Someone Answer the Door
I mostly want to be rich to do all sorts of awesome pranks/stunts I can’t do in my current financial situation. I’ve been talking about a lot of these for years but it’s good to get them down in writing in case I happen to find a jackpot winning power ball ticket just kind of laying around on the ground somewhere.
Back when I first moved to Des Plaines in 2007 I started ordering groceries from PeaPod.com. It’s really not that much more expensive and I really think I should start doing it again. The produce is really nice. I started going back to the store again mainly because I wasn’t sure how to tip the delivery guy. Every time he would arrive I would have extreme anxiety about what was the right amount to tip; was I even supposed to tip? I was paying for delivery after all…
Tip or not the delivery man would always walk into my apartment set down the groceries and that’s when the gears started turning. I’d go to the web site and substitute my regular order of food consumables for 40 boxes of Trojan Condoms, 4 cases of beer and another 2 cases of water (just to make him do multiple trips back and forth to the truck).
Since the delivery times are fairly tight I would also arrange for half naked girls to be sprawled around the apartment. Hopefully they’d look all strung out. Upon entering my sanctuary I’d instruct the delivery man to put my beer cases “over there with the other ones” which would just be a collection of the same beer with visible dust on the box because I obviously was not drinking any of it. Perhaps during this entire sequence of events I’d be dressed like a pirate or ninja, something bazaar. Answer the door as a Furry?
In a way I’d feel a little bad for the awkward situation I might be creating for this Peapod man. I do believe though that he wouldn’t realize it was a gag and just have a “crazy story” to share with his friends. It’s a win/win because I’d also have a possibly hilariously uncomfortable video from recording the whole thing.
How to Be Internet Creepy
So maybe you’re a creepy dude in real life. People can tell and you’re thinking, “Man I’d really like to be more creepy in all aspects of my life, especially the Internet.” Well I’ve brainstormed a few ideas you can try out if you already haven’t.
eBay-Paypal-FaceBook
This one is easy and perfect. Go on eBay and sell some stuff, whatever you want, whatever you think a girl might purchase. College books would probably be a good bet. For maximum creeping and minimal investment you can buy used books and just turn around immediately and sell them. Chicks are into a lot of psychology and marketing, I’d start there.
Once your item is purchased and paid for with Paypal you will have that person’s name, address, email address and possibly even phone number. Use that information to look them up on Facebook.
Recent studies show that girls on Facebook actually really enjoy being personally contacted by people they would only consider vendors and being complimented on their looks. It doesn’t matter how many miles apart you and said female are make sure you unveil all your ideas behind relationships, marriage and your favorite scenes in Star Wars. Love knows no boundaries.
If it’s starting to seem like she’s not really digging this contact you’re not out of luck yet. Accidentally put some bank receipts showing your incredibly high checking account balance, because you have nowhere to go and spend it on, inside the front cover of the book. Once she gets the book and realizes you’re loaded things will surely turn around.
Between this and Craigslist I’d say it’s how I’ve met 95% of the girls I’ve dated.
Start a FlickR Account
Maybe you weren’t aware but there is a world of people just like you out there who have an extreme fetish for women’s ankles and perfect elbows. So what next? I wish I could take all the credit for the genius in this idea but unfortunately I stole this master plan from some other freaky dude who left comments on a picture for me once.
First create a FlickR account if you don’t have one already. Use an alias that is similar to what your interests are in my pretend scenario I’ll use the name “AnkleBoi69″. Make sure if you post any photos to mark them private, this way when people visit your page they won’t know what you’re actually uploading. Type in your favorite fetish words into Flickr’s group finder join the groups that might interest you.
Next comes the more difficult part. You’ll need to scour FlickR for people who aren’t already posting photos in your group and can relate to your interests. Once you’ve found these photos make sure to comment on the “sexy ankels” or “beautiful thumbs” whatever does it for you. If you’re the admin of a fetish FlickR group, invite them to share their photo there. When the person clicks on your name to find out more about you they won’t see any photos but they’ll get a glimpse at all the really sweet groups you belong to.
Post Stalk on Facebook
After you’ve friended a bunch of people you barely know on Facebook make sure you religiously hit F5 and look for their posts. The second something new comes out, comment on how hot the girl looks, or how awesome her post was. Do this for every post, if they don’t respond, do it more.
Write on their wall like you guys are old chaps, talk about things that happened three years ago the one time you met them like it was yesterday; “LOL remember when Jack spilled the beer on himself LOL THAT WAS SO FUNNY!” Talk about how you guys need to catch up on old times, constantly.
