Disqus - Latest Comments for wogan

Re: Fan Fiction’s Predictive Value for Nielsen Ratings

wogan — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:58:41 -0000

I suppose it's only natural to see correlations in this. Art is human expression, and the better the art is, the stronger response you'll generate across the board. Fanfiction is no exception, and you're right: it should be treated as valid feedback.

If only it were possible to convince the lawsuit-happy types of this :/

Good analysis, too - as someone who deals with complicated reports on a daily basis, I can only imagine how much fun it was ;)

Re: 2008/08/25/no-free-lunch-google/

wogan — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:32:01 -0000

Mmmpf, sorry, all that sushi got to me. Especially love the way it's prepared in Cape Town, South AFRICA.

Re: Our Microblogging Lives: Work, Home, Lunch, Sleep?

wogan — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:29:23 -0000

"Supercore", lol

Re: Why Fan History won’t be moving to Wikia any time soon

wogan — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:49:01 -0000

Monopolies suck.

Not in the naive everything-I-don't-understand-sucks way, but the simple fact is that they do. Monopolies are only good for the highest stakeholders - the rest of us, ie. the consumers on the ground, ultimately suffer.

Which is why it's good to hear that there are still some people out there who wouldn't sell out nearly as quickly. What we NEED is more - more sites, more companies, more approaches to a given niche of human culture. Capitalistic optimization was never good for the spirit of creativity.

So on those grounds, Laura, well done - without even getting into the specifics of Wikia's offer ;)

And, holy cow, 800k pages? :|

Re: Judge: Microsoft Banned from Selling Word in the US

wogan — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:22:15 -0000

1: "...containing *custom* XML".

Custom XML? Are you serious? The X stands for "eXtensible" - THE WHOLE LANGUAGE IS CUSTOM!

This is an absolutely ridiculous injunction - I don't expect anything less than the whole thing being overturned in MS' favor.

Re: Facebook Farce: Top British Spy Exposed on Facebook

wogan — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:03:42 -0000

Well, slap me silly - spies are human beings too.

Re: US Texting Champ Sends 470 Text Messages per Day

wogan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:24:22 -0000

Yup. Americans are crazy on their texting. Mostly because they get unlimited plans, which obviously makes it a whole lot more affordable - and a substitute for, like, real conversations and stuff.

Edit: It should also be pointed out, that at Vodacom's largest SMS bundle, 14k SMSes a month costs about R3150. That's one reason SA users aren't SMS-heavy ;)

Re: Fight Mediocrity

wogan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:09:09 -0000

As far as education goes, I think most people have it wrong. It's not about teaching - it's about enabling your students to learn. And that enablement is really more of a burden on the student than anyone else - how many college dropout millionaires can you name?

Of course, these days, to excel is not necessary in order to survive. Qualifications have become a commodity, and careers can be bought and sold. In this type of world, why bother trying to stand head and shoulders above the rest? It might have mattered in the Industrial Revolution (and the Cold War, and the digital revolution), where every new day was a struggle to innovate and come out on top, but not so anymore.

And this is why so few take the initiative to push the boundaries - to "fight mediocrity". We've built a system that thrives on (indeed, *demands*) mediocrity, and punishes those who dare to break step. We're seeing a change only now, with the global recession and the rise of work-at-home digital freelancers, but for the most part, people are still stuck in "survival" mode - instead of "succeed" mode.

But that's just me rambling, thanks largely to the incredible winter we're having :)

Re: Help to sponsor Tweekly.fm

wogan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:40:15 -0000

I noticed you're hosting with Serv. I host with them too (don't get me wrong), but where R150/month gets you 5gb/66.5gb, you can get 10gb/200gb (for R95/month) with a VPS hosted in Canada, UK or LA: http://www.vpsville.ca/vps-plans

They support Moneybookers, so you don't even need a Mastercard. As it happens, I might even have an unused server I can clean out and donate - if you can handle R100/month ;)

Get me at wogan.may{at}gmail.com if you're interested.

Re: Making Millions via Twitter: @DellOutlet Surpasses $2 Million in Sales

wogan — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:51:20 -0000

Isn't this sort of a "duh hello?" moment? Obviously you're going to sell stuff if you present your offers directly to consumers. That's sort of how marketing works.

Re: Whose art is it, anyway?

wogan — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:50:16 -0000

There's one unfortunate reality here - the Cloud never forgets. Once you post something on the internet, private or not, locked or not, watermarked or not, it's public domain, and there's nothing you can do about it.

There are really only 2 things you can do. If you need to make a living from the Internet (selling paintings etc), place very low quality/heavily watermarked versions online. If you really want a painting, the watermarks won't put you off, but if you intend to repurpose it illegally, you'll look like an idiotic thief.

The second option, if the art is not critical to your survival, give it a CC Attribution license and turn it loose. You'll earn far more credit by letting people use your work (and linking back to you), than by being a constant nag about it being "stolen".

And if you do sell artwork (and people are nabbing the previews), having them link back to you could even drive sales, since: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/stu... - any publicity is good publicity.

But yeah - if you're going to stick something online and try to dictate how/where it can be used, you're gonna fail miserably, suffer stress and look like a stone-ager all at the same time.

Re: Another Twitter client to give Seesmic & Tweetdeck a run

wogan — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 07:17:10 -0000

You know what I'd like to see? A twitter client that doesn't use AIR. It's a great platform, if you have a machine that can multitask properly, and has loads of RAM to spare.

