leet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

leet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"After the meaning of these became widely familiar, 10100111001 came to be used in its place, because it is the binary form of 1337, making it more of a puzzle to interpret.[9]"

Identity politics meets the web

From an email describing recent changes to Google's AdSense:

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

So many have noted that the net seems to provide a place for people to exist without the conventional/legacy baggage of race, gender, size, and other appearance-based stereotypes and prejudices. It appears that now, if you keep cookies and don't surf privately, Google has seem fit to start creating and applying its own labels for you based on behavior. It's the ADHD of eAdverts.

I wonder if Google would ever sell your labels to another corporation?

Streaming radio, interface, and choice

I like to listen to talk radio. I admit it. Mostly sports. There's a pretty big difference between the way I listen to radio in the car and the way I listen inside. In the car, I'm a dedicated flipper. If I've got commercials on ESPN, I go to Fox Sports Radio, and vice versa. They stagger just enough that I can, sort of like late night talk shows on TV, end up listening to very few commercials at all.

At home, I don't flip the radio. Two reasons for this, I think. For one, our local sports affiliates are on AM, and it takes a while to get the antenna straight each time I swap. It's also because our radios have tuning dials inside, and it's not a one-button thing. If I had a Boston Acoustics radio with presets instead of a Tivoli and a Wal-Mart special, maybe I'd play around more.

Yet much of the radio I listen to at home is off of the 'net. We have an old iMac now sitting in the living room when I'm at home with great speakers, and often I use it to listen. The interface for streaming sports talk radio is tied directly to a single network. To swap from one to another involves navigating to another web page and running through a click or three. This is a much greater barrier to entry.

I'd like to conceive of this as a change in ownership with respect to end interfaces. I own the radio, and though my Tivoli has the geekiest of NPR badges on it, there's nothing about the innards (hardware and, here nonexistent, software) that's biased to a particular provider beyond that relatively passive badge (it was a gift, I swear!). With streaming radio, the provider owns the software, at least to a point. They might employ Flash for RealPlayer or Quicktime, but the interface is not reusable.



The web streaming audio is like cable, but cable that only provides one feed. It's designed to reduce choice, which I'd argue is partially evidenced by all the gaudy ads you'll often find on the player window. They know you can't leave. (And that's a lot of money for Haynesworth. Hope this isn't Gilbert all over again.)

I think there's some connection to mobile privatization here, specifically that the means of reception are no longer privatized by the consumer. Digital media seems to enable its own appropriation in a way the old nodes of reception don't.

Theorycrafting again

Grey Matter - Twisted Nether Wiki:

Since then the blog has grown to include Moonkin related theorycrafting and general moonkin information to help people to play the spec.

Today's Vocab Word: Theorycrafting

Bogost fans apparently might call this "delineating procedural rhetoric."

Posts from the Guides Category at Massively:

Apparently theorycrafting isn't just for hardcore RPGers anymore. Tipa of the West Karana blog put together an interesting primer on the hidden numbers behind kid-friendly (and adult too - don't be shy) MMO, Wizard101.

Arguing that digital is no longer exceptional but normal

From Gruber at Daring Fireball:

I’ll put it in writing: the best motion picture released last year was WALL-E. Like 2001 — which WALL-E pays significant homage to — it wasn’t even nominated for best picture. But it effectively couldn’t be nominated — and that’s the real crime. Instead, WALL-E was nominated for and awarded the prize for “best animated film”.1

But why does this category even exist? Animated as opposed to what? Photographed? Animation is merely a technique. Cinema is cinema.

Playing RTS for credit

StarCraft 2 The Unofficial Site - StarCraft 2 The Unofficial Site! (via insidemacgames.com):

UC Berkeley students with an interest in real-time strategy games and the competitive gaming landscape are encouraged to participate in this class