Buku Muka

I'll tell you a secret. I'm addicted to Facebook. Since my boss (older than me by at least a decade) mentioned in a meeting that he's on Facebook, I figured I should succumb to the hype and jump on the bandwagon, y'know. Can't be seen as a non-nerd—not while I work in a tech/web company!

On a slightly more noble note, I am actually interested in web culture and social trends. So Facebook fits in nicely with my learning goals and interests. And for some reason, perhaps because I never was on the other social networking Goliath i.e. Friendster, it's made me rather hyper about finding friends and checking notifications. These days, I'd consider myself an evangelist for Facebook. I've been asking heaps of people if they're on, and explaining that there are so many fun, time-wasting things to do on it.

"Like what?" they ask.

I usually say that you can poke people, have an aquarium or zoo, draw graffiti, fight with others, buy people drinks, send baked items, and play Scrabulous, but even as the words come out, I feel like a nine-year-old kid jumping up and down with his new toy. Listen, all ye working folks. Facebook is dangerous! If you're as easily distracted as me, you can get addicted to it!

On a side note, my main gripe with Facebook is that it doesn't give you the flexibility of choosing how you'd like your name to appear. For those who type in their Chinese names with surname first, Facebook will automatically assume that those are their first names and thus address you as such. I hate being called by my surname, and attempts to change that have been ignored by Facebook. In fact, they've officially rejected my appeal and banned me for two weeks from attempting to change my name again. Idiots, I say.

reCAPTCHA & Other Reads

You know how leaving comments on people's blogs sometimes involves having to figure out some squiggly alphabets that are hard to read? Well, I just learned that some of these are linked to reCAPTCHA, a programme that digitises old scanned texts by having humans solve these 'puzzles' around the world, all the time. It's pretty interesting and if you go to the site, you can actually help digitise scanned words. (After 20 'successes', I also realised it's easy to get addicted to reCAPTCHAing.) Anyway, never once did it cross my mind that all those annoying validation processes potentially have a noble cause.

Two other pretty good reads:
The Worst Jobs in Science 2007 (from Popular Science) - think 'Whale-Feces Researcher' or 'Elephant Vasectomist'
The Formula (from New Yorker) - what if we built a machine to predict hit movies?

Music Binge

Over the past few days, I have found myself addicted to downloading mp3s ever since I rediscovered mp3 blogs and mp3 blog aggregators like The Hype Machine. When I say addicted, I mean seriously addicted, to the point that I figure out strategies for my downloading activities, as not all of these activities take place at err... private property, and because one particular machine at this non-private place has err... Alzheimer's, and err, perhaps I am supposed to be doing other things...

Anyway, mp3 blog aggregators really do help you scour the high seas for free mp3s while discovering new music you like (they compile the latest mp3 blog postings and make the content searchable). I download music torrents a lot, but there are major limitations like i) you first need to know what you want to download; ii) most torrents are for latest releases--the old albums are usually taken off; iii) if you're into niche music, it'd be easier to find me at a Paris Hilton concert than you getting your feed here.

While hunting down great music on your own can be very rewarding, it also takes time. A lot of time. I've sat through hours of patient downloading, all the while reading other people's glowing reviews of said band, only to click 'play' and discover the music sucks--to me at least. (On a side note, with the gluttony of music in the world today, you do need to start sharpening your own earbuds to what you like so that you don't drown in all the sounds. Different people like different music, so it's useless trying to find reasons to agree with all the hype if you really don't.)

Anyway, three bands / artistes that stand out from my current binging, in no particular order, are:

1. The National (listen to them on Spinner here)
2. Thomas Dybdahl (whose collaborations led me to discover another amazing voice, Christel Alsos)
   
3. Peter and the Wolf (among other things, this dude plays in cemeteries at night and travels to gigs by boat)
   

It's all great music. You really should check them out. By the power vetoed me by My Honourable Self, go!!!


mp3 blog aggregators, the national, thomas dybdahl, christel alsos, peter & the wolf