If this is the case I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight

I am in fact a generally cheerful sort of person, filled with faith in my fellow man and hope for a better future.  I believe that one man can make a difference and that if everyone works together we can build a future for our species that stretches beyond the boundaries of this failing planet and into the great beyond.

Don’t dig out the John Lennon classics, just yet mind you..

No success can become lasting, without the tempering that comes from harsh criticism, no greatness achieved without the burning desire to overcome imperfection.

If we are to succeed as a species and circumnavigate the treacherous potholes on the road to our brighter future, then we must be willing to address our failings head on and strive to become better humans.

It is for this reason today, that I would like to address with you some small issues that have recently come to my attention, particularly surrounding the previously mentioned issue of the taking up of causes,  average attention spans and a general misuse of the mediums which many of you have erroneously deduced to be effectively employed for the greater good.

If you will allow me one more disclaimer before I cut to the proverbial chase: While I have long harboured suspicions regarding these issues I am not here to today, my friends, to deal in opinion and speculation.  I have in fact come, bearing statistics.

Our friends over in the Googleverse, where all Internet traffic must eventually pass through, are kind enough to maintain a comprehensive statistical engine which is free to all-comers to examine and gain a deeper understanding of what it is that people are actually doing with their time on the Internet.

One of the quick features one can access is the Hot Trends list, which maintains the top 100 search traffic generators

I would draw your attention first to the opening point of our investigation, June 12 the day the story broke about the usurped Iranian elections.  As you can see the election results managed to gain a spot at number 46 on the list, just beaten out by Facebook vanity urls, which was clearly a more pressing social issue, vanity urls also appeared higher up the list under a different search phrase, no other topics pertaining to Iran made the top 100.

Fast forwarding through the rest of June this apparently hot cause, in fact causes barely a flutter on Google’s hot trends beyond the 14th.  on the 17th the search terms green now and green again peak briefly, however there is almost certainly a crossed line here with environmental

issues that is skewing the results and there is again not so much as a flutter about Iran in the rest of the list.

Finally, on the 20th the story seems to gain a little traction in the global attention span contests, coming in at number 7 with ‘neda iran’, however this attention is short lived.  The very next day the hot list is invaded by Shiloh,Pepin, the mermaid girl and Iran and it’s rapidly failing neda (it means voice) slip down to position’s 86 and 100.

The next day sees Iranian girl shot holding on at position 75, however for the majority of the searching world coverage of the US Open, and watching Weeds Season 5, episode 3 are far more pressing concerns.

On the 23rd traffic spikes nicely again, seemingly brought about by a new batch of videos entitled ‘Iranian woman shot’.  I’m sure that I shouldn’t be disturbed by the fact that video footage of the deaths of innocents grabs your attention spans far more effectively than any actual discussion of the political situation unfolding – you’re watching because you care, right?

By the 24th it seems that most Googlers have had their fill of morally obligated snuffing and the woman shot videos predictably begin to fall off the charts again.

and then on the 25th day, Michael Jackson died.

So tell me again, how much you care about the plight of the Iranian people?

Do you sometimes feel an emptiness in your life, that even your FriendFeed can’t seem to fill?

You add the friends to your wall every day,  send hand-picked e-gifts on all the right occasions, take up the latest quiz challenges from your friends and LOL along with the group when everyone comes out as Yoda.

But you can’t get rid of that nagging feeling that you should be doing something more meaningful to contribute to society, that perhaps your life doesn’t have any real substance?

Well let doubt nag you no more my digital acquaintances. You too can make meaningful contributions too society from the safety and comfort of your computer nook.

Fear not the beating sun on your brow from a day of sixties style placard waving.  ‘No tear gas no baton charge’ will be required for your anarchist street riot.

Not even the 1980’s ‘care with cash’ yuppie method, or ‘my witty grunge t-shirt will change the world’ are things that you need to endure any longer, because now you can make a difference in the world, just by tweeting.

Simply pick up on the latest causememe, retweet it to your followers and sit back in awe of your own abilities my friend, because you have just changed the world a teeny tiny bit.  It all counts right?

Don’t believe me?  Just watch in about 6-8 weeks those twitter powered Iranian protestors will have overthrown their oppressive government and will owe their eternal gratitude to you and everyone else in the Twittersphere who helped make this possible by keeping their meme alive.

Joining Facebook causes, commenting on blogs and forwarding emails are also valuable contributions, if you’re willing to go the extra mile – remember people those Iranians need you to help keep their click up if they’re going to get through this mess.

Thank you social media for once more making the world a better place.  Without you society would almost certainly collapse back into that biblical sort of chaos that inspires the gnashing of teeth, bad ‘gravel hair’ days and a revival in sack cloth fashion.

I am in awe.

