I clicked #ihaveadream on twitter
This was my first mistake. Reading the posts became the second mistake. And, we're excluding spelling and grammar from our list of criteria on which to judge. For every one of these there are thousands more.
"#ihaveadream dat males will realize wen they have suttin gud and not eff it up!"
"#IhaveaDream that one day we will get food stamps twice a month and we can use it at Mcdees and Wendys lol"
"#IHaveADream that girls wouldn't style..nd just be dwn with that verb"
"#ihaveadream that all these young girls would stop having babies for these idiots & make them wait"
"#ihaveadream that ugly people will one day realize how unfair it is for us to have to look at them all the time"
"#IHaveADream of being a singer thats why im wanting to go on the x facor this year"
The number of "good" posts were severely disproportionate to the number of bad, but here they are. These are literally the only ones I saw during the time I looked.
"#IHAVEADREAM SIMILAR 2 MARTINS AND KINDA LIKE PACS LESS STUPIDITY MORE INTEGRITY AFEW LESS RAPPERS THOUSANDS MORE DOCTORS EDUCATIONS THE KEY"
"#IHaveADream that dreamers think about the others and not just themselves"
"#ihaveadream that an interracial couple can walk down the street without having anyone hate on them"
"#ihaveadream that someday everyone will realize that who someone chooses to marry is none of their damn buisness"
"#IHaveADream that us gang members will realize that we are getin to old for this Its not what its hyped up to be anymore So i hung my rag up"
This one confused me, because I can't stand this train of thought, especially with the connotation it brings on this day.
"#IHaveADream that things will be the way they used to be."
If you go read the tweets yourself you'll see that the large majority of people only care about getting jobs, relationships or clean sex. All commendable goals to be sure, but perhaps we could look beyond our own selfish interests on a day when we remember the life of a man who did just that.
Free stuff
I got some free stuff at WordCamp Atlanta, obviously, as that's the only reason I go to these things.
The pennies say Wordpress and WordCamp Atlanta.
Wordcamp ATL
I've just got back from an informative day at WordCamp Atlanta hosted by SCAD, my university. I mentioned this event previously and linked to the badge that said I was attending, however I've since learned that because I attend SCAD that I'm technically a sponsor. (It says so on my badge.) Therefore, I must revise the badge on my Web site. I'll throw in the original for good measure.
The talks have been informative so far. I'll have a lot to take back to District, and perhaps for my talk at the Spring National College Media Convention.
Cheap college
I also get some stuff free. Poetics, which I have to read for my writing and new media class, is on the iPhone thanks to Stanza. I like Stanza because it has many out of copyright books.
Costly college
I've decided to keep track of how much I spend on college this quarter. I define college as class supplies, food and transportation costs.
Today I spent $12.30 on meals and snacks, $1 on parking and $80 on books.
Total: $93.30
One book is an anthology of works written before copyright was invented. I'll wait till I get the syllabus from my professor to see what I'm actually reading in the 1,467 page monstrosity. My guess is not that much. I'll likely return it and find the works online.
End of year lists
Everyone is creating their end of year lists. The Huffington Post even has a list for the top funniest movies of the decade. Don't bother looking, they list every movie in the genre. I've created my own list, of sorts.
Best spoof of a spoof:
ATL and NYC
SCAD, my university, is hosting WordCamp this January! And...
Then in March I'll be heading to New York City to the Spring National College Media Convention to speak on the subject of migrating from print to Web-only. And, while there I'm going to go to Google!
WordPress 2.9
WordPress released version 2.9 of their ubiquitous blogging software Friday, and of the many new features one caught my eye.
- Post thumbnails!
I hope to use this new feature with the District theme. Right now I have each category post the last five to 10 posts in a cell. There are several cells on the home page. And, the last four posts from all categories combined are displayed in a plugin gallery at the top of the page that rotates a large image for each story. Right now, each image has to be uploaded manually to a specific permanent folder, then added to each post witha special tag.
I think with this new feature I'll be able to get rid of that plugin and use some simple jQuery to create my own gallery of the latest posts, and put small thumbnails with the link to each story in the cells. This will help visually break up sameness of the text.
The new gallery would also allow me to include video and text or whatever I decide to put there, which will be helpful with some new features District will launch in 2010.
Another nail in the coffin for newspapers?
Google rolled out a new feature a week or so ago that shows real-time results on the topic you've searched for.
This is a big deal for news companies, especially those who want to block Google. If Google isn't indexing their site, and a breaking story happens- people will go to the competition. More importantly, if a breaking news event happens and you're not printed till the next day, or the next week as is the case with many college media outlets, you might as well not even write about it.