Now It’s Open to Everyone
In my undying love for Google products I am trying out a lesser known one called Google Moderator. This little web app is used for generating new ideas and voting on them. We used something like this at work once called Spigit. Actually I think we still do and I imagine we paid more for it.
So next month a date has been set for our next trip. If you aren’t already aware James and I have created a Random Trip travel type thing… let’s call it a game. During our travels we perform a variety of tasks. Last time we came up with them, this time we’d like everyone else to, then vote on the best ones. Please avoid getting us arrested for any felonies with your genius.
Each idea can be performed by both James or Myself and everyone will be able to vote on who did it better; we’re real good about documenting the scenes with photo/video.
Due to not finding a better way to integrate this you’ll just have to use this link to vote and submit new ideas.
It has 10X Zoom And 12.1MP!
Tried as I might I couldn’t fall asleep. There’s this thing bothering me, eating at me, it’s your complete inability to understand how to buy a camera.
Seeing as how I didn’t get much in the way of “Thank you Ben you’re the best!” after my last photography related write up I figured it must just be because you didn’t have the camera yet. I’d say at least three to four times a year someone asks me “Hey, I need a good camera, you take nice photos what should I buy?” Because of this I’ve felt the need to first clarify a few things about digital cameras for you then maybe give you some sweet knowledge you can use to make your own purchasing decision some day.
X Optical Zoom
Thankfully a lot of people out there have learned that digital zoom is worthless, degrades photos and overall just a gimmick. Actually it seems like that’s one of the only things people know because they constantly feel they need to give me that tidbit from their photo knowledge arsenal “Yeah Digital Zoom is doesn’t do anything!” Well booyah, I guess. While Optical Zoom (meaning the lens is moving in and out) is “real zoom” and truly what should be helping drive your decision, the numbers manufactures like to assign to it mean nothing. Just because one camera says it has 5X optical zoom and another says 10X does not mean that the higher number is significantly better some how.
Thing is, X, is a variable – it could really be anything. Zoom is measured in millimeters and what something like “6X” means is six times the widest mm range. Camera makers obviously thought it was far too technical, and rightfully so, to tell you the real specs of a lens. I guess they figured if they said, “It goes six times further in from when you’re zoomed all the way out” you’d get the idea. It works too, when you’re buying things in person. Problem I see though is everyone wants to buy cameras online and they see these X numbers and assume bigger is better but take this scenario for instance…
Your goal is distance, you’re really into birds and have learned they’re not fond of you getting near them. You see two cameras, one is 5X and the other 7X. Under further inspection though you find out the base mm of the 5X is 30mm and the 7X is 20mm. Meaning the 7X goes 20-140mm and the 5X does 30-150mm. The 7x is wider, it’s not further. The shorter the mm number the wider the lens, the bigger the number the more “zoom” you get.
Though not always, you can typically find the real millimeter rating for a point and shoot camera. You don’t have to understand what it means just how it compares to the other camera you’re looking at.
Megapixels
Luckily more and more people are starting to realize that this number does not matter. I feel like I need to cover this a little more anyway though. For those that don’t already know: Megapixels = Size of the Photo not: Megapixels = Quality of the photo. In fact, many point and shoots try to cram too many pixels on their small sensors and it actually makes their photos look worse in full size. It has a very similar effect that you get from digital zoom which we already know sucks. You end up having to shrink the size of your photo so that it looks good when the pixels become compressed. If you’re going to do that, what was the point of that number being high to begin with?
In a recent survey I made up for the sake of writing this 95% of people do not crop their photos. They take a picture, load it on their computer and if the photo is lucky enough maybe they click the “enhance” option in iPhoto before uploading it to Facebook for their friends to see. Sometimes they print them, 4×6 at Walgreens. 2.1MP cameras have been printing wonderful 4×6 photos for years, but for the sake of safety let’s just say anything over 5MP is a safe buy.
Someone is saying right now “I crop all my photos, fu” Well then I’d have to respond with “You’re stupid and obviously your camera doesn’t zoom far enough.” Because that’s the reality. Cropping photos is few and far between. You might do it because Jessica is like totally a huge bitch and we’re not even friends on Facebook anymore and she’s like standing like right next to me in this photo I want to use for my profile picture without her in there. Or maybe some guy is exposing himself just to the left of your group family shot outside Old Country Buffet, whatever the reason you’ll likely still be okay… even if your megapixel count isn’t giant.
