We had precisely zero submissions. I’m speechless, gentle readers, but ultimately not terribly surprised. We are a sparse, busy, and easily distracted lot here at RKNet, and we can only assume that our readership shares at least some of these qualities. Most notably the sparseness, what with the sheer lack of exposure. It will change, someday, you’ll see, you’ll ALL see! BWAHAHAHAHAHA-*cough* ’scuse me.
I would like to give honorary first place, however, to Dr. Hypercube for his amazing concept submission. While he was not confident that he could produce the appropriate visual representation of his thoughts on the matter, he was kind enough to send me his idea.
Stay tuned for a complete write up, with pictures to help shed some light on the brilliance at work, soon to come.
Go on and just tell me what’s wrong with this picture! I don’t know if it’s coincidental or contextual but either way it is downright hilarious! Well, except for the obvious reminder that the Almighty Google is not really all that mighty. Especially when you pit them against the hundreds of thousands of people working day and night to hack the crap out of them for personal gain.
The image links directly to the slashdot article in question.
So I came into work this morning, only to have a co-worker mention to me that AdCenter, MSN, and Hotmail all weren’t working for him. I checked a couple things and the sites loaded up just fine for me, but when I tried to log into AdCenter I got a friendly message saying that they were down for the time being.
Curiouser and curiouser. Then my first tweet of the day appeared:
trodrigues: msn servers are down. thousands of young portuguese girls commit mass suicide.
Intrigued, I decided to start tracking instances of “MSN” through Twitter IM. Boy, was that ever a mistake! The messages - most of them not in english - began pouring in, and my IM window has been blinking like mad all morning.
Some of the highlights:
(matheusodorisi): gente, o msn naum entra de forma alguma! appocalipse now!
(s1mone): @kakah o MSN morreu! Vida longa o GTalk!!!
(pvdp): Kom msn niet op.
(jonviray): MSN down for anyone else? people here at work are getting piiiissseed……
(hdur): Supongo que MSN enfurece a los dioses de Pakistán.
(Hausdorff): MSN産経のページ，なめてんのかって位重い
(justinkeller): Adium users: is MSN giving you problems today?
(jcloop): what the fruit is wrong with MSN messenger AND Hotmail??
(agenteinforma): MSN fora do ar não só no Brasil: http://tinyurl.com/3a4qyr
(jaredavery): What a nice start to my day. Had to help mum get in to Hotmail because MSN Messager did not want to work for her.
(cl0): who cares if you can’t get on msn? chances are not many people will wanna talk to you lot anyway ;)
And tons more comments like that. Lots of suggestions to try Meebo or defect to Gtalk. None of them seem to have any concrete intel on WHY MSN/Hotmail/et al are down, or if they do I don’t know enough portuguese/spanish/insert-other-languages-here to make it out.
I would like to note, that from my end, MSN messenger (using Pidgin) worked just fine, as did visiting LiveSpaces. The home page of Hotmail loaded up but I didn’t bother trying to log in.
What more is there to say? Ok, well, for anyone who isn’t in the know: SMITH Magazine, Larry Smith, and Rachel Fershleiser set about collecting six word memoirs from all types of people. Some were famous, some were just everyday people who entered a contest to have their miniaturized life story printed.
At some point, Rachel Fershleiser wound up on my Gtalk list, and I periodically mouse over people’s names to see what their tag lines say. Well! Imagine my surprise when I mouse over her name and see that the book has hit the New York Times’ Bestseller List (Category: Advice/How-to/Misc)!
It’s currently at #9, and it’s the book’s first week on the list. With all the rave reviews, great press, and (I imagine) a lot of contributor-based enthusiastic sharing, I’m really not surprised. With any luck, we’ll find our way to #1! I can’t emphasize enough how much fun this book is, and how addictive it is to start applying the six-word limitation to come up with summations of life, love, and all kinds of ephemera. Get in on the hubbub by going to the site or go pick up the book.
