Pixel Pushing Blogger

random ramblings of a designer in the valley

Web 2.0 kids make me worry about the future.

In my younger days, I used to mock my father about how far he is behind the time, the fact that he can’t touch-type (he’s a classic two-finger, and on occassions where he’s striving for productivity, three-finger, typist) or really grasp any idea of what this whole internet deal really is. Occassionally, he still asked me whether sending me email across the ocean, from Taiwan, would cost me any extra fees (naturally, he’s more worried about me having to pay for receiving the email, than the fact that he might have to pay to send email… I love my dad).

It’s an old, used, beat-up cliché, but I never thought I would one day consider myself closer to my dad’s category rather than being one of the hip kids that’s ingrained with all of the happenings in the tech world. The fact remains that I’m moving towards being one of the old geezer of the internet. Even though I’m still a notch below thirty, I have been in this tech bubble for nearly a decade.

This realization was made even more clear to me, as I was having a conversation with one of my friend’s friend’s friend, no doubt a connection that’s just enough zip codes apart that I’m likely to run into him at a coffee shop one day, but pretend not to recognize. He was one of the “kids” working at a brand new Web 2.0 start-up, with great aspirations and ideas on creating new software (read: Probably some Facebook/MySpace…

:: Expand article >> ::

IM conversation of the day

In regards to my low energy & lack of sleep:

(10:31:49 AM) nano: you need more sleep
(10:31:51 AM) nano: lunesta maybe
(10:34:39 AM) Steve: or maybe just watch the commercial for it like, 1,000 times
(10:34:40 AM) Steve: that’ll put me to bed
(10:36:10 AM) nano: its so peaceful
(10:37:14 AM) Steve: so very peaceful
(10:37:17 AM) Steve: or viagra commercials
(10:37:42 AM) Steve: ironically, for a commercial about a product that cures erectile dysfunction
(10:37:46 AM) Steve: it’s also very good at inducing it
(10:37:57 AM) Steve: watching a middle age guy tossing a football through tires repeatedly…
(10:38:02 AM) Steve: is just… too.. depressing
(10:40:08 AM) nano: hahha
(10:40:12 AM) nano: so true.

Christian TV hosts comes out of the closet

Via the Huffington Post:

Azariah Southworth announces he is gay

I haven’t watched any Christian-based TV programming in years. To be quite honest, even at the highest point of my most fervent belief, I never watched that much religious based programming. So I really have no idea who this person is.

Apparently, he is a very popular Christian TV host.

Apparently, he is also gay.

I can’t fathom the amount of personal agony to be a popular figure for a religion that despises your existence. Can’t even get close to imagining the amount of courage to stand up for who you are, knowing how much ridicule, especially given our current political and religious climate, that you are about to receive.

Kudos Azariah, even though I’ve never watched any of your show.

Jenny Block, open marriage and me

Oh, the magic & wonder that is the blogosphere-rama. The last post on my evolving view on love & relationship, seemed to have caught a few unusual eyes. One of which is Jenny Block, an author who lives in an open-marriage lifestyle and is writing a new book.

I found her article on the beginning of her open marriage fascinating:

Portrait of an Open Marriage

You can also find her blog here at My Open Book, she has posted the first chapter of her upcoming book on the website. I’ll find sometime to read it in the next few days, maybe.

Although, there are some things I should clear up. Usually any information, discussion on open marriage and/or open relationships comes from the perspective of a participant. I think the media portrayal of these people is more or less connected to what people think of college frat parties. A bunch of horny, young folks under heavy influence of various chemicals, doing, well… you know the rest.

The reality of me:

  • I am not an extremely handsome guy, average at best. Which also means I’m not picking up women at different bars daily and engaging in all sorts of fun activities.
  • I am introverted, shy to strangers, and generally don’t enjoy being in huge crowds.
  • I am extremely picky in my relationships with others (not just in a love sorta way, I’m even picky about everyday friendship). I have “years” of gaps between intimate relationships.
  • As a result of the shyness mentioned above, no, I haven’t

:: Expand article >> ::

Love

Contrary to population belief, I’ve always felt that the internet didn’t spark a revolution as much as an evolution of existing ideas. Most certaily, “web 1.0″ was about bringing traditional commerce to a new avenue; but in its nature, the idea behind most of these businesses didn’t differ much from their traditional counterpart. In fact, most web 1.0 companies had close ties to mail catalogue & phone order business, just with a different interface & avenue that took less resource to manage, and gave you more information than what could be expressed in more traditional mediums. Even the advent of search engine giants at the time (oh Yahoo, how far have you fallen?) was a direct cousin of our traditional 20,000 page yellow pages that the phone company so happily left on our front porch (and I bet, the cause of many back-injury related work-comp claims for postal workers).

Even though “web 2.0″ could be considered some sort of a revolution, depending on one’s definition, the reality is that web 2.0 perpetuated the communication protocol that was already available. All we did was broaden the base of communication medium. For example, anyone can start their own blog (*cough*.. including yours truly) and attempt to spread their own form of propaganda through the internet. We took what traditionally required years of struggling & attempting to get oneself published in credited medium, and spread that power to anyone with a minimal amount of technical knowledge. It did liberate authors from the traditional pathways…

:: Expand article >> ::