Digital SLR
So many people would be better off if they just stuck to buying point and shoot cameras. They go out, buy this SLR camera for $500-800 dollars, it comes with a standard kit lens and they feel like now they’ll finally get those really kickin’ rad soccer pictures of their kids. In general the lens that comes with an entry level SLR is 17-55mm which pales in comparison to some of the optical zoom options available in the point and shoot realm. After you’ve realized that your friend’s $250 Panasonic camera has better zoom than your new Canon Rebel you might be a little distraught and feel the need to go buy another lens to fill that void. That’s when you’ll realize SLRs are the biggest money pit on the planet. Your next affordable option would be a 70-300mm lens which you can pick up for as low as about $150. It also happens to be complete garbage and a total waste of your money. With exception of the 50mm F/1.8 lens there is very little you can buy for under $300 that will really distinguish itself from anything in the point and shoot world.
The second biggest reason you’d be better off not buying an SLR camera is because you’re still shooting in auto. The automatic mode in a P&S makes the bold assumption that the user really has no clue what they’re doing and just wants to press the button and make a pretty picture. They’ll generally do a better job about being shot on automatic mode as the SLR wants to believe you know at least something about photography. For example, your auto modes in a P&S might be Portraits, Night time, Landscape, Macro. However, on the SLR it’s pretty much “Auto” and it’s left to try and guess at what you’re doing; picking generic ideal settings rather than you telling it how it might want to think.
For $500 dollars (even less) you can get a top of the line point and shoot. It will have modes for all sorts of situations, have more zoom than an entry level SLR, and probably even have nice things like facial recognition all baked right in. With the money you’ve saved you can buy a little case to put it in and maybe some memory cards.
Since I’ve covered my big pet peeves about people’s assumptions on photography I think that’s enough for tonight. I’ll write a follow up later that explains what you should really be looking for come camera buying time.
Owl City and my 15 Seconds of Pure Fame
People have been asking what happened with my photograph and Owl City. I’ve been fairly tight lipped about the whole thing. Any fame I received from this has come and gone. Now that’s settled and I’m paid I’ll go ahead and give the story as best I can without Owl City or Universal Motown Republic Group, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. (“Universal”), having any reason to try and sue me.
On January 4th 2010 I received an email from a seemingly random guy on the internet. Apparently this band I had never heard of was using one of my pictures on their web site.
Trevor
to me
i like your picture. i guess owl city does as well…http://www.owlcitymusic.com/gallery.aspx?fid=2576&phid=2547
i hope they paid you a lot for its use.
Trevor
When people ask me if I’ve heard the latest [Insert Band Name Here] song I’m the pretentious prick that has to point out that I don’t listen to the radio and only have my iPod ergo I am totally unaware of new music and you should know this; why did you just waste both our time asking? So true to my ignorance when I received this email I had no clue who Owl City was (#4 in iTunes then) and just assumed they were some crappy Indie band that defaced my photo.
I was at work and didn’t have a lot time to dedicate to this picture problem. I went to the site and found a contact address then shot over an email.
Ben Eubank
to ocmgm
Hello!
I’m usually pretty good about people cruisin’ over to my FlickR page and using my photo for things. Typically I get an email asking first, which helps, especially given that I don’t even allow creative commons license on it. In your case however no one has contacted me and there is an ugly photoshop lens flare and some strange emo guy that someone has felt the need to place over the picture. Not really a fan of this.
Not shown is the attachment showing my ownership of the photo and it’s publication on FlickR which has since been removed.
Leaving work I went home and thought nothing more of it really. When my roommate got in from work I mentioned to him that some [nice] band was using my photo without permission. Well, okay, apparently they’re a little more popular than I thought – interesting.
I don’t know this Trevor character was but later that night I started getting emails coming from my site and internetland telling me much more about the situation. My art work was used in a multitude of places, not just on the website. Most notably it part of the actual CD Artwork. One email I received went as far as giving me LinkedIn pages for some of the people responsible for the CD and the credited artist. It was odd to have all these random strangers come to my aid.
After it finally dawned on me that this might be slightly bigger than I had originally made it out to be I received two more emails. One was from Owl City saying they had purchased the images from an artist named Imran Khan and forwarded my email off to Universal Motown Republic Group to elaborate more and another from some guy who ran a website claiming not to be a big fan of Owl City. Because I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on and I sort of wanted to get paid for my efforts I asked Steve, the notfan, to please not publish anything more than a small blurb and not make any assumptions about what happened (i.e. please don’t say they stole anything until we know more).
