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I can’t find this guy anywhere online. Is he homeless?

This guy is good, but he obviously didn’t win whatever obscure TV contest this is.

This guy’s good, but his collection of narcissistic series of videos worries me.

These are drunk Spaniards who were surprised by dawn and sangria.

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it looks like the central source for hipster satire and transplant hate, diehipster.com, is dead. Is this a nefarious plan perpetrated by some hipster who has finally had it? Has Brooklyn been nuked from orbit and I’m only just finding out? What is the American Apparel connection?

Beware those who poke fun at the weak-willed and poorly dressed of Brooklyn. They, too, will come for you.

(Or perhaps their hosting company has just hit the “website off” button.)

From Craigslist.org NYC:

“young jabba the hut looking for a temporary apartment, prefers something cool and damp, like a basement, and most preferably near washer and dryer (he loves the smell!) also he is neat and tidy (get him now before he becomes a huge ball of slime) and likes to fall asleep being read love poetry, preferably in arabic though fractured french is also accepted. good cuddler, too, and just so darn cute. check out the artist’s rendering: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bearandbird/3707464588/in/set-72157621227964172/“

$550 very specious Brooklyn apt. to share

At least they’re honest, just like my previous spammer.

Chris Anderson’s “bitch-ass” speech:

V. MC Double Def DP’s Don’t Copy That Floppy! from 1992 (with extra whitey hate)

Bonus: DCTF sequel coming soon (with extra prison rape)!

P.S. If your game/movie/television show is so bad that only pirates will watch it (read: no one wants to pay to watch it – I’m looking at you, Michael Bay), then you need to re-think your media. Shit’s changin’, yo!

Aside from being updated only four times in two months (!), the site is woefully underwhelming. The newest innovation? A photo mosaic of Destiny’s Child made completely out of thousands of pictures of other celebrities. Both the subject and the technological method are over a decade old.

Next on the list is an obnoxious flash application about iPhone “killer apps” that doesn’t fit on the screen, is hardly navigable, and which forces you to watch commercials. No, thanks.

After that is a 360 panorama from Venice. Again, late-90s stuff here.

I have been trying to believe this is some sort of April Fool’s joke that won’t die, but sure enough the “innovation” blog is still linked to on the front page of the Post’s website. Who the hell on their web dev team came up with these ideas? Creating blurry pictures of celebrities and obnoxious flash interfaces are not going to save newspaper journalism. In fact, it just drives away serious users and seriously damages the credibility of a once-venerable institution.

Update: Seems the Post “accidentally” tried to sell access to its reporters and to Obama administration officials. Now that’s innovation.

https://sites.google.com/site/tatsumairanupdate/

Great photos (though dated) here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html
and here:
http://tehranlive.org/

Plus the BBC’s live Farsi feed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/tv/2009/01/000000_ptv_live_s.shtml

Crazy times…

But what the internet has proven that even its largest fads can burn out within a few weeks. Remember that British woman with the great voice? Remember BananaPhone? Remember Mumbai? All these were high-powered internet obsessions that ebbed back into the undulating waves of the WWW. Supporting Iran is easy when all you have to do is Tweet and follow; but I wonder if even 10% of those Tweeting would be marching in that protest (or if they will even remember the cause three weeks from now).

I would love to expound on this, but I still don’t have reliable access to the ‘net. And I’m not even in Iran…

There is a terrible downside to this: the expense. There are only so many times you can order a single $1 coffee after a week of incessant Wi-Fi use. I knew it became a problem when the “barista,” who rarely left the confines of her coffee cockpit, came over and asked if I would like a refill. Nope, I’m just heading out, but thanks anyway, I would say while frantically finishing up my most recent soon-to-be-ignored cover letter. And out the door I went, on the prowl for another unsuspecting cafe with the wireless junk.

So after a few days of feeling walking the streets, hauling my laptop in a cheap backpack (a monkey on my back?) from shop-to-shop, I decided to take it easy. Sure, the lighter wallet was a major factor, but perhaps, I thought, I can learn to get by without the ever-present feed.

I found myself waking up in the morning and not of worrying about what was happening now. Instead I boiled my coffee slowly and cracked open a book written in 1988.And there I would sit for an hour or so, breakfasting slowly and digesting my home-brewed Folgers crystals. I had plenty of time to reflect on my current situation (for good or ill) and how it came to be. But that’s all for another post.

It seems this free Wi-Fi phenomenon is the perfect metaphor for the assault the internet is having on traditional media, i.e. books and newspapers. Any cafe worth its salt wouldn’t dare to deny the technorati with a wireless link. Sure, it gets bodies in the door, and it was all the rage once the technology became ubiquitous. But the true cost to the vendor comes to life when he finds his seats full of $1 cups of coffee hooked up to his internet connection and no room for more customers. But if he ever gets rid of the internet connection, all of those sales will rush to the shop down the street, which still does offer internet. What to do?

Now look at modern newspapers. It was all the rage in the early 2000s to dump their contents online free of charge. Besides, if they didn’t, readers would rush to competing newspapers who did offer the goods. Advertising sales online don’t compare to their print counterparts and the newspaper is left with a room full of $1 coffees and the huge expense of producing quality journalism.

Ah, you say if we have such similar problems, then perhaps a solution for the former will work for the latter. This is true; but there is no solution for the Wi-Fi drain just yet. That is not to say the big companies are not working on it.

Desperate for a link-up I stumbled into a Starbucks on some desolate corner. Inside I fell forward. When the smiling hostess asked what I would like to drink, I asked in a raspy voice whether they had Wi-Fi. Sure they do, but first I have to buy a card from them, go online, create an account with AT&T mobile, register my card, say a prayer to God, buy two cups of coffee, and I’ll get two free hours of Wi-Fi per day. The last couple of requirements I made up because by that time my eyes had crossed. I spilled onto the street in a daze, trying to shake away the withdrawal hallucinations. I needed a hotspot and I new there would be another one around the corner if I just kept looking.

Will big companies like the Wall Street Journal ever get customers to pay and play by arcane rules for what has so long been free? I suppose, but only if they’re the only game in town. And by the way the newspaper industry is looking, that may be sooner than we think.