TechCrunch points to two much-needed services in the over-congested world of online-networking:
Isolatr isn’t a real service, but it should be. Sean Bonner of Metroblogging created the site, which promises to “help you find where other people aren’t”. For bonus content, check out the FAQs (every answer is “no”). I love the attention to detail, like calling it a beta service, leaving the “e” out of the name and adding fake quotes from Doc Searls and Xeni Jardin.
Chris Pirillo has been asking for something like this (but real) for ages. Valleywag has more.
Bryant Choung’s Snubster is an actual, live service. It helps you notify people, and the world, that you are pissed off at someone. The “On Notice” feature tells them that they have committed an “infraction” and are in a suspension period. If they really screw up, you can state that they are “Dead to Me”. Each user has a profile (example) where they can get into the juicy details. The only question I have is, why is there an “e” before the “r” in the snubster name?
Add to this list, Memeorandum‘s just-launched gossip-tracking buzzblog WeSmirch.
Curt Hopkins, founding director of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, passed me a note as part of a call-to-blogs to help free Jill Carroll by disseminating a video PSA plea for her safe release.
It shouldn’t be necessary to remind readers of this blog that 28-year-old Christian Science Monitor journalist Jill Carroll was kidnapped January 7.
A late February deadline set by her captors passed quietly and there has been no confirmation of her whereabouts or well-being, although optimism remains strong. The Christian Science Monitor announced last week that it has “reinvigorated its Iraqi media campaign” to free Carroll.
Over the course of 28 days, three dudes in Northern California did all 42 past U.S. presidents.
With large doses of insanity suspectedly involved, songwriters Christian Kiefer, Matthew Gerken, and Jefferson Pitcher self-produced and recorded 14 songs a piece, each number based on the tenure of an American president.
Completed as part of February Album Writing Month, this particular project is deserving of wider recognition, especially at a time when our current president is actively re-classifying historical records in an effort to manipulate his own legacy. The trio intends to salute the Commander with a final song for the project, tentatively slated for proper release in late 2006.
Audio files and complete liner notes including lyrics for each track are available for free here. None of these are little ditties — they are complete songs and run as long as seven minutes. The lyrics and melody in Kiefer’s “Eisenhower (When Ike Walked the Land)” put the listener quite literally in the landscape of suburbanization and black and white TV:
We made a fence / painted it white / made the kids all fear God / and Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll / sold lots of radios.
Jeff Pitcher’s rich ode to the demise of President William Henry Harrison could bring someone to tears, if only they weren’t aware that he is widely regarded as maybe THE worst president in history, or had they not at least read Pitcher’s extensive commentary in the notes:
William Henry Harrison was an incredibly horrible and atrocious piece of shit… who was ultimately responsible for a big portion of the genocide of native americans….
Warren G. Harding may have been in and out before his first term was up, but as Matt Gerken explains in verse, we can thank him for establishing the chronyist corporatocracy we know so well:
The cabinet was a board room / Business leaders / Hobby policymakers / Protecting their interests / Making sure life is harder / For the rest of us / Just like today
I don’t post about music as much as I’d like, but once I downloaded the tracks and listened, I was pretty floored. Not since unwrapping the most recent gift of historical manifestations from Surfjan Stevens had I remembered that the dullest of stories could be brought to light in bright melodies.
Kudos, gentlemen for the incredible feat of not only writing one song for each of our 42 past presidents, but for creating AND laying down the tracks all within the course of our shortest month! Readers — check it out, this is far and away the best history lesson out there since Jon Stewart’s America.
The Hurricane is captured live on video in this stunningly graphic and dramatic video that I’ve only seen on WLBT, Jackson Mississippi’s NBC affiliate.
Isolatr isn’t a real service, but it should be. Sean Bonner of Metroblogging created the site, which promises to “help you find where other people aren’t”. For bonus content, check out the FAQs (every answer is “no”). I love the attention to detail, like calling it a beta service, leaving the “e” out of the name and adding fake quotes from Doc Searls and Xeni Jardin.
Bryant Choung’s Snubster is an actual, live service. It helps you notify people, and the world, that you are pissed off at someone. The “On Notice” feature tells them that they have committed an “infraction” and are in a suspension period. If they really screw up, you can state that they are “Dead to Me”. Each user has a profile (example) where they can get into the juicy details. The only question I have is, why is there an “e” before the “r” in the snubster name?
Completed as part of 