Of course he didn’t listen and thus began my fifteen seconds of internet fame. Every one says you should get 15 minutes but I can’t possibly see how I could claim to have achieved more fame than the band itself. Shortly after other sites started copying the article and I got a few more emails from people letting me know that OC was using my work.
The next day I was contacted by guy from the record company asking if I could further prove the ownership of the photo and to please not blog about this on the internet saying “Adam” stole my artwork. Universal man was going to follow up with the artist, using the evidence I gave him, and see what he said when the ownership came into question.
As it turns out the artist said he was just that, an artist, not a photographer and had downloaded my photo from the internet then figured he could use it for commercial purposes. To my understanding he did all the album artwork and that raises an eyebrow but I’m not going to openly speculate on what that could mean any further.
Once actual ownership was established we went back and forth about a month discussing payout numbers ranging from incredibly low to considerably low. Fast forwarding a bit we settled on stupidly low the proper paperwork was ultimately signed and I sold out to The Man.
I’ve been told that I will be credited in future reprints of the album and even given a free copy. I’ll believe that when I see it because that’s one thing I do not have in writing. So neither Owl City or Universal Music purposely used my work, they’ve paid me for my picture and I’m not quite sure what happened to Mr. Kahn. The whole thing has been quite a pain in the ass and I’m rather positive it will not lead to future sales of my photography but I guess it’s fun to say I was part of something once.
You Take Horrible Photos
If the title describes you, read on. To some, a lot of these tips will feel very obvious and repetitive from any photography material you may have read. Most of this geared towards shooting people and the main audience I’m looking to here is actually the point-and-shoot-I-don’t-know-anything crowd. With one small exception, shutter speed, I’m not going to cover anything technical. Everything I write will be stated as fact. A person might read these said facts and say “That’s not true Ben, I’ve shot XYZ this way before and it was perfect, you’re wrong.” For this reason I want to clarify that I will be stating things as true that may not be but they’re about as factual as me saying “You will never win the lottery.” Finally, when I say a photo is “good” I mean in the sense of nice lighting, not blurry, quality shot. Do not think I mean the kind of good that implies it’s an unforgettable moment captured and cherished forever.
Shoot in Full Auto – No Flash
The flash on your Point and shoot camera is garbage. It looks like ass and any picture you take with it will always look like you took it with a flash. Does that mean I’m telling you to never try and take a good picture with your flash indoors? Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly it. Anyone can absolutely still take flash pictures but don’t expect anything, you’ll just be capturing a moment.
Did you buy a camera with a variety of modes that you don’t know what they do? Don’t use them even if you think you have an inkling for what they do. Sure, some shots might look different when you take them in that mode but if you don’t understand the benefits you’ll likely use it at the wrong times. When it comes to the technical part all the camera manufactures have spent countless dollars making their auto feature better and better. The camera’s auto setting is a much better photographer than you in terms of picking the right settings for a shot. Just trust in it.
It’s No Where Near as Bright as You Think
Since I’m telling you to never use a flash you need to be conscious of the light you’re using. When shooting indoors a lot of people think just because they can see relatively well that the light is fine and it’s not. More often than not it’s too dark and too yellow. If your flash is turned off your camera’s auto mode will likely start sacrificing its shutter speed (how fast it takes the picture) to work. The shutter speed is the number you see on the camera and it reads things like 1/200, 1/120, 1/80, 1″, etc. If you’re starting to see anything less than 1/80 (one 80th of a second) reading from your camera your pictures will likely come out blurry. Either find some more light (natural light works best) or give up, turn on the flash and just take pictures. The shutter speed is usually on any details section on a photo you took and vary’s from camera to camera. Don’t worry about any of the other numbers, they’re too confusing.
There’s nothing wrong with not taking good pictures, you do this all the time already. It’s simply not possible to always be taking amazing shots without tons of equipment. This is why you hire a photographer with a lot of gear and not some kid that has an SLR and one lens to do important events. Or maybe you do, but you shouldn’t.
The Right Light
The best time to take photos is outside early in the morning, when everyone is asleep (so maybe it’s not the best time) or in the late afternoon when the sun is not directly overhead. Cloudy days are also excellent though any sky captured in your photo might look depressing. Here’s some general tips for getting good light.
- If it’s the middle of the day find shade for your subject(s) to be in. Try to only photograph the shaded area and avoid letting the bright light bleed into your picture.
- Do not have your subject’s face in the sun. No one likes sun in their eyes and they will squint. It will always be way too bright on their face and look washed out and terrible anyway.
