Wednesday 10 September 2008

By The Time Your Read This We Could All Be Dead

Apparently. Well, if you believe some of the stuff being spouted about CERN's new particle accelerator called the "Large Hadron Collider".

CERN are about to spin particles around a 27km long tunnel in opposite directions at massive speeds. The point of which is merely to see what happens when the particles collide. Read the press and you quickly realise that CERN don't actually have much of an idea about what may or may not happen.

Some people are warning that it may create black holes that could swallow the earth. At the other end of the spectrum people are saying that nothing will happen at all. The safe view lays somewhere in the middle, that they may get glimpses into how the big bang took place without it causing the schools to shut.

There will be a couple of people who will be popping open the champagne corks right now I would imagine. Dan Brown, author of 'Angels and Demons' and Ron Howard, Director of the upcoming film of the same name and sequel to 'The DaVinci Code'. Angels and Demons zips along with a story about secret CERN experiments that create dark matter, which is subsequently stolen and put under the Vatican City to blow up. Brown, Howard and anyone who will benefit financially from their work must be secretly hoping that something dramatic, but not *too* dramtaic happens. End of Switzerland, fine good publicity, end of the world, not quite such good news for the spending of the profits....

I'm not going to Wed Bed or Dead this one. We are close to releasing the new version of the site, a world-class Social Networking site called JEMPLE. Jemple.com launches in October so watch out for that, much smaller explosion!


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Friday 5 September 2008

Barack Obama - Wed, Bed or Dead?

OK, so having done a little piece on the suicide-ride that McCain has chosen to run with him, lets turn our attention to 'policies' Obama.

First up lets trawl his website Yep, its the usual blend of sickening text, gut-wrenching imagery and the 'hey I'm cool' website feel. I especially loathe the 'welcome Hilary supporters' link. Surely you are all Democrats regardless aren't you??? So why this link, or do some out there only follow one person regardless? Nuts.

His policy on Iran has caused a lot of concern. It would appear that if you vote Republican then regardless of the real threat, Iran gets smashed and the world faces the consequences of more unilateral American military action. Vote Democrat and Barack will be carrying on with them as normal until they are threatening to chuck bombs across the middle east. However, I kinda want to WED Barack for this stance as at least he sounds like he will talk to these people rather than just backing them into a corner and making them more likely to do something to get out of it.

I am not sure about bedding Obama but I bet he would LOVE to BED the Republican team. Their selection of the Independent-Alaska, never been out of the USA, against abortion, animal shooting, gun-toting, mother of five, mother of a teen pregnancy disaster zone that is Sarah Palin is a masterstoke. A woman who talks about choice but wants to ban abortion, taking away, yep you guessed it...choice for others. Anyone who thinks that a rape victim should be forced to have the rapists baby deserves nothing but contempt from any right-minded person...it is the 21st century not the middle ages FFS.

Look at the front page of cnn today and Barack is not mentioned ONCE. He doesn't need to be, the Republicans are creating enough neagative press to fill acres of webspace, all the time taking the floaters eyes away from probing to deeply what Obama ACTUALLY thinks on just about anything.


So what is my current verdict on Barack Obama? Well I am not going to wed him, his policies are not clear enough yet. I am not going to dead him because the alternative is the Vietnam-vet and the no-choice baby-machine, so for the minute I'm just gonna jump into BED with Barack.


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Tuesday 2 September 2008

Twitter.com - Wed, Bed or Dead?

Ok, I tried it. I signed-up and I played around with it. I followed and had people follow me. I posted my little updates and I tried the phone thing.

And after all that I am still asking myself WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF IT?????

If you use a mobile cell phone its not cheap. Information is very limited. If you follow more than about three people all you see is a wall of endless inane text snippets like "I just brushed my pubic hair" or "the vaseline worked in the end". What have I got from my month of twitter....absolutely nothing, not even a sense of community or association. The whole thing feels like a crazy forum without threaded posting capability - absolute chaos.

