of freebies like Google (who ultimately have responsibility only to their shareholders and paying clients) as a satisfactory manifestation of that trend. It's not safe, and we can do better.
I'm pretty damned proud to be a New Yorker right now.
As you may have heard, the Marriage Equality Act has successfully passed through the New York State legislature, and been signed by Governor Cuomo. The bill becomes law 30 days after the signing, and since the Governor signed it into law just before midnight last night same-sex marriages will be legal starting July 24. I'll bet all the best venues are already booked solid for the first round of extra-fabulous Sunday weddings.
I'd like to offer my most sincere congratulations to all my LGBT friends and family, as well as everyone else who are newly free to marry the partner of their choice in my home state. I'd also like to congratulate my Kinsey 1 self on having a slightly higher concentration of potential decisions to make in the mysterious future.
Some of you may know about Aisle Six, the darkly comic and insane piece of musical theatre I've been fortunate enough to find myself part of. A very early draft of the show was performed in front of a small audience a while back. A lot of work has been done on the show since then, and we're all quite proud of it. I think we have something really special on our hands. That's where you come in; if you're in the NYC area, we need you to come see it!
Our next public reading of the show will take place on the evening of Monday, April 11th, at 7:30 PM. We are hosted once again by the historic and distinguished Players Club, and we will be presenting a complete reading with singing and puppetry and gratuitous violence and sweary language and everything. One very important ingredient, however, is beyond our direct control: we need your butt in a seat.
The show is free of charge, but you'll need to arrive on time as space will be limited. The Players Club is located at 16 Gramercy Park South. The club has house rules you'll need to follow; for instance, business casual dress is required (no "athletic" attire,) coats and baggage must be checked at the front desk (no charge,) and so on. For more info on the club, have a look at its Wikipedia entry.
For more info on Aisle Six, see the author's page and my own page about it. Questions or comments? Post them in the comments box below or get in touch. Please spread the word, and if you're around I really hope to see you there!
Hey everyone, remember back when I knew how to keep a proper blog?
The main culprit for my drifting away has got to be Twitter; the busier I get, the easier it is to just fling random thoughts into that tiny box rather than further develop and expand upon them. That must have something to do with why Twitter has blown up so massively; there's some seriously fast-paced 21st-century-level stuff going on in which people have found they are able to adequately express themselves in between gulps of a latte, while walking from one room to another, during major surgery (giving or receiving,) or whatever. Tweeting is always as accessible as your phone, so easy, so convenient, so instant-gratification, and so damned now.
I mercilessly teased my Twitter-using friends at the start. I'm even on record doing so, there are archived Off the Hook episodes in which Twitter was mentioned and I passed one snarky comment or another about how my randomness could never fit in those silly tiny tweet boxes the kids seem to like nowadays. I eventually tried it out, dubiously at first, and very quickly found myself hooked for the above reasons and others. I soon grew into, while not the most frequent and passionate Twitterer in the world, more of one than quite a few of the folks I was chiding back then.
In all honesty, though, it's all made me a little bit sad. I miss my blog! So much has happened I'd love to have properly journaled, but I ended up just tweeting and setting adrift. I feel like it's time to get back into my home in the blogosphere proper, and once again begin regularly expressing myself in longer cohesive units right here on my comfy old website. Fear not, my dear fellow netizens, for Twitter hasn't claimed me entirely after all! There is still some fight in this stubborn old blogger yet! I say to you now, you can expect more proper blog posts from me!
...yes, I'll post their links to Twitter.
I've started an art blog, consisting entirely of the random creative stuff I've created or collaborated on across various media. My goal is to make at least one post to it per day, both to get some of my older stuff back out there and to encourage myself to get cracking on some new stuff.
You can find this new hotness at robtfirefly.tumblr.com, and here's the RSS.
I am participating in a traditional ritual observance, in preparation for which I have forced spiced stale bread cuboids into the excavated abdominopelvic body cavity of a deceased avian creature. I am now charring the corpse in an enclosed flame chamber while periodically dousing it in its own heated and released bodily fluids, with the ultimate goal of consuming mass quantities of its flesh with my nuclear family unit.
Thanksgiving dinner! I will enjoy it.
My first official act this morning as a wise old man of age 33 was to rewatch the film Coneheads. AS YOU CAN SEE I AM HANDLING SRS BSNS TODAY.
My birthday is neat, but I'll be even more excited in four months when I can celebrate being 33 1/3.
Incidentally '33 is the release year of Duck Soup, one of my two favorite Marx Brothers films. If you'd really like to give me something for my birthday, go watch that film and let me know what you thought of it. (My other favorite Marx film is A Night at the Opera, but since that came out in '35 I won't harass you to watch it for another two years.)
The Fifth of November, 1955
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The scientist hanging a clock,
Who knew on that date,
That fortune and fate,
Would reveal so much more to the Doc.
Doc Brown, Doc Brown, he did invent
Such objects of folly, with good intent,
He tumbled and fell in his lavatory
But soon after took to his lab'ratory
For though he'd been woefully injur'ed
A vision unfurled in his bruis'ed head
Great Scott! Great Scott! From this disaster
Great Scott! Great Scott! The Flux Capac'tor!
And what did he do with it? Build it!
That thing I always do on tomorrow's date is tomorrow! I'm looking way forward to it; this is October's last chance to stop sucking.
Sp, who wants to throw on a costume - any costume - and march in the world's largest Halloween Parade with me tomorrow? I'll be marching with the NYC2600 crowd; more details here. The more the merrier, so if you're into it get in touch or just show up unannounced and join up with us out in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania (7th Avenue across from Penn Station) from 3-4PM! We'll be the geeks in funny outfits, you be one too.
I usually unveil my costume earlier than this, but not this time as I'm still rushing to complete it. Heading out to collect the last bits and pieces now.