- Avoid having the brightest light right behind your subject. Your camera will put its settings to match the background light and your subject will come out dark. Typically this is a situation where a photographer would run a flash on the subjects to adjust for the light difference but since your flash is a giant pile of crap so we won’t be doing that.
Having the proper light will improve your pictures instantly. The lack of proper light is usually the number one reason your pictures suck so much.
Some Things Will Always Look Like What They Are
Taking a photo in a bar, will look like you took a photo in the bar. Ready for another self portrait in the mirror? Good for you. These photos will never be good, there is nothing you can do to fix this. Either stop doing it or never expect anything from it. Nearing three million times I’ve been asked to take a picture for a group of drunk girls at a bar and thanks to digital they instantly want to know “IS IT GOOD? HOW DID IT TURN OUT?” I know that secretly means “I’m a little fat, can you tell?” and as far as picture quality goes, there isn’t any. If all your pictures are of this variety then I’ve just solved the mystery for you of why my pictures look so much better than yours.
What’s In Your Portrait Picture?
Generally you want to be as zoomed onto your subject as you can be. If you’re taking a picture of two friends together leave just a little space on either side and above them. Fully body shots are often unappealing so avoid that. Regardless of your zoom though be mindful of their rest of the scene. The people in the background, is anyone wearing bright colors? Can you see them in the shot? They’re distracting and people will notice. What about trash cans? A guy picking his nose? Something more interesting than the people you’re shooting? Any time you have a subject you want to make sure there is nothing that will take away from them. It sounds a lot easier than it is and many people are oblivious to anything other than the people standing directly in front of them. To make this as simple as possible here’s some easy things to just flat out avoid in your backgrounds
- Other people or pets
- Vehicles
- Man made objects (trash cans, neon signs, parking meters)
Some man made objects are actually good backdrops though and it’s usually the bigger then better. Objects that are generally good backgrounds are:
- Walls, full wall. Not the entire house.
- Train Cars
- Fences
Ultimately the best background is just the sky. If you can take a picture that looks off into a rather blank horizon (e.g. a beach, a field) that is your best bet.
It’s Not All About the Gear
It’s true, your point and shoot will likely never take better pictures than my nice DSLR camera. I have thousands of dollars of equipment that let me do all sorts of tricks you can’t. I can shoot indoors and it looks nice, I own flashes that cost more than your entire camera and lenses that would make for a nice down payment for a new car. That doesn’t mean your camera is a load of junk though. In the right lighting almost any standard digital camera of today will take sharp, vivid, respectable pictures. Typically in a shoot I take the easy route, if I can do one or all of the things mentioned above I will. So If all goes well, your shots won’t look a hell of a lot different from mine to the untrained eye.
One Final Note
Megapixel count mean very little; don’t be put off just because yours is smaller than everyone else’s. For once it doesn’t matter and it’s really how you use it.
Reading is Totally Overrated
On a lot of occasions I’ve heard someone say “Yeah I really need to read more.” My response to this has never been much more than “ah okay” but that has now changed to “No you don’t.”
Regardless of the hundreds of scientific studies that most likely will say “WHAT?!” to this, reading a book does not make you smarter. Reading, as does many other things, stimulates the mind. If a person reads a lot well then they likely get better at reading. I guess by this argument you could say, “Well hah, reading does make you smarter shut up already”, but I’d say that doing anything over a prolonged period of time causes you to generally get better at that activity. Extensively playing a video game will make you better at that video game. Coupled with an increased chance of obesity it will probably also help you adapt faster to newer video games because you are subconsciously mastering the art of using the controller. Why should learning how to play video games better be looked upon in any lesser light than say… learning how to consume text faster so you can read the latest Harry Potter book quicker?
Just like anything it’s how we apply it. If you’re reading a plethora of fun fiction books to increase your reading ability to some day delve into the world of nonfiction in the hopes of learning great things, you could be on to something. But it seems as though many people feel that if they read three or four books a year they’re really contributing to their brain in some dramatic “I need to do this more often” way. If the feeling alone that you’re getting smarter because you’re reading is adequate enough then maybe you should just do it. I know a lot of people who think they’re brilliant though and it’s just not true.
Most people are probably wasting their time with books. Watch the movie version because you’re probably a slow reader anyway. Take the time you saved and go do something that will engage you differently. Everyone learns in a variety of ways and for many that self improvement does not come from reading a book. I’ll blame that one on the school system for having such a shitty way of immersing us in the world of books in the first place.
