The Social Network. We’re all in one.

Thanks of a very generous twitterer I was given the chance to see The Social Network on Monday night.

Quick Synopsis:

Nerd from Harvard wants to be popular.

Nerd makes popular website.

Nerd gets into trouble.

Nerd makes even more popular website.

Nerd gets into even more trouble.

Nerd makes a billion dollars.

Nerd is popular….but still a Nerd.

The End.

Yes, it’s the story of that little website that rose from obscurity in the mid 2000’s to become the No.2 website in the world (after Google). It has also made Mark Zuckerberg, the founder/creator/nerd the youngest billionaire in the world with a worth of around 6.9 billion dollars. (click here to see what that could buy)

The film is essentially about the court cases surrounding the inital boom of the website, but we are taken back in time to see what occured during the pivotal moments of Zuckerberg’s rapid rise to riches.

You wouldn’t think this would make an especially enthralling film….but that is where you’re wrong. This film is exceptionally made in almost every way. First, you have David Fincher directing it. I’ve loved this guy since Se7en, which was also beautifully shot in almost every way. (also Fight Club, The Game, Panic Room, Zodiac, Benjamin Button and the new Dragon Tattoo US version). He gives this film an almost gritty edge to it. Surprising seeing as though the majority of it is filmed on a campus location (actually at Johns Hopkins Uni, not Harvard).

Secondly, you have Aaron Sorkin writing the screenplay. He wrote the 90’s hit, ‘A Few Good Men’, but is better known for his work on ‘The West Wing’. This would explain the incredible wordy opening sequence (which took 99 takes), in which Zuckerberg and his gf discuss their relationship.

The film itself just works. It’s fast paced, it has excellent performances from Jesse Eisenberg and particularly Justin Timberlake, who should definitely pursue acting a lot more. He plays the inventor of Napster, Sean Parker, and portrays him brilliantly, assuming that the actual person is paranoid, boisterous and charismatic.

When I walked out of the cinema I couldn’t help feeling that this is a movie for our generation. I specifically mean, for Gen X and Y. The Internet generations. We’ve all grown up with the Internet. We use it every single day and many have since the mid 90’s, but it wasn’t until Facebook appeared that we all joined together so whole-heartedly to create an online community that consumed so many.

My first experience of Facebook was early in 2006 when I was living and working in the US. I befriended a girl from Georgetown University who showed me the site. Of course at the time it was restricted to Universities and High Schools. It was until September of that year that anyone could create their profile.

The film goes a long way to show how the ideas for the site originated. Primarily the idea was taken and massaged from other students into what would become the original ‘TheFacebook.com’. The addition of personal information, relationship status and the infamous wall made it similar to MySpace, but it was the clean interface, speed and unique ability for added applications that helped it grow.

Whether you’re Gen X, Y, Baby Boomer or old fart you should enjoy this movie. If you’re like me you’ll also enjoy the awesome soundtrack provided by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. Does industrial themed music work with this movie? Yes and suprisingly well. It adds that layer of depth to the scenes that Fincher would have loved and makes this more than a movie about a court case or a web site.

Well, stop reading this tripe and go see it already!

(funny)

WTF KFC ATM LOLZ

Remember the days when the Internet first started and all of a sudden there was this new language to learn?

I think they called it ‘net-speak’ or something as innovative as that.

My first experience of such a phenomenon was the emoticon, back in 1994. I was one of those dorky Uni guys that would spend most of the day in the computer labs discovering this new thing called ‘The Internet’ which meant that I could talk to random strangers on the other side of the world IN REAL TIME.

I mean, how cool was that? I was saying something and then someone else was saying something back, and it’s not even a phone!

So, anyway, I was using Telnet to connect to these servers which hosted things called MUDS, or MUCKS where you would connect to a virtual world as a character and then go around talking to people, jumping around and being a fool or doing other such unsavoury activities that a 17 year old might do. Especially when you are 17 year old that spends all day in a computer lab.

I digress. I started noticing people were ending their sentences with 🙂 or ;). I thought it was some sort of way to end a sentence, or that they had simply added extra random characters at the end of their line.

Then one day, someone told me to turn my head to the left.

All of a sudden, 🙂 became something different altogether.

Over the coming years we would be bombarded with every emoticon possible. Even Slash uses his special Slash emoticon on this twitter feed  – Iii|; )

Not only was the emoticon an innovation, so were the net acronyms. The first one I came across was brb, closely followed by bbs, atm, irl and ttfn. Although to be fair, ttfn was stolen from Tigger.

Of course, the big one. The real doozy of a netcronym (like what I did there?) is LOL. Fucking Laugh Out Fucking Loud. It shits me. It always has. I have never used it. I don’t laugh out loud very often I guess, but really, does anyone that writes LOL really Laugh Out Loud when they are typing? Based on my in-depth research I would say. NO.

Instead, I use the eloquent and succinct ‘hehehe’. You see, it gives the impression that you think something is funny with a little snigger, but doesn’t go over the top with the whole boisterous laugh about something not very funny.

The even weirder thing is that nowadays the old acronyms are becoming everyday vernacular.

People are LOLing and OMGing all over the place. I have been known to drop to odd ZOMG and FFS as well.

I have no problem with this, for the most part. I feel that I am a part of the generation that helped to bring The Internet to the masses and reveal this whole other side of geekdom.

I may not use telnet any more, but it’s sure nice to know that 16 years later there are still remnants of those first few weeks of ‘online’ time that live on today..

Oh yeah, and enjoy this clip 🙂

It’s Download Day!

Be part of a World Record and go and download Firefox 3 NOW.

