Last.fm Fails

If you are like me, you can’t stand the new look Last.fm has adopted. Last.fm used to be one of the easiest sites to use and to comprehend, but now just navigating about is a task few of us can manage.

And I know, this isn’t a new subject or anything that has happened recently to be blogging about, but in my defence I’d like to say that I actually started writing this blog entry already five days ago. But since then, I’ve been sort of busy, well, slacking about…

Disapproval of the direction Last.fm is taking things has already led to a few last.fm users taking matters into their own hands. They’ve formed a group called Bring back the old Last.fm and I would ask you to join it if you feel the same way about the matter as last.fm looks…

And since when has individuality been a quality to be avoided? Last.fm’s looks used to be original and fun, now they’re just a weird plagiarised version of myspace…

Wikipedia Compared to an Encyclopedia

Again this will be a post inspired more by will than skill. In other words where it lacks in actual information it makes up in sheer opinion. And when I use the word encyclopedia, I mean encyclopedia in the tradiotional sense of the word, for example, Encyclopaedia Britannica, a backbreaking piece of informative literature to drag about with you.

I know there has been a lot of criticism of Wikipedia, since anyone can go and edit it, which naturally tends to make the knowledge being offered biased to one direction or another, but that is also the case with every Encyclopedia – even with the ones, that aren’t open to be edited by anyone – because there is no such thing as neutral writing, there has never been, nor will there ever be. All writers lean towards one opinon or another even without realizing it, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Naturally with Wikipedia we are on a whole ‘nother ball court, since it can be edited by anyone as well as the malignant authors of drug companies, who may make the list of mentioned side-effects a tad bit shorter or find that the text doesn’t speak quite highly enough of the drug in question and correct the flaw. But it also gives way to the haphazard Wikipedia terrorist, who doesn’t quite share the view of science on evolution. These and various others are the viable flaws of Wikipedia, not to even mention the fact that most of the authors of Wikipedia are more connoisseurs than virtuosos of the matter being edited.

All those flaws are something real encyclopedias lack – or for the very least ought to lack. And for scientific texts you should never look for a sanctum in the hands of connoisseurs, but instead throw yourself into the safety of backbreaking literature.

But there is one area of interest Wikipedia might have covered better than any other medium. That area being the world of contemporary knowledge, since there is always some fan of a particular field, willing to contribute an article to Wikipedia when ever something ground breaking happens. This very likely also the case with some of the popular culture, for example, the literary world, excluding Harry Potters and Lords of The Rings, which have so many fans that there are probably terrific flamingwars about whenever some trollish creatures, finds its way to the editing board. Not to even mention articles about bands such as The Ting Tings, which have probably been filled with utter propaganda, since the day they were created…

So even though Wikipedia lacks a bit in the pedancy of normal Encyclopedias, it still has some good qualities. For example, being the ultimate place to waste a whole night of sleeplesness on…

The Pool of Human Knowledge

Au Lecteur

First and foremost I’ll have to warn you – the reader whose existence I doubt – that I am again blogging about blogging or blogging about how I think blogging ought be carried out. Typical, eh?

Adding to The Pool of Human Knowledge

It is solely my own opinion that you oughtn’t just blog about something you read somewhere and then slightly summarizing what you read and throwing in a link to the site you read that something from, without adding anything and simply reinstating something already told somewhere else – this is something that even I’ve been guilty of doing. But instead – keep in mind that this is just my two cents on the matter at hand – you should offer a new perspective on the thing you read from somewhere else or perhaps combine the knowledge you have gathered from various sources giving you a more neutral view on the matter – thus “adding to the pool of human knowledge” and not simply throwing in something that is already there.

If everyone were to just blog about something they heard on Fox News, without even attempting to bring about something that they themselves have come up with, the Blogosphere would be filled with pulp in the worst sense of the word in no time. And that is not what blogging is about, is it? To have a blog is to have the possibility to be a critic of the world around you, why not taking advantage of such an option, if it is offered to you?