Well kids, there’s about 2 days left for RKNet’s very first contest: Design-a-Vagina.
Truth be told I still haven’t come up with any suitable prizes, although the following options have crossed my mind:
Print the winning entry on a shirt, bag, or just get it on some really nice print stock.
Some manner of personal manipulation device (a.k.a. dildo)
A gift certificate of some sort.
A hearty congratulations and a page to enshrine the winner for all time.
However, given that there have been approximately ZERO entries thus far (not even non-qualified entries from the judges!), I suspect that I may not have to concern myself with prizes. Should anyone desire to participate, now is the time! If there’s significant activity near the closing bell I will be more than happy to accept entries that are technically “late”.
Gentle readers, this is your time to shine. Scrape at the creative mucus that resides in your skull for the sake of re-imagining that oh-so-mysterious entry to the female generative organs and we promise not to disappoint in rewarding you.
Creative Close up did a post with photos of and links to 100 papercraft ideas. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “papercraft”, it can be defined as: taking a pattern for a 3d object and constructing it entirely out of paper. Not quite like origami, since you are encouraged to cut, glue, and supplement to achieve the final product.
The closest to papercraft I’ve gotten is making a dunce cap by rolling up a sheet of 8.5×11 and taping it. Still, with 100 ideas and resources to pull from, maybe I can move up to something more interesting and advanced. And remember kids, the paste is for putting on the paper, not eating. I know there’s a picture of that smug steer on the bottle, but I promise you Elmer’s is not exactly a delicious burger in liquid format.
Speaking of paper, earlier chesh in #ectomo shared a really great link to some of the prettiest wallpapers I’ve ever seen. I mentioned that it would be super neat if they could make wallpaper that copied the evil elf wallpaper in the house on Dutch Hill from The Wastelands, but I couldn’t find a scan of the art from the book to demonstrate what I meant. Anybody with a handy scanner and whatnot that can hook me up?
Although Guided By Voices were around between 1983 and 2004, there is a good chance you’ve never heard of this band. I know I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the combined efforts of a cover by …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and Ian’s prodigious musical knowledge.
The song I’m sharing with you is the one I’m desperately, madly in love with these days. Clocking in at a meager 1:45 (2:14 on the Trail of Dead cover), it’s hard to believe it could be so moving. This brief sampling off of 1994’s Bee Thousand is slow and delicate like an aged alley cat and just like that old cat it still resonates like the graceful killer living at its core. That, and you know, there is all that rusty yowling.
The lo-fi buzz permates the latter half, sending the song from a quiet mystery into a trip into the past, when records were cut in one take or bust, all the instruments in one room, and you’d better hope the drums were properly muffled because we aren’t doing this again, dammit.
I highly recommend giving the rest of Bee Thousand a listen. If you have an interest in early R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, or perhaps some of these newer lo-fi and indie darlings like The White Stripes or Trail of Dead, then you should really be listening to Guided By Voices. For those less interested in the actual audio aspect, you can stun all your hipster friends with your new found, old school indie cred, you trend whore.
For musicians, the Guided By Voices website has the chords available for a bunch of their songs (Caution: Frames! T_T). In that same section are MP3s and Real Audio files of live performances, as well as a couple videos.
Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory (lyrics by Guided By Voices)
Cold hands touching my face
Don’t hide… the snake can see you
Old friends you might not remember
Fading away from you
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
And we looked
And we passed
Through the hallways of shatterproof glass
She runs through the night as if nobody cares
She screams and she cries and ignores all the stares
She wants me to come, but I’m never going there
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
Simple links that summarize my feelings for this particular pseudo holiday that inspires more jealousy, depression, and ill-will than possibly even Christmas!
Wordlab - $122.98 Says I Love You In which the spending habits of the besotted and pussywhipped are discussed.
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a 1 author project, with periodic guest posts. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail.com if you'd like to play here to.
