Blog Torrent and Participatory Culture

I ramble on a lot about the coming cultural/multimedia revolution, mostly to blank faces.. well theres an article at GrepLaw called Blog Torrent and Participatory Culture that has some really cool ideas on how the people are going to change things and the corporations can die. It's an interview with Nicholas Reville from Downhill Battle. Here's an excerpt:

"Connecting BitTorrent to your TV would take all of this to the next level. Right now, for example, it wouldn't be hard to put together a set-top box like a TiVo that pulled content using BitTorrent from RSS feeds onto a hard drive to be watched whenever. You could do it for cheap too: a $90 used X-Box on eBay can run linux, and it's got all the hardware you need (okay, the hard drive is a little small, but it would be plenty for a couple days worth of compressed content). And the software's already been written, it's called Torrentocracy, check it out. The trick is packaging it all up so that you don't have to be a linux hacker to make it happen.

It doesn't sound so spectacular at first, but think of how amazing it would be if something like this took off. People love to watch TV, but right now the pipe into peoples' televisions is a closed channel, controlled by a handful of bureaucratic corporations operating in an incentive structure that doesn't encourage quality. Once people start getting their TV through the internet, that channel's open, and everything that's true of websites and blogs will suddenly apply to television. Sure, people would keep watching TV shows and Hollywood movies, just as bloggers still read the Washington Post and the New York Times. But there would also be a huge opportunity for new things to sneak into the mainstream-- anything you make could suddenly end up on someone's TV. That's going to get a lot more people into the game, which means more creativity and eventually much better creative works. And if I'm watching TV in the morning while I'm eating my cereal, I would definitely check out a channel of weird internet videos and crazy flash stuff-- I mean, there's no commercials and it'd be a lot more entertaining than most things on TV."

Check it out.

Sometimes SlashDot Is Just Too Funny..

HOT DOG AND BACON ROLLUPS (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by RecipeTroll (572375) Alter Relationship on Wednesday August 25, @07:18AM (#10062129)
(http://www.bettycrocker.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday April 10, @11:52PM)
HOT DOG AND BACON ROLLUPS

* 2 pkg. hot dogs, cut in half
* brown sugar
* 1 lb. bacon, cut into in the middle

Take a piece of hot dog and piece of bacon, wrap bacon around hot dog. Stick a toothpick through bacon to hold. Place one layer in bottom of Crock Pot and cover with brown sugar. Repeat until all the hot dogs have been used. Cook 3 to 4 hours.
[ Reply to This ]

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That sound you hear... (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 25, @07:28AM (#10062237)

...is the sound of my arteries clanging shut just by reading this "recipe"

I'll give it a go tomorrow night with sauerkraut.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

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Re:That sound you hear... (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 25, @07:42AM (#10062337)

the sound i just heard sounded more like a goose, and the splash i just felt was the cold brown water hitting the backside of my nutsack
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

'N' Ninja Game

"N" is a cool little game by Metanet Software. You control a ninja and have to get him to the end of each level. The animation is quite clever. The download is about one meg.

Life Update

Things have been pretty full on lately. Between my uni project, the offices, the pub and Megamart I don't really have much time to spare.

It has been fun working on my uni project so far. We are building a reporting system for an undisclosed school. It is being crafted using MySQL, PHP, Javascript, CSS and good old HTML. We've got to the end of the semester to finish it ut we are well on the way already.

My other units aren't quite so interesting, although they should be I suppose. Portable Data Systems is about programming Java applications for mobile phones and PDAs. I have to write some stupid essay for it soon. Something about 'user-agents'. Although I'm not really sure what they are yet. I think it could mean mobile devices.

The last unit is distributed systems which deals with Remote Procedure Calls and Remote Method Invocation, which are basically ways to create server/client programs that can talk to each other. So far this unit has been a bit wishy washy, I don't feel like it has been thought out very well. Like, I did the first four weeks worth of tutorials in the first week. Duh.

The Exchange Server has been giving me the absolute shits. The damn thing is getting crushed by spam and I can't seem to stem the tide, although putting a new hard disk in should help it a bit. At least until we move the whole system across to linux.

Bishop and myself went out to a party on Saturday night at The Kitchen (next to the Hippy Club). It was the latest of Delirium's small techno nights called Trancemit. We basically went because Pauls (from Megamart) friend Marcel was playing, and we couldn't find anything else to do. Drank some bourbons, had a dance, Drank some beers, had a chat to a nice young lady called Mia, bailed around four and went to Ben's for a while and met Emma. Talked shit. Went home around 6am. It was a solid night out on the piss.

On Friday night we went to the Floreat again. I fucking hate that place and am not going back there (at least for a while). I mean, I get all amped up to go there, its good for the first few pints, then they start playing shithouse commercial rap, i get angry, I leave dissapointed. Not worth the effort. Especially when we could have gone to a party with Sara..

In other news Gribbo got an Ipod, the lucky fuck, Boltz could be back within a month, Adi got a bargain on a Patrol and a boat, and Bayman got his hair done again. Metro Meugi.

Jib Jab & Dragracer

Jib Jab is a flash movie that has apparently been featured on the news recently. It's a parody of the coming US election between Bush and Kerry, and is pretty funny. Kinda infective tune with it as well. "This land is your land, This land is my land" and so on. TY to Adi for pointing it out to me.

Drag Racer is a flash game based on either the old PC game HotRod or Gran Turismo. Buy a car, kit it out and drag for money and more cars. It's a nice piece of work.