Re: I'm having an impossible amount of trouble getting SMTP set up on my LG KU990 - anyone out there with experience? #lazyweb

wogan — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:54:17 -0000

Never mind. Problem solved.

Re: Defamation in 140 characters

wogan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:32:19 -0000

If blogs were missiles, Twitter would be a chaingun nuclear rocket launcher. It's all the power of social media, sped up to the point where it can run hopelessly out of control, before sanity has a chance to settle things.

So yes - don't underestimate it. Especially if you don't intend on paying a designer, and then cause a stink over it. While you might have gotten away with that in your private life, you're now choosing to disregard your own rights to privacy, and that will have backlash.

Re: Facebook shouldn’t copy Twitter

wogan — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:52:56 -0000

I love the new "twitter-like" thing, because what it does is it allows you to post status updates, links, photos and videos right from that little box. And it allows you to discuss any item in the stream. It's much, much better than Twitter in just about every respect.

All they've done is condensed the best of Facebook into an easy-to-use interface. It's a good job, imo.

Re: Why I am a Facebook fan again

wogan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:10:40 -0000

I admit, the TOS threw me into a bit of a scare too, but unlike the behemoths of today, FB's willingness to adopt an entirely new direction on this has restored my faith in them somewhat. Try getting, oh, MySpace to do that.

I guess that's what you get when you cut-and-paste the TOS from a completely different system :)

Re: A company I despise, but yet can’t live without

wogan — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:19:36 -0000

Homemark!

Re: Trying Out Disqus Comment System - Feedback Wanted

wogan — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:05:02 -0000

That depends on whether or not you want the content of the comments to sit on your own server, or disqus.com.

If you don't need the functionality or layout, it might be better to not use disqus, since if anything should happen to them, you'll lose all your comments + functionality. And if anything happens to you, comments would probably be the least of your concerns :)

Re: Worlds Dumbest Woman Blames Ubuntu for College Failure

wogan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:39:45 -0000

I'm being failed by more than words :/

Re: Microsoft: We Screwed Up Windows 7 Beta, So Unlimited Downloads for Two Weeks

wogan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 02:25:35 -0000

"Free" is NOT EQUAL to "Open Source". Microsoft can happily offer full DVD ISOs without revealing a single line of code. Of course, the question is, would you really want it?

The hardware requirements for 7 are about the same as Vista, and in terms of Windows OSes, neither of them will be as widespread or as stable as XP. Before you Mac/Linux freaks climb all over this, check this out: http://tinyurl.com/6pwccg . Yes, that's nearly EIGHTY NINE PERCENT marketshare for Windows. Let us not hear of "rapidly declining marketshare", please.

If any of you actually USE XP, you'd know that it's one of the most stable and flexible operating systems around. Obviously your computer's going to crash if you try overclocking every piece of silicon on your motherboard, hack your OS to high heaven, and then try and run something two generations past your machine. Treat it with respect, and it'll treat you with respect. Simple.

I have a good friend who has a very good take on all of this. Windows rose to dominance by offering products that, generation to generation, looked and functioned nearly the same. 95 -> 98 -> 2000 -> XP. You could install any of those and immediately know your way around. Then they come up with Vista, which suddenly has a WHOLE NEW method of navigation, a host of brand new compatibility issues, error dialogs and warning messages that have never appeared before, and Microsoft wonders why the general populace isn't switching.

The general populace, FYI, are the people that never read the dialog box messages before they click "Ok", they're the ones that never check their address bar for phishing sites, they're the ones that'll happily surf porn sites with no antivirus, open suspicious email attachments, and do P2P with absolutely no regard for the wonder that is "Common Sense".

Offering Windows 7 as a free download will do nothing to solve their tremendous PR problem. IMHO, they need to look at exactly what their consumer base wants. What their consumer base wants is an OS they understand, to do the things they need to do, and to operate with as little fuss as possible - and when it all falls apart, the support has to be straightforward. Vista didn't offer that, and likely, neither will Windows 7, so I'll stick with XP, thanks.

Re: Prince Harry caught on film making racists comments [Video]

wogan — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:41:51 -0000

I haven't watched the video, but I'm sure the people being "insulted" were man enough to take it, and they probably dished out some in return. It's the MILITARY for f*ck's sake!

Re: Atheist Bus Campaign Complaint Claims There’s No Proof God Doesn’t Exist. This is going to end well

wogan — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:10:10 -0000

Actually, that ad isn't far off the mark. I'd have preferred it if it read "There is a God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life". Or, at the very least, "There is no divine slavedriver, now stop worrying and enjoy your life".

Personally, I find it quite the hilarity that atheists spend all their time trying to prove that the wrong god doesn't exist.

Re: Does a Negative Online Review Constitute Libel?

wogan — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:43:27 -0000

If you haven't got anything good to say, say nothing at all.

I think the problem here is that social media instills a sort of "duty" to warn others of terrible services (or in this case, hotels). I believe that those bloggers were fully within their rights to say what they said. If the claims are false, then the hotel companies would easily be able to invite a few unbiased members of the public (or media) to check out hotel conditions, and get proof that the blogger was over-reacting.

The fact that they're going to court with this would seem to suggest otherwise, and whether or not they win the lawsuit, I reckon people are going to think twice when they hear their name. They're doing themselves more damage than a blog post ever could.

Re: Nhlannia Nene Breaks Chair on Morning Live...

wogan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:56:26 -0000

Hahahahaha! OWNED!

+1 for being the best bit of comedy SA's ever produced!

Re: SynthaSite wins Industry Standard Awards

wogan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:20:30 -0000

Rocking! Keep up the good work :)