There is currently no official record for the most downloaded software in a day, but Firefox is hoping to set it TODAY (from 10am Colorado time)

It’s easily the best browser around. I have been using Firefox 3 Release Candidate 3 without issue for the last few weeks. There are some handy new features, such as:

The Awesome Bar – type in something into the address bar and it’ll show you a myriad of sites to chose from that you have been to before. Not that disimilar to how it used to work, but prettier 🙂

Download….Pause…Resume – You can pause a download and continue where you were up to. This has been available in 3rd party apps for a while, but nice to have it built in.

Give a man a phish.. – There’s built in malware and phish protection. VERY good for those people who like to click click click on anything!

Smarty Pant Bookmarks – There is a ‘Most Visited’ Bookmark Folder and ‘Smart Bookmarks’ that give you quick access to your often visited sites. Although if you really wanna go to Facebook, there are quicker ways 🙂

Yes, I would like to remember this password, thanks for asking – The popup box that used to stare you in the face after trying to log in? It’s still there, but at the top of the page now, letting you click it whenever you want, and not just to keep loading!

Strap on an Add-On – The Add-Ons are the best feature of Firefox and always have been. Customise how it looks, acts, moves and shakes. The Add-On Manager lets you search for stuff straight from the Add-Ons List (without searching in a web page). Easier. Yay!

Integrate my Back to Front! – The back and forward button has been modified so the BACK is bigger and there’s just one little button to show you previous pages you’ve been at. It works good even if you don’t understand what the hell I mean.

No more months in a leaky boat! – Firefox used to churn through memory and CPU like it was butter. Although you churn butter, it doesn’t actually churn anything. In any case, this version of Firefox is reportedly the best performing browser on the market, and that’s a good enough reason to download it in itself.

So go on, just download it.

This timer will tell you how much longer you have to wait before Download Day begins!

T for 10!

The most awesome t-shirt website on the net has their annual $10 Summer Sale on for 1 WEEK ONLY!

Threadless prints t-shirts based on designs that the public submits and rates. It has a humming community and once you browse the site, you will notice people wearing them all the time!

Most shirts are $10, some are $12, or $13.

Click on THIS LINK to buy them, and I get to say that I referred you. Yes Yes!

Here’s just a sample of some of their 100’s of designs.

Facebook Spam. Tne End of Things as We Know It.

Bloody Hell.

For some reason I have been sending out Facebook Spam Links to all of my friends’ walls today, and I’m not even logged into it!

Around every 3 – 5 minutes it sends it out again.

I have only added Word Twist as an app recently, and I don’t think that’s what caused it anyway.

I have no idea how it is sending. Anyone have an idea?

Sorry to all of my friends. Just delete the Wall Post.

Gah…..bloody spam.

UPDATE: Looks like I stopped it. Changing my password seems to have done it. Sorry Fiona 🙂

Craigslist Comes To Canberra!

It’s an everyday site for millions of a Americans, but most Australians have never heard of it.

Craigslist was started by a guy named Craig (funny that) and was originally utilised as a way to promote local events in San Francisco. Fast Forward 13 years and it is the 56th most popular Web Site in the world.

There are books, movies and court cases that have come from it.

And now it’s Canberra’s turn!

Yes! Craigslist comes to Canberra!

Enjoy your Strictly Platonic, Missed Connections and Casual Encounters.

Don’t forget to advertise your couches, and bikes!

You can even find jobs, classes, pets, jokes and pretty much anything.

The beauty of craigslist is the simplicity, the speed and the community feel that it has. I loved using it in DC for meeting people, but it’s widely used for selling stuff and just generally finding like-minded people.

As long as it is used, it is a great tool.

So get out there and USE it. It might just work 🙂

Facebook gets OZ’d up

It’s growing, and if you wanna jump on, just click here

What’s growing you say?

Facebook is. It’s exploding in Australia right now.

Just ask these people.

Never Mind Myspace. Bugger Bebo. Facebook is da place to be.

What the hell is it?

Well, yes, it’s just another social networking site, but this one’s a bit different.

When it began it was restricted to University/College students as a way of connecting and linking to each other. With the success of that, it expanded to worldwide schools before being opened up to the public last year. Since then it has boomed in Canada, the UK and now Australia, Norway and Sweden.

Why?

Read this if you want a experts opinion on what it is.

But if you want my opinion?

It’s more mature than any other social networking site out there.

What does that mean?

Take these points:

• It has a nice clean design
• Like Myspace you arrange your page how you want, but you can avoid the tacky, ad-filled clunkiness that Myspace has.
• You can change your moods and see your friends moods easily.
• You can see which friends your friends have added easily and it’s a good way to find friends that you didn’t know were on facebook!
• The design allows you to easily add and remove applications that you want to use and they can interact with other friends.
• You don’t feel like you are just another kid with a Myspace page, you can actually feel that you have a presence online that you are proud of
• Simple things, like being able to hug/tickle/poke/slap/tackle someone and just show that you are thinking of them.
• It is NOT Myspace.

And that last one is the best reason of all. Leave Myspace to the crazy kids who just wanna put bling on their page and have as many friends as possible.

For me, FB isn’t about having as many friends as possible, it’s about connecting with people that I haven’t been in touch with for years, and also having a way of easily communicating with them in little quirky ways. I have already found a couple of old High School friends and family friends.

I don’t intend to just add anyone to my friends list either, because I use my full name and personal details on there. I like the option to show only the parts you want to. Friends can see some parts. People in your network can see some parts and everyone else can get buggered!

The best way to find people is for FB to search using your web mail account (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) and then it just tells you which of those people are already in Facebook.

Anyway, this may all sound like an advertisement, but seriously if you were wondering about it, check it out and join. There are only 149,999 others joining that day!

Oh…and if you wanna find me on there, ask and I might let ya 😛