It would appear that by and large the internet community is split between those who care about their follower statistics with their shallow, selfish and quite often big-headed discourse on the subject in contrast to those who don’t or rather whom take the high-horse and say that they do not; now please do not misunderstand me, statistics are incredibly useful and in truth I myself keep a keen eye on those collected for photogabble, however they can be easily misunderstood:

It is the quality of those whom visit you and not the quantity that at the end of the day truly matter, it is entirely irrelevant even if you are receiving ten thousand visitors a month – as if only three of them have left a comment or engaged with you in some other way then realistically you have only reached out to those three individuals.

It is a shame that the internet has become the playground of those whom wish to “1-up” one another with meaningless statistics of follower numbers in their twitter and facebook pages, visitors on their blogs and even phone numbers in their address books. None of this matters because at the end of the day you are simply just adding more noise into an already noisy auditorium and those whom are the movers and shakers within this online domain, those who you want to read can’t see the field for the corn.

What you want to do, rather than focus on meaningless statistics, is put your time and effort into building up discourse with other people who share similar interests to yours. If you run a blog on parenting, go and read up on other blogs within the same genre and become an active reader on their websites, commenting and even guest posting where available. Eventually you will yourself become noticed as people follow this bread crumb of interest back to your blog and begin directly interacting with the knowledge you publish.

The one huge problem I have with social media is the disturbing trend of people adding absolute strangers to their “friends” lists just for the sake of having more friends than other people they know. While queuing for a ride at Alton Towers I overheard someone’s daughter whom couldn’t have been much older than maybe twelve or thirteen brag about having more than seven hundred friends on facebook to her friends and obviously everyone else within earshot in the line; this sort of behaviour is frightening for one reason: you do not know many of these people!

I have kept the friends list of my facebook pretty low profile, within its exclusive pages contain the names of actual people I know, have known (went to school with, ex-colleagues, university friends, etc) or friends of friends met at parties whom I keep in touch with. At most I have at any one time less than two hundred people linked from that list and have no inclination to grow more because its already an impossible task keeping up with the amount of information blasted at me on an hourly basis, as it is.

As it stands, we as a culture are growing ever more information saturated and I can only presume that more events such as that depicted in the above screen shot, will become ever more prevalent to those of a younger and more impressionable age, caused simply due to our natural instinct to one-up everyone else and add people we do not know, giving them access to our personal space and information.

The power of four as shown through a remarkably unique advertising campaign, these adverts are both simplistic in execution and excellent in transmitting the message of “so good it removes every hair.” I discovered this via heartistandhismodel.com and a couple more photos can be seen below, this is almost on par with using ants as a form of advertising.

From what I remember they used the sound track from the beginning of the film up until the robots c3p0 and r2d2 escape to Tatuine.

In all honesty while the crew have gotten older, the sets been updated to near Doctor Who production quality and the plot modified for a brand new audience, I don’t believe that any of this has made the new Red Dwarf bad at all. The new episodes references to Blade Runner also added something new to the Red Dwarf genre and the cheese was on an all time high. Overall while things have been changed, I don’t think it is at all bad. Dave brought back Red Dwarf after 10 years of it sitting collecting dust and its bound to be a different item as audeinces change. I am just happy they kept the best of what Red Dwarf is and built upon it for a new generation of Dwarfers!

I was watching the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy over the weekend, it is one of the few things I can sit back and just watch without analysis a habit instilled within in me through three years of media study. Until last night I was happy in having something to simply watch until now. The above still frame is from a 1920s short animation produced and directed by Walt Disney in collaboration with the animator Ub Iwerks called The Skeleton Dance. It is referenced within the episode of Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy where Billy dresses up in a chicken costume to “follow his dream” something which ends up with Grim and Mandy following him to a farm where a magical music box has turned everything into a 1920s animation, where upon Grim is transformed into the second from right skeleton shown from the original animation above. I couldn’t find any clips of the episode in question online, it appears either not interesting enough to post about or its creators have been hunting people down whom post anything about the cartoon. I only just stumbled upon this reference by chance through the online group who killed bambi, it would be interesting to find more references within the cartoon but I shall leave that open to someone else as I am happy enough to have this one thing to go back to and simply watch.