I love to read now. I like fiction, nonfiction, news articles which are really a toss up for what category they fall under… Just about anything other than dumb blog posts on the internet are worth my time to read. I consider myself lucky though that I was able to get to the point where I enjoy books. The problem I faced through school was it was their primary job that I learned to read, second job, understand that books are boring.
Growing up we were always assigned these mostly dry incredibly dull books. Okay, maybe they were just dull for me. The Teachers would tout them as incredible or great, something we really should experience. Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, whatever. Give me a break. I’m a young teen, I don’t want some deep thought provoking book I need stimulation. If this is what a great book is then I don’t want part of it. You want kids to grasp that books can relate to them or be more exciting? Have them read Twilight for required reading. The overreaching goal here should not be to have kids learn classics and understand quality literature but to have them learn that books can be good. As kids we are some what impressionable and being told “This is a good book” and then not liking it, to me meant “Well it probably is a good book, but I just don’t like to read because books are boring.”
Once a taste for reading is developed you can move on to less interesting, more thought provoking, literature without inducing extreme hatred for the activity.
Folks that have been sticking their faces in books since breast feeding and have never stopped since often to me have this elitist attitude that the stuff we read in those days was good, you just didn’t understand them. Not true, those people are just boring and can appreciate a dry book more than others. Anyone that believes that most teenagers should appreciate classic literature, or classic anything for that matter is a ignorant and probably quite a douche. Yes this is brilliant, take a culture that is trying to figure out its own identity and force them to do things their parents like. What a super idea it’s strange more people don’t like reading.
Enough digression into why we don’t read; none of that matters though because, again, reading does not make you smarter. Or how about this, the act of reading does not make you smarter than some other activity if that’s not how your mind has been conditioned to learn. If you’re not already an avid reader and your desire to become one revolves around the idea that you will some how become more worldly just forget it. Take a college class, watch the history channel, find some other outlet to enhance your skills. We learn a lot more from doing than we do from anything we’ll read anyway.
Resteraunt
If I were the U.S. Government (or a lot of other governments for that matter) I can’t think of one company I’d rather have fall into financial downturn and be deemed “too big” to fail more than Google. Sure due to their infrastructure would cost billions in tax payer dollars to maintain but man, wouldn’t the data retrieved be worth it if you really wanted to spy on someone? There is no person alive and probably will never be that knows or has stored more information about me than Goooooooooogle >
I was tallying up the list of Google Services utilized by me and it’s scary:
Android, Blogger, Book Search, Browser Sync, Calendar, Checkout, Chrome, Code, Contacts, Docs, Froogle, Goggles, Groups, Images, Latitude, Listen, Mail, Maps, News, Notebook, Picasa, Profile, Reader, Talk, Voice, Web Search, Wave, YouTube… and I’ll probably start using Buzz once it works correctly. Can’t wait to make a Buzz about some annoying girl at the bar only to have her see it on Google maps when she checks her phone.
Google knows my bank account number and two of the credit cards I use. They know where I live and thanks to latitude they have a good idea of where I spend a majority of my time. They know where I work and what I do, they know who leaves me voice mails and what they’re saying to me. I don’t get calls through Google Voice so at least that’s one aspect of my life they’re not completely in the know on.
But those are obvious things, what about the little things Google knows? They probably know I can’t spell restaurant. The amount of times I’ve incorrectly typed it in there just to find the real spelling is staggering (205 times to be exact, thanks Google Search History). I spell the word so bad not even a built in spell check from any program knows what I’m talking about, but Google does. Yes! Thank you, I did mean “Restaurant” <3. Likely they’re aware I’m an egomaniac by the amount of times I’ve searched my own name both in web search and images followed by the obscene amount of times I’ve actually clicked the link for pages about me. I wonder if they know I get pissed because I’m not the first result for “Ben Eubank“. Thanks to Google’s new Navigation they also know I’m a chronic speeder on the road and should probably start marketing me Radar detectors in my search results.
Oh wait, hypothetical product #1230912 Google Profiler. This is where a government agency enters in all the information they have related to a crime and Google spits back a list of suspects based on everything it knows on them and why they’re relevant. Let’s say I’m a really dumb criminal. I have an Android phone with Google Latitude installed. I break into a random person’s house and brutally murder their whole family. Later I decide to search Google for “Good ways to dispose of dead tissue and bones.” Two days later when the bodies are discovered Detective Lennie Briscoe types in the address of the crime and a few other details and finds out Ben Eubank was prowlin’ that area and wants to learn how to dispose of people.
