My Blackberry is Not Working!!

Another humorous note: This fantastic British skit from The One Ronnie.

XKCD on Social Networking

XKCD cartoonist Randall Munroe has created a brilliant map of the current activity, number of users, and popularity of just about every social media, online community, or other web 2.0 site that you can think of. Definitely click the image to view it in detail: http://xkcd.com/802/

Twittering Diplomats

I tend to usually fall into the category that mocks all the fuss and "twouble" with Twitters, but the antics of Jared Cohen and Alec Ross might make me rethink this position. As highlighted recently by the NYT, Cohen and Ross are policy advisers to Secretary Hilary Clinton, and they're personally bringing old-fashioned diplomacy into the new digital age. DoS has had an offical blog and official Twitter for a couple years now, but the tweets of 140 characters or less directly from the policy advisers seem to have a fresher, more candid or direct take. Not to mention that the official Twitter has only a fraction of the followers of Cohen or Ross.

Technology

I'm ready for DVDs to be outdated technology.

I was kind of sad to see VHSes go back in the day (all of my favorite movies as a kid were on a VHS), but I quickly adjusted to the convenience of a DVD. Multiple DVDs can easily be transported (i.e. in a CD case rather than in their boxes). DVDs can be played by a personal computer, so a DVD player or TV screen was unnecessary.

DVDs have been mainstream for about the past 10 years. However, DVDs are even more fragile that VHSes were. I'm tired of renting a movie only to find that it skips because of a smudge or scratch, and thus I miss some crucial scenes of the film. Or, I hate looking forward to watching a movie that I own, only to take it out of its case and discover that it has a hairline crack and is now completely unreadable. There goes another $15. I guess that's one way to stimulate the economy--just keep making things breakable so that people keep buying.

I'm ready for the next big technological advancement, replacing DVDs with something else. Looks like it might be digitized or iPod movies, such as those sold on iTunes?

Rest in peace, Newsies DVD that I never got to watch.