source:Think Progress url: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on-blogs/

"John McCain’s War On Blogs
John McCain has made clear that he doesn’t like the blogosphere.

Now he has introduced legislation that would treat blogs like Internet service providers and hold them responsible for all activity in the comments sections and user profiles. Some highlights of the legislation:

– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”

– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.

Nicole Richie posted this on her MySpace blog yesterday. Its no longer up though. :

Subject: X-RAY

BLIND ITEM:
What 35 year old raisin face whispers her order of 3 peices of asparagus for dinner at Chateau everynight, and hides her deathly disorder by pointing the finger at me, and used her last paycheck I wrote her to pay for a publisist instead of a nutritionist?
HINT: Her nickname is lettucecup...

source: http://www.myspace.com/nicolerichie

*********************************************************************
As we all know, the whole celebutante craze is based on these girls who are basically famous for doing nothing particular at all. Of course, nothing other than creating drama and partying. Essentially.

About paltalk from paltalk.com:

"Paltalk isn't just the latest, greatest messenger or the most diverse and vibrant chat room community - it's the ultimate online communications tool, period. Paltalk enhances the traditional instant message and chat room functionality you know and love with state-of-the-art voice and video that you'll enjoy with all your senses. That's why Paltalk is the world's most popular free voice and video chat instant messenger service.

The world's most popular voice and video chat service.

Whether you want to chat with friends or meet new ones, Paltalk is your one portal to all things talkative. Paltalk is compatible with AOL, Yahoo! and ICQ messengers, and connects you to a world of buddies. With Paltalk's easily-navigable, live voice and live video enabled chat room community, the world wide web feels more like a network of close friends. And now cyberspace really can be a good place to meet someone with Paltalk People, the best way to add more of those "special" Paltalk buddies to your list. So download Paltalk now for free to see, hear and be there with Paltalk."

By the way, Michelle Trachtenberg (Harriet the Spy) is supposed to be plaing a character on Law &Order CI based on Lonelygirl15.

the tralier or i guess video blog for the episode is at http://www.freewillow17.com/.

So now TV is taking its plots from the internet? WHOA. This will hopefully get more people to watch the real LonelyGirl15. I guess im becoming a bigger of YouTube creators. why not? I'm definetly not one to criticize someone for trying to do something they find worthy of being done.

I dont know if all of you have heard about the youtube web series lonelygirl15....

For more info, go to the Wired Magazine article here: http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/lonelygirl_pr.html

or wikipedia Lonelygirl15.

Essentially, its a video series on youtube about a young girl and her video blog shot in her room. except. its totally fictional. initially, the series was assumed to be real because there was no disclaimer stating otherwise. When it was first posted, the video mocked an already popular non fictional (or as non fictional as an internet identity can get) youtube vlog (video blog). This essentially was what helped create a fanbase for it. After a few months, the creators were outed. And just how many "great" things are made popular or known by controversy, so was Lonelygirl15. It was the shock that propelled it into notoreity. And rather than being the end of the series, this was the beginning of something new.

Gwen Stefani's new promo pictures came out yesterday, they feature a portrait of Stefani crying. Anyhow, the artist/photographer reponsible, Jill Greenberg (the manipulator) was recently accused of tormenting the children she also photographed in crying portraits for her latest exhibit, End Times. She says she only took a lollipop away form them. Anyhow, I took a look at at her work...and was suitably impressed. The way she captured the genuine sadness and almost agony in the children from supposedly simply having a candy taken away is amazing. I took a look at Gwen's promo pic for "Sweet Escape" and found that much of what I had liked about her exibition work with the children was lost, and that the promo shot turned into a contived piece for publicity. Its still beautiful...just not authentic. But good for her, i'm sure she got good money for it.

I saw that rainian tried to post this article but the link didnt work. since I was going to blog about it anyway, here is the url http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/magazine/12youtube.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1. The articles name is "The Online Auteurs." How appropriate for the course. Anyway, onto my comments.

I can understand hesitation felt towards the growth of YouTube. On the otherhand, I appreciate its positive value for those creators who chose to upload their work for others to see. With the increase in accessibilty to video production equipment, anyone can chose to make their own videos. All that YouTube allows is for these authors to have the opportunity to have their material be seen by an potentially large number of people. It provides an alternate route for authors to gain recognition, and in some cases, possibly get picked up by larger production companies that may afford the authors a greater budget and better equipment to develop their ideas. While this may not be the case for all the video makers on YouTube, there are always going to be those people who hope to get "discovered" this way. I hate to reduce YouTube to the new version of "moving-to-LA-and-become-a-waiter/waitress-in-hopes-of-"making"-it-BIG" but it certainly could turn into that for some people. And for those whose hoeps arent neccessarily that grand, they may be able to gain that niche audience. There has always been something to be said about the "hip" quality of "indie" or underground material. SO theres always that.

So I was reading my astronomy homework the other day and came across the Spectral classification of stars. If any of you know, they range is O,B,A,F,G,K,M,L,T arranged from hottest (blue) to coldest (red) and then L and T arenor really stars but are recent additions to the spectral classification.

ANYWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. I was informed by the chatty text that our Sun is classified as a G star. Specificallya G-2 star.And then I remembered that clothing company, G-Star RAW that the european guys wear and I thought that there had to be a connection with the name of the clothing company and astronomy. And so I thought, how smart. Its always nice to see a smart or witty company or name of something in contrast to the bland names most things seem to have. SO I decided to take a look at the compant website to see a bio for the company to see if I was right regarding the name connection. (Found at http://www.g-star.com/flash/content.html)

Relating Manovich to social networks part two….
Manovich contends that “all authorship that uses electronic and computer tools is a collaboration between the author and these tools that make possible certain creative operations and certain ways of thinking while discouraging others. Of course humans have designed these tools, so it would be more precise to say that the author who uses electronic/ software tools engages in a dialog with the software designers (see #4).”
I certainly had never thought of collaboration in these terms. I do have to say that to an extent, I agree with this point, especially in social networking collaborations/interactions. This would make sens then with what I discussed previously in part of one relating Manovich to Social Networks. This point of view provides the user with looking at social networks not only as a network created solely on user interactivity. But taking it a step further and considering that by using a site interface, and limiting your identity and thus connections, a person is interacting with the makers of the site. In other words, the designers made the rules/interface + you as user follow them (or not, after all you have a choice to abide or subvert them)= an interaction of people through software (the digital social network.

Manovich discusses how “collaboration over the network to create new media is the most visible example of a more general phenomenon.” He says “new media culture brings with it… new models of authorship which all involve different forms of collaboration.”

With respect to the digital social network, I believe that interactivity as collaboration in this case is indeed an example of how new technologies afford users a new form of authorship that in term results in new forms of interpersonal connections. I believe that in the network, miscommunication is avoided by limiting the identity that the users are able to create online. Networking sites limit the extent and forms of identity by designing their site interface in specific ways. In this way, sites themselves are assured that they will attract users and be able to maintain them by providing a medium “real” enough, yet not TOO real, in which users have some sort of liberty to make certain connections. In this way, the limitation is a factor in the creation of the version of the individual, or identity presented. This ensures that the success (in terms of maximized interactivity, and therefore, connections forged through the network) of the users’ online identity will be maximized. Of course, this “success” will be still be limited in terms of what kind of audience the users are attempting to attract. Nonetheless, as Manovich says, the comprehensions of the narrative, in this case the user, will be improved.