Andrew Sullivan lists the above within his Daily Dish as his Campaign Sign Of The Day photo and it does appear to sum up what is actually happening in America. From todays BBC report on the US polls it looks like there has been a record turnout, I just hope that whom ever wins it actually does a good job this time. Not that it would be too difficult to beat Bush, putting him in power was like giving a five year old keys to a monster truck.

Now add to the mix the Performing Rights Society, the UK organisation collecting money on behalf of the music industry. Whom seem to stop at nothing to ensure that their bosses get every last penny of money out of small businesses, charities, play schools and childrens community centers listening to music while they work. While it can be argued that such places as clubs and pubs receive commercial benefit from playing music, indeed within night clubs that is the entire idea and as such these businesses can absorb licensing fees as a legitimate business expense.

However the PRS has become ever more aggressive with its task of collecting money for its bosses, to the point that it has now begun demanding money from Children’s Community Centers just so the children can watch a dvd, money the playgroups cant afford being that many are a non-profit or charity group with little to no income kept going by devoted volunteers. Even worse, the PRS have gone after anyone who plays the radio within an earshot of the general public. This has lead to 61 year-old mechanic Paul Wilson, who has worked alone at his garage for 23 years since he was 15 being forced to now work in silence. Saying in a recent interview that:

When I was first contacted by the PRS I thought somebody was having a laugh with me.

This is indeed no laughing matter, the PRS in their infinitive wisdom have even targeted carol singers, whom now can be forced into handing over thousands of pounds just for the freedom to sing. Which in itself is counter-productive as their singing to raise funds may only collect a few hundred pounds for charity a far cry from the amounts the PRS is demanding them pay in the first instance.

You hear reports of this going on all the time over in the States, but it has become widely accepted within British discussionary circles that America has become neo-conservative with a government that is a) not affraid of its people and b) working against its peoples interests to further the demands by industury. It is ludicrous to think that these kind of “mafia-like” techniques are being used within the walls of Great Britain by an organisation whom make it clear that all they care about is one thing – money, and that they show an amoral ideology in how they get that money.

While the British Police are fighting their case against the PRS for demanding money we in Britain can breath a sigh of relief knowing that our own legal system hasn’t gone completely bonkers, however if the case is won in favour of the PRS then please feel free to riot in the streets and show your anger at the racketeering tatics of the PRS by breaking some stuff, preferably theirs.

I end this discussion/rant with the following end note to give you something more to think about within this debate: the radio broadcasters pay the PRS a pile of cash in liscensing fees so that they may advertise the PRS’s clients work to the public. So when the PRS then go to that public demanding extra money for listening to said radio broadcasts is this not double dipping? Could this be desperation on the music industries part due to their other water holes and cash cows drying up? Or is this just further proof to how evil an empire the music industry has become to the point that they are happy to destroy familys and communities for that extra pound in their accounts?

Source Story: Copyright Cops Target Kids’ Schools and Community Centers.

The wooster collective has reported on a new “shop” oppening in New York City with a uniqe twist on the wears that it offers. It is reportedly a new public exhibition by the aclaimed gorilla artist Banksy. There has been some question over wether it is a real Banksy exhibition or not as there have before been multiple events marketed under the artists name simply to encourage visitors, with no affiliation to Banksy at all.

Wether or not this is a real Banksy exhibition and to be honest it does look to be in his style, if not a little too conformist; it looks to be very interesting to visit regardless of the author. If your in New York and can get to the area give it a visit, and if you can, send me some photos

It can be found at 89 7th Avenue between West 4th and Bleeker Street in the West Village of New York City.

These bar codes by a Japanese company called D-Barcode really stand out from the usual barcode you see on every object in your local supermarket, apparently these adorn almost all products in Japan making the food packaging design more of an art form than you would see here in England. For me these are amazing examples of what happens when you introduce a little bit of creativity to a mundane object such as the everyday barcode and something I feel could bring a little happiness into the normally depressing supermarket shop if it were to be introduced over here. More examples below:

Source: Dark Roasted Blend Via Popgadget.