It all feels horribly like its there purely because it is seen as a bit different, avant guarde. Could it be an example of that old human need to be one up on others by doing something cool that they don't really understand? The desire to have people look over at you curiously so you can feel superior because you are 'in' on something they are not?


Twitter seems to be the ultimate example of functionality for the sake of it based around a rather ludicrous idea. But despite this obvious flaw it has still managed to get into the mainstream 'buzz'. Why? Because it is so different? Because it is Web 2.0 through and through and is therefore somehow relevant? I suspect its because the industry is chucking its name and URL everywhere because they want to predict 'the next big thing' creating a buzz where people have to see what it is all about. A manufactured popularity so that industry blogs and 'experts' can say "I told you it was great, now listen to me...."

Apparently Twitter have just appointed their first spam marshall. All I can say is, don't get comfy in your new role, you may be looking for a new job real soon. Twitter you see is spammers paradise. The only things that stand out from the reams of nonsensical snippets are URL's - kind of making it ideal! It is a great place to spam as the soundbite style of it make it easy to slam the spam into the site's 'twitters'. My prediction is that as people get bored with texting random rubbish to twitter the only thing on there will be spam.

One question is which is actually more useful to people, the spam which could actually contain some interesting or worthwhile links, or the endless drivel people post? The irony could turn out to be that the twitters are more pointless and time-wasting to read than the spam. Do I waste seconds of my valuable life following a link that could actually be useful in someway, or do I read about how someone I have never met, and don't care about, has lost their car keys?


If I am missing the point then please tell me why. I know a lot of people who love social networking stuff. But they use things like facebook, where they can connect, message, show off photo's, comment and create little lists of friends like stamps in a book. I cannot imagine any of them using twitter and I would love to here one of them explain WHY they had started using it beyond saying it was 'cool'.

My own site, wedbedordead.com is a fun site. It is a fully-fledged social networking site with profiles, interaction, micro-blogging etc and also has the added piece of fun in the inclusion of the wedbedordead (snog marry avoid) game. Members get to see their stats and laugh, on top of being able to interact. Its light-hearted and at times silly. BUT it has a point to it. You can play the game (which is amazingly addictive considering it is purely a ratings game) and build a network that has some value in it. This is not some bitter attack because twitter is more popular, I merely offer it as an example I am familiar with to highlight my points. One thing I do predict is that people will still be checking their stats on wedbedordead.com long after twitter dies through user apathy .

Twitter seems to accomplish none of the basic rules for social networking for me. It does not allow levels of depth, or allow utilisation of multiple tools as you want them. You have one path on twitter - follow and be followed and twitter. I suspect is is popular because of the online social media industry, rather than word of mouth between real surfing folk.

So drum roll, and I think you can probably guess where I am going with this one already....

WED - No chance. If you marry Twitter you will be screaming for a divorce by Christmas.
BED - It's a one night stand that you wake up next to with a headache then leave quietly before it wakes up.

So I am afraid for me, Twitter is a DEAD. It is to be avoided as the worst type of industry-generated hype. A one-trick pony who will soon be disappearing off to the dog food factory.


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Monday 1 September 2008

Amy Winehouse - Wed Bed or Dead?

My oh my this is a tough one. Initially there really should be no question...dead, run avoid, escape. She is a drug-riddled nutcase.

But then I saw these comparison pics and I remembered that when she first started out Amy was VERY shaggable! Look at those curves and the legs. Ok the face is not 100% but then compared to today she used to be a goddess.

So initial thoughts were BED.

But then looking at her now its a case of run away from the scary woman. Not only does she seem to still be riding a one-hit wave (ironically a song mirroring her own stupidity) but she spent time with uber-moron Pete Docherty.

So then it jumped to DEAD.

But then I figured, I bet she would be just the person to piss off your mom is you turned up with her to announce your engagement. Also some people love the 'dragged through the gutter, messed up on drugs and out for a fight' look.

So it could even be WED.


Looking at the future though, with the rumours of money running low and her being sued for non-appearance the cash and fame may soon drain from her life, which would undoubtedly start a spiral into physical oblivion. I can't see her working on a checkout can you?



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