In the morning we had to test drive and deliver 35 Paradise virgins to suicide bombers. From there we went straight into a two hour session of fruit and veg signings. Do you have any idea how hard it is to write your name on a Zucchini with a fountain pen?

It’s no wonder he’s so behind schedule with smiting the American infidels – I can tell you I’m bushed.

In fact I was so worn out I barely had the energy left to troll the news for your amusement – luckily I stumbled  across these two interesting and vaguely related pieces without too much effort:

It would seem that in the overwhelming gloominess that is the economic downturn (I refuse to say climate and recession anymore) even Big Brother is feeling the pinch.

Anyone who has been to the UK will tell you the place is literally bristling with security cameras. They now have  somewhere in the region of 4 million of the things deployed, but the system is proving to be something of a white elephant.

Claims of Hollywoodesque number plate tracking capabilities have fallen flat in the face of real world practicality and the police force say they simply don’t have the manpower to cope with the overwhelming amount of footage even for evidence garnering – let alone real time monitoring.

I can attest to their general inefficiency with a personal anecdote. A friend of mine in London was recently the victim of a hit and run in front of witnesses who took down the license plate number and it took the Police a staggering two weeks to trace the perp.

Meanwhile for those of you labouring under the impression that GPS comes from a breathy woman with a map trapped inside your mobile phone, the service is actually provided by a network of satellites maintained by the US government.

Or not as it would seem.

Apparently satellites are about  to start dropping out of the sky if the US Air force are to be believed. New launches are over budget and behind schedule and the system is in danger of falling below the minimum number of satellites required to maintain current accuracy standards.

Could this be a bit of smoke and mirrors to facilitate a downgrade of civilian GPS capabilities? Something they’ve been itching to do since they realized the Taliban were all running around with Smartphones.

That’s it for now, but I shan’t leave without the punch line – this post has in fact been cunningly seeded with enough keywords to send our friends at Echelon into a drone missile launching frenzy, so to everyone reading this, know that you have done your bit to help overburden the surveillance systems.

I expect when they get around to reading this in a year, or so I’ll be in big trouble.

In the mean time:

It’s up to you, New York, New Yoooork! Thank you good night and Happy Birthday Mr President.

If you live in a world that runs on memes that spread across the globe in a matter of hours and sub cultures that spring up around the latest social network, or MMORPG, sometimes the slang can get a little confusing – even for the most hardened of Internet users. For this reason I like Urban Dictionary. I find it enlightening and often amusing to skim through the user submitted definitions for the latest buzzword, or catch phrase.

Here’s a user submission that caught my eye the other night as particularly surreal. Apparently doganuses is not at all taken with the spirit of blogging and has strong feelings about the use of some of the jargon attached to the scene. More after the jump.

It did get me to thinking – this rather strange and random outpouring of disgust and anger in the middle of cyber nowhere – about the similarities between cyber rage and road rage and the Internet as an outlet for the copious amounts of suppressed anger most people are carting around these days in our increasingly neutered society. Not guilty? how many times have you yelled curses at someone from behind your steering wheel in the last week…?

This in turn got my thoughts running towards the uglier side of such matters and the Internet as a vehicle for people to find outlets for their darker tendencies, such as was recently highlighted with the arrest of Phillip Markoff, aka the The Craiglist killer earlier this month.

Markoff is not even the first Craiglist killer by the way. Nineteen year old Michael John Anderson, claimed this dubious honour back in 2007 when he lured a young lady to his apartment with a babysitting advertisement so that he could shoot her and shove her in the trunk of her car.

Coincidentally I just finished watching the first season of Dexter and the loveable serial killer himself pays homage to Craiglist by using it to send a furtive message to the Ice Truck killer. We are getting increasingly good at humanizing our demons and letting them out to play aren’t we? A charming serial killer, who lives by a code and only feeds his urges on truly deserving victims – its an intriguing concept – no let’s not soft soap it – it’s an exciting concept! It’s justice in rubber gloves, with a scalpel, a bonesaw and an industrial-sized roll of shrinkwrap.

Dexter sums this up beautifully in his chilling narration of the final scene of the season finale where he imagines the crowd cheering for him.

“My Darkness revealed my shadow self embraced, yeah they see me I’m one of them – I’m their darkest dreams.”

Its brilliant TV, punchy story line, socially relevant and unafraid of itself and as long as we’re parading demons down main street I’m not about to miss the show, or the ride in the hand basket.

I do have this nagging question that won’t go away though… has anyone checked the brakes on this thing recently?

You know it doesn’t take an awful lot of paranoia – when you read stuff like this in the context of our dear friend Microsoft’s long running relationship with soft cuddly organizations like the NSA – to start you wondering if the browser vulnerabilities are really down to sloppy code?

/me wanders off to make himself a new tinfoil hat…