Actually that’s a really sweet idea maybe they’ll invent it some day. Unlike most people I am not paranoid about the government, or some other mega-entity, knowing just about everything there is to know about me; I’m also not a criminal. Not that only criminals like a private life, I’m sure millions of law abiding citizens do too, but Google understands me and makes my web experience much more pleasurable. There’s no way it could do this without me telling it all my secrets.
I Like to Type
At first my thinking was “I Like to Write” but that’s not entirely true. More than anything I just like typing fast. It has a rhythmic relaxing sensation. If you can’t type fast you wouldn’t understand. The best is when the sentences and words flow from left to right down the keyboard, that’s my favorite. Writing by hand is horrible. For starters my handwriting is atrocious. I have absolutely no consistency for when I use capital letters or not. a LOt of MY SENtencES wIll lOOK liKe THIS, except harder to read. On top of it being bad, I’m slow. In the time I takes me to write two sentences most people have finished a paragraph.
Once I thought it would be important to up my game in the penmanship field but as technology progresses I’ve decided to hone my skills elsewhere. At this point it almost feels like my hobby of drinking beer really fast has about as much use as nice handwriting. Pretty soon we’ll all be typing on the poorly named iPad for everything anyway right?
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Last night I was roaming around the internet looking for a new book to read. I’ve been busting through a few lately and wanted something that might take me a bit longer. So I found Infinite Jest and downloaded from the Sony eReader store, or whatever they’re calling it these days, only to find it was corrupted.
Downloading a messed up book is likely the best thing that has ever happened to me in the digital book world. Determined to read the damn thing I scoured the internet for a solution to my problem. I came across someone else who also bought my book in ePub format from Sony back in December and said something along the lines of “They said they would email me back when it was fixed but they never did so I just converted it and now it works.”
The process to convert a book sounded confusing because it was late at night and I just wanted to read. I tried about 300 (5) different ways to get the file on my reader without success and avoiding this conversion process. Then I contacted Sony via 24/7 Live Chat where I was connected to “Timothi” who was very wise and said “I recommend you try downloading the book again.”
Annoyed I decided to break down and do this conversion thing… download python… save these scripts, run file, insert keys… what… thefuck am I doing? I claim to be a developer by day but even this is a bit confusing yet some how some book geek on a message board and three hundred thank you comments lead me to believe it must be easy. It actually is too, as long as I don’t try to figure out anything myself and do exactly as the instructions say I’m golden and the book has been converted.
What does converted mean? It means I was able to strip off the Adobe DRM and convert the book to any eReader format I want. Now my books 33 purchased digital books can be used on any device. Hurray for freedom. Unfortunately I still think Sony makes the best readers at this point in time even if their store is crap, their support is outsourced and their software was developed by high school students for an intro to programming project.
Free Stuff
Pretty sure I’ve never heard someone say “Let me give you a little bit of free advice” followed by something that didn’t irritate me. A lot of folks like free things. I saw the “NO WE WILL NOT PAY $3.99 A MONTH TO USE FACEBOOK” group (which by the way was just a rumor) with over one million people in it, so there’s gotta be at least one million that like Facebook to be free. It could be argued that certain free sites, a majority of them, are not free, they’re ad supported. I suppose this is true, if I clicked on those ads.
When advertising becomes overlooked noise or just blocked and ignored forever it generates sites no money. Whoa, did I just blow your mind? I didn’t think so. Why is it expected that everything on the internet be free? What happens if Facebook did start charging because they needed money… you wouldn’t pay? You wouldn’t pay for a service that kept you in touch with your friends, stored photos, videos, helped you network and sell things? Would you go to MySpace? How come you didn’t have an account there previously? oh yeah because it’s horrible. Sorry for a bunch of questions I don’t expect anyone to answer but I really see no reason outside of ad revenue why such a site should be free. If something is enjoyed you should be excited they start charging a very nominal fee so they can improve it and you can enjoy it more.
Where it kills me the most is news. Free news sucks. It’s horrible and the internet is just a giant grounds for plagiarism of crappy article after crappy article. Recently with my Owl City fiasco (still waiting on my check Universal Republic what’s taking so long?) I was emailed by one site who decided to make a post about Owl City using my work because they “are not fans.” After that there was a few days I spent showing people the article about myself on the internet because I like attention. Having never saved the link I would simply type “Ben Eubank Owl City” into google and BAM first result. Then after two or three days I started to notice there was more than one result, there was more than one article. It would all be rather exciting if the entire internet was getting up in arms and going to my defense but they weren’t. They were simply ripping off the original author either completely or mostly and adding a little of their own twist to the text. So desperate to find anything to post to their site and too lazy to actually write it themselves.
