The Coffeehouse

Who loves the "cached" option in search engines? I do! It makes the world go 'round.

Html Hell, is becoming a bit heavenly, if I do say so myself. There's still some weird things to sort out though. Check it out, lemme know what you think! Je voudrais le feedback, s'il vous plait.

I need someone tall, dark and handsome to save me from html hell...

My current pet peeve has become Facebook applications. Y'know, those add-ons that your wonderful friends keep inviting you to add. I dislike them so much, that this morning, I was hallucinating that they were the snooze on my alarm clock, waking me up every five minutes for a whole hour, and I was killing them one by one with a punch of my fist, muttering "goddamn you applications" as I doze off for another five minutes. True story.

I especially hate the ones "Honesty Box", or "Hot or Not", and "Top Friends". Everyone just grow up, okay?

These are some songs I'm really liking these days..

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

Marty Casey & Lovehammers - Trees

Metric - Combat Baby

Has anybody noticed how blogger-reader interactions on Facebook are different? It's as if the anonymity and privacy you try so hard to maintain behind aliases and vagueness is gone with a simple click of the "Add to Friends" button. At the same time it's great finding out more about the people whose posts you read, and having more flexibilty to communicate with them beyond the "comment" feature.

Yeay for Facebook!

Except for the weirdos who add me.

What's your take on it? Fill in the blank: Facebook is ___________ .

Why sometimes crowdsourcing doesn't work...

An article about headphones and iPods was in yesterday's Toronto Star.

For those who don't want to go through the whole article (and I don't blame you), it basically talks about how there's this new phenomena where everybody is tuned into something via headphones and tuning out of their surrounding environment. The writer tries to argue for the this new trend, but I feel like she didn't know how to word her support. I don't have an iPod or any type of mp3 player. My new phone I got back in August has an FM radio, but I rarely carry my headset for it, I have yet to tune into it outside my house. I hate this new headphone trend. I think that it isolates people even further from society. I understand listening to music, recordings, or the radio for entertainment purposes or to pass the time, but to wear them EVERYWHERE, to get from any Point A to Point B, is a pushing it a little, and I would say extremely selfish, for a lack of better word. I think our social fabrics are constantly being ripped and torn by trends that focus on communication via technology and are removing the need for physical "real" person-to-person contact and communication. If you read through the article, the writer notes how people use their headphones as excuses for not talking to people or to pretend that others don't exist (ie, homeless people, panhandlers, even salespeople), and wearing headphones somehow makes it alright not to return that random smile someone may have given you, or walk through town as if there aren't other people walking around you.

Heaphones isolate you from the rest of society for that period which you wear them in. People have a right to wear them and live in their little music bubbles, fine, but individuals living within a society also have a responsibility towards others (call me an idealist). Humans are naturally social beings and it's normal for people to make small talk on the subway, or smile at a person as you walk past them. I'll be the first to admit that I've had conversations with perfect strangers on the bus just because I've felt the need to socialize, it's refreshing. I remember reading elsewhere about how there are lots of people who live in huge metropolises with millions of people around them, and still feel extremely lonely. It's because of this increasing lack of socialization that people feel so lonely, and the headphone trend is only contributing to this problem. Lack of socialization causes much distress and psychological problems for people. Loneliness is one of the many reasons people may feel the need to commit suicide or commit violent acts because of anger or for attention. We should all have something to contribute to the general mental and social health and well-being of our society. At the same time, I don't expect everybody to suddenly take off their headphones and start up random conversations, many of us are introverts, but the simple fact that a person is not wearing headphones while sitting next to another person is recognition of other individuals sharing the same space, and that in itself is a form of socialization.

If you normally wear headphones and listen to music throughout most of your day, try reading a book on your commute instead, or go a day without them, for the sake of others.

As I mentioned earlier, I can't get "real" stats out of this thing unless I'm a paid member, and I can't put one of those free counters on my blog cause it doesn't allow HTML, BUT, they show you this really simple graph...

This is as of 12:45 am today and my # of visitors is growing!

Not like it's that big of a deal...

Ok, this is SO COOL.

The other day blog.com was down for maintainance, and that usually means they're adding some different feature or changing the layout of the dashboard, etc.

BUT, they've added TAGS. AND a TAG CLOUD (look at the sidebar!)

I LOVE TAGGING THINGS.

As part of completing my certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), I'm taking a course called Internet Distributed GIS for Public Engagement. It's basically a course on how to apply GIS technology and web-based geospatial social systems to communities for citizen participation. Yeah, that's a mouthful, and I didn't quite grasp the whole idea until a couple of weeks into class. I'm really enjoying it though, we have this really tech-savvy/nerdy instructor who shows us cool GIS-based websites and applications. Our first assignment, due Monday, is about examining a particular element of a current social software or web GIS application. One of the options was to look at the new geotagging feature in Flickr, and since I have very willingly surrendered to the awesomeness that is Flickr, I chose this option. Yes, I have dared to combine business and pleasure. This was my proposal:

I will explore how activist users and groups in the Flickr community use the geotagging tool and citizen-generated spatial data to communicate, organize, and advocate for their respective causes. I will study the geotagged maps of several groups and compare and contrast the ways in which the geotagging tool is used, either to document an event, share a news report, or organize and plan. It would be interesting to compare how geotagging is utilized and if it is more beneficial to city-specific groups (for example, an advocacy group based in Toronto) or global communities and organizations, and whether geotagging can be considered as an effective global communication tool in the activist circle. I hope to discuss ways in which geotagging, along with other features on Flickr, could be helpful in influencing citizen-engagement and furthering the role of activists on the web.

Since geotagging is a fairly new option, there aren't THAT many photos geotagged (compared to the amount of photos on Flickr), and frankly, many of them have been geotagged incorrectly, and its frustrating. Many people tend to geotagg from afar, whereas I zoom in to the max before I geotagg my photos.

So, I haven't really started my project yet, and if anyone has pointers/suggestions, it would be immensely appreciated :D

This is probably the umpteenth time I have had the urge to switch over to Blogger, but I still don't have the guts to do it. Everything's basically set up over at The "New" Coffeehouse, yet I still have to move all my posts, which is a very big hassle, plus I lose all my beloved comments. So please guide me oh humble readers of The Coffeehouse. To move, or not to move, that is the question...