Usually I tend to make friends by offering comical insight or odd perspectives on topics of interest. I provide a view of a situation that might warrant some attention. Sometimes this involves rather lengthy debate, but sometimes all it takes is a series of one liners that create interesting juxtaposition.  Interestingly enough Twitter caters to these one liners quite nicely.  The character limit imposed by twitter prevents the lengthy debate style conversations I might prefer to have.  It instead forces me to simply add my two cents worth to a conversation.  But cming up with 40 or 50 one liners a day can be quite difficult.

One liners don’t enter my mind very easily.  It takes some work, and sometimes some knowledge of the people your presenting them to.  You need to understand your audience to pick up on things they’ll find funny or witty.  The problem with twitter is that the view of any one persons life only comes via the same short snippets I’m trying to make an impact with.  And because the birds I follow are usually organised around undustry not character similarity, it’s hard to find one liners that don’t alienate some while appealing to others.  I’ve been taking shots in the dark on a one off basis hoping someone might find me humourous/insightful to moderate success.  I’ve also been toying with a the option of just not caring how many followers I have.  Resigning myself to this option (at least for now) seems a little bit like quitting.  Whatevs!

Cheers,

Tarandon

I lack a basic sense of inspiration.

I get frustrated with the obstacles far to easily.

I get really frustrated with the fake it till you make it types, slowing me down because I have to explain everything to them.

I get tired at the uphill battle and the falling rocks and the stolen ideas and misplaced credit that continuously keeps me from realising the greatness I know I’m capable of.

I’m tired of the lying and the backstabbing stupidity of the corporate agenda.  I’m infuriated by the incompetence of the enabled, who enable the incompetent to fail repeatedly; and they do so by using that failure to justify the need for their incompetence.

I realise that as I ramble the pronouns get muddied and my lack of an ability to communicate that which burns me so sharply makes my soul ache all the more.  Inspiration cannot thrive in this environment.

The parade of the uninspired masquerading in and out the revolving door of this disfunctional business unit brings a cold and icy wind that chills my flame and saps the strength of my inner awesome.

A George divided against itself cannot stand.

When the worlds collide, change will follow.

Huge props to Leah Culver and Mike Malone for their hardwork on Pownce.  I hope you both enjoy your new roles on VOX with sixapart.  Things are going to be interesting in 2009!

Cheers!

Tarandon

I figure that each record label should be selling their brand experience, not their music.  Musicians would be inclined to associated themselves with a record label based on the ideals associated with their brand, and their webportal experience would be an extension of those ideals.  An entire culture of loyal users would visit the website on a daily/weekly basis to find out what new music there was available, and the record label would be happy to give that new music away for free.  Why!?  Because it creates the potential for new fans at absolutely no cost to the record label, and increases ticket sales for the little guy who just got signed.

The potential exists today for a record label to subsist on several lesser known artists pulling in medium sized crowds with lots of tour dates.  Labels could even go so far as to give their users the option of providing location in their user profiles and then map the fan base geography to optimize tour locations for each band.

Instead, they force one of the largest distribution networks they have to piss of their entire viewership and in the end loose out on the potential to capitalize on what people want most.  Good music.

Cheers,

Tarandon

Meme from James Tauber, Greg Newman, Justin Lilly and Brian Rosner.

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

It’s refreshing to see a candidate apply for the job because they know they will excel at it, not because it will look good on a resume.  Because they want to help others, not help themselves.  It is for this reason that Barack didn’t stand at a podium and extole himself for winning the greatest office on the globe.  He instead recognised that his goal was not to be president, his goal was to create change.  A goal that has yet to be accomplished, and so he took the opportunity to get the people excited for the possibilities that goal has for the citizens of their Union.  He humbly described what children are taught to be the greatest acheivement available in the US, as being given a chance to do something great.  As an opportunity to create change, and emphasized that he would be powerless to do it on his own.

Barack Obama is a man, our political candidates are playground children by comparison. They bicker and squabble and even mock each other’s clothing. I long for leaders like Barack Obama, and I sincerely hope he gets elected for a second term.

Cheers,

Kevin

Michael Blastland’s article re-enforces for me why my sister’s point of view is the wrong one to take.  Herd mentality is why the same party gets elected even though nobody want’s it.  Here in Canada we have 4-6 parties represented in any given riding.  The number of people I talk to who say to me “I’d like to vote for party X but I don’t want party Y to get elected; So I’m voting for party A to make sure they don’t” is astonishing.  Everyone votes defensively to try and prevent some party from getting elected and chooses a party they don’t agree with because they think everyone else will.  This is the herd mentality at work, and what it ends up doing is electing a government that nobody actually wants, with local representatives most people don’t agree with.

I think the point that Michael leaves out of his article though, is that the herd mentality is psychologically reinforcing.  When people like my sister vote for a winning candidate she might not agree with, there is still a sense of gratification in correctly choosing the person who wins.  A sense of victory for defeating the candidate she wanted to lose.  The shortsightedness of having elected a candidate she didn’t really want in the first place gets lost in the gratification of victory or success.  But that’s only half of the reason a herd mentality prevails.

The other half is that when we’re wrong, we can’t be singled out for the mistake.  We have handy excuses like “Nobody saw it coming!” to dilute the responsibility of making a bad decision.  Being wrong isn’t so bad when everyone else is wrong too.  It’s not fear of wrongness that leads people to move with the herd, it’s the fear of feeling isolated that comes from being the only one making the big mistake.  Others have noted this of course (seen here) but people continue to be powerless against these social pressures.

In this sense being wrong is only an illusion that appears when a comparision is made between one choice and the choice of everyone else.  If the comparison is removed the only evaluation of wrong or right is how the decision impacts the individual, and that’s where my reasoning comes from.  The only mechanism I have to ensure my views are represented is to vote for the candidate that best represents them, regardless of the consideration of eveyrone else.

This is why I voted for a party the herd told me I shouldn’t.  Because if it comes down to being wrong or supporting a the success of a party that doesn’t represent me, I choose to be wrong.

Cheers,

Tarandon

P.S. My candidate didn’t win

Please, I emplore you!  If you know where I can get a quality latte in this city, let me know in the comments.

So Frustrated.