I want big media to stick around. I’m positive I don’t want to read poorly written articles/blogs by someone who lived by a major event or analysis of what some unintelligent know-it-all thought about the president’s latest stance on an issue. Of course the main news providers have flaws, namely producing extreme biased reporting at times, but at least they’re usually well written and fact checked. What I mean is you don’t go to CNN and pick out four spelling mistakes and a ton of poor grammar. You’re not questioning whether the Fox News Reporter actually interviewed the person they’ve claimed to. While it might seem a little biased it doesn’t read like a fourteen year old high school student writing a paper trying to prove his/her point. I hope CNN stops giving away news for free and the other big guys follow suit. Sure, some douche bag will ultimately retell everything they’ve read there but like all most other free news it will either suck or be illegally plagiarized from the original author.
Free information gets pretty nasty in the way of product reviews. I don’t really have an answer to how to solve this problem, or any other issue I seem to mostly rant about, but this one gets me the worst. Free reviews on products have so many bad things going for them. They get used by other people as their own review, they’re usually heavily biased towards the product in one way or another, often have never used the product they’re comparing it to or the product itself, full of bad information, and my favorite is bad reviews that get their information from other shitty misinformed rumors/reviews. It kills me when I’m out trying to find information for a piece of software or a new book only to realize half way through some lengthy review that the person probably has never used the product. Maybe a disclaimer on all reviews will help “I have never used this product but I still feel the need to review it for you with no more knowledge than you have.” Amazon must have found this annoying too as they attempt to make things better putting a “Amazon Verified Purchase” next to names of reviewers who they can say bought the product they’re reviewing. Of course that only solves the “I’m reviewing something I’ve never used” problem and not the plethora of others. It would be awesome if “Well just don’t read the reviews if they suck” was a good alternative. Unfortunately in order to know something sucks you generally have to read it to find out.
The US cell phone industry reminds me a lot of free information. Cell providers in America give away free phones, or considerable discounts on them. Due to this subsidy on phones they require people to have contracts, have higher rates than other parts of the world and annoy people. People expect the discounted phone, if you don’t give it to them… they’ll get it somewhere else. If one cell company said “No contract required but you provide the phone” then you go looking for unlocked phone prices only to find they’re $300-$600 you would say “f-u cell company X I’ll just use Y because they have a free phone! BOOYAH BITCHES” then you’d probably complain in about a year and a half how you’re in contract and can’t “upgrade” yet etc, etc, etc. It’s possible you’re not seeing the parallel here I see with free stuff on the net. But it’s like this… if CNN starts charging, you’ll like go read another news site, and another, and another because for whatever reason you don’t feel it’s justified for a site to charge for news. Facebook charges? go to myspace. Everything could be better but we’ve found ourselves in a situation where unless every company worthwhile over night decided to change it would be an incredibly ballsy (and highly unprofitable) thing for anyone to start charging. If AT&T started saying the only way you could get an iPhone was to pay $500 but you wouldn’t need a contract there would be a lot less iPhones and probably a lot less subscribers as they went over to Verizon who saw that as a great opportunity to save money up front.
Not everyone should charge, small media that is worthless should continue to be free or ad driven (by the way I think news and print media sites should charge and have ads). When they are big enough boys to have real journalism/good products and people deem it worthy then charge. What’s the point when you start charging? I don’t know, I guess when you can.
In my perfect world where the internet stops being completely free and good sites begin to charge to support their profit rather than blowing up in some Web 2.0 Adword Bubble later on I can see a few different ways to charge. Monthly subscriptions are an easy win for some sites and are already done today. $3.99 for all you can Facebook or $1.99 and you can’t upload more than 50 pictures a month of you at some bar drinking with your friends. Maybe articles on CNN are $.10 a piece. My life is chaotic at times and I might not want to pay $9.99 a month to a news site that I might visit heavily at one point and never for a month. 10 articles for $1 seems fair, as long as the journalism is there… and I think that’s what I’m paying for. Maybe pay4news will slowly kill the nothing news. When no one is paying to read about Paris Hilton’s Dog’s haircut maybe you won’t post an article to your site about it.
It seems like I should spend more time going over what I’ve written and grammar check or remove all the times I’ve repeated and over used words after having written this. But I’m not making money from my site so I don’t have time nor do I care.