As I struggle with trying to update a video embedding plugin on a blog it doesn’t hurt to keep in mind what it used to be like, not so long ago. Although I wasn’t into the technical details back then, I remember using a Mac Classic and text-catting with a friend on the other side of the desk. And the TI-99/4A with its awesome application cartridges, the Commodore and Vic 20 churning away to save files on tape that I had typed in from a magazine (peek, poke) so I could play a game. Or the first time I used QEMM and Desqview and could switch between multiple applications– Sidekick and Lotus Symphony, I think… with 16 colors! And all the hours I spent on a VAX terminal, writing papers in LaTeX with TPU and processing them for the one laser printer on campus, a hugely expensive monstrosity guarded carefully by the “nodies” who ran the “computer node” aka lab.
The whole conceptual shift from using applications to “being online” has been so fundamental and overpowering– coloring everything we do– that it’s hard to remember that crazy computing land before time, all of 15 years ago.
At the other end of the scale is Cracked.com’s collection of the Eight Strangest Web Communities. Ice chewers, Christian Fans of Insane Clown Posse, Boytaurs and a few more… all of which I refuse to link to directly :).
I don’t hang out at Starbucks much outside of the weekly (or so) stop at the Starbucks-lite in the local Barnes & Noble to read all the magazines for free, but two recent Slate articles on Starbucks Hacking and poor Stanley Fish’s misread (one hopes) and extremely late and lame attempt at some coffee ranting lead to some other links about Starbucks that ate up way too much of my time this evening.
The Starbucks Oracle will provide a custom insult for whatever concoction is your favorite (my Venti Americano with room makes me an asshat. I agree.) to spring on the baristas.
The Starbucks Gossip blog– maintained by Jim Romenesko!– is fascinating… if you want to know what celebrities order (and whether they tip or not), read about egregious abuses of the “Just Say Yes” policy (which I didn’t know existed and which this thread will help the unscrupulous abuse), or read a nearly insane (and insanely funny) rant by a barista who is not your friend– and needs a new job– this is the place. There’s a whole Starbucks vocabulary I never knew existed.
I know it’s an easy target, but this video depicting a completely different kind of potential intersection between Second Life and Real Life made me chuckle:
