As blastmedia has discovered Youtube is experimenting with the google plus button in place of thumbs up and thumbs down. Currently it doesn’t tie in with the rating system that google has in place and so for people who see the Google Plus button they are bard from giving a thumbs up without using the google api or switching browsers.

I can’t say I’m a fan. Like and Dislikes used to not be public let alone show in organic search results. If this feature is adopted every +1 has the potential to apear in search results. Ug.

Youtube originally did 5 stars but most people just voted 1 or 5 stars. So we got thumbs up or down. Now with Plus we loose anyway of providing negative feedback.

There are many reasons to no have negative feed back. All of them have to do with one group of users mas down voting content either for their own advantage or to discourage other groups of visitors. Youtube does not have this issue. There is no way to mass effect video ranking on youtube by disliking a video outside of botting. Wich to be fair @thewillofdc points out that Google has been lax in fighting botting as of late.

Some will say that letting people do a negative action on a site is never good and I would strongly disagree with them. Currently the down vote remains one of the more civil way on youtube to voice that you did not like a video. A great example of a valid use case is the Rick Perry Strong video which has a near 99% dislikes and for good reasons.

Negative comments remain much more damaging then down votes. Youtube is known, for good reason, as some of the most vile comments on the web. I can only imagine that letting people voice their dislike with a simple action stop even more horrible comments.

Please youtube. Add Google Plus as an option to the page. But leave the current ratings system in place. Both can coexist and content producers will definitely encourage users to +1 as it will clear help in google ranking.

I was super lucky to get to see the first three episodes of GIRLS at sxsw. The trailer released only a few short weeks ago quickly outlines a quirky comedy in the style of sex and the city that replaces the 30 something Gen-Xers  with 20 something Gen-Yers. And being on the cusp of those two generations I think there is a big difference between the 2.

Tiny Furniture, Lena’s hit movie, was something I was very excited to see and while it had an amazing voice for women in their 20s I didn’t love the movie. I thought the plot was too slow and awkward pauses not used artfully enough to not just become uncomfortable. These were issues of polish but the voice was there and it was exciting.

Judd Apataw is a great combo for Lena to work with. He is a seasoned producer and has the magic ability to not only cultivate great tallent in others (aka Seth Rogan) but take topic that has failed in movies past (aka Kevin Smith movies) and make them enjoyable for a wide audience without removing the unique and quirky spark that made them good.

GIRLS is still slow at moments and some moments are still a bit to awkward to work on screen. But The outcome is everything you could hope for from a collaboration between Lena and Judd. The jokes are amazing and hit often and hard without seeming like sitcom. The characters are all perfectly lovable while still remaining horribly flawed. A balance every show hopes for but few ever achieve.

Zosia Mamet also needs to be called out. In many ways she has the most over the top character to play which can be difficult to pull off. But she glows on screen and makes the ridiculous also believable and the hilarious simultaneously heartbreaking.

This show is not a masterpiece, but it is really really good and super funny. One of the many things I love about television is the iterative process of writing it. Shows change because they get feedback from an audience. And few shows ever have the first few episodes as the best of the series since they lack this interaction. GIRLS is perfect set up to a great series. Every flaw can be fixed and I believe this show is on a path to fix everyone.

I’ve only had it for a day but everything seems to be in good shape. Here are the specs which are mostly for my future reference:

1 x Case Azza Triton Gaming Case – Black
1 x Processor Intel® Core™ i7 960 Processor (4x 3.20GHz/8MB L3 Cache)
1 x Processor Cooling Certified CPU Fan and Heatsink
1 x Memory 12 GB [2 GB X6] DDR3-1600 – Corsair or Major Brand
1 x Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 – 1GB – FREE Upgrade to GTX 560 2GB – Single Card
1 x Video Card Brand Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA
1 x Free Stuff [Free Game Voucher] – Batman Arkham City – Free with purchase of NVIDIA GeForce 5 series video card
1 x Motherboard ASUS Sabertooth X58
1 x Motherboard USB / SATA Interface Motherboard default USB / SATA Interface
1 x Power Supply 700 Watt – Standard
1 x Primary Hard Drive 1 TB HARD DRIVE — 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s – Single Drive
1 x Optical Drive 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive – Black
1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer – Black
1 x Sound Card 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
1 x Network Card Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
1 x Operating System None- Pre-formatted Hard Drive Only

You have no idea how excited I am.

If you are not a developer or are not sure why the SSL certificate is invalid then DO NOT CLICK the button to procceed.

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I’ve never met [JJ Abrams]. I am not a member of his fan club or anti-fan club. I disliked Cloverfield a very great deal. I disliked Star Trek intensely. I thought it was terrible. And I think part of my problem is that I feel like the relationship between JJ Abrams’ projects and geek culture is one of relatively unloving repackaging – sort of cynical. I taste contempt in the air. Now I’m not a child – I know that all big scifi projects are suffused with the contempt of big money for its own target audience. But there’s something about [JJ's projects] that makes me particularly uncomfortable. As compared to somebody like Joss Whedon, who – even when there are misfires – I feel likes me and loves me and is on some cultural level my brother and comrade. And I don’t feel that way about JJ Abrams.
-China Miéville

First jump in to the .bashrc file in your home directory.

nano ~/.bashrc


Then add the options for grep in that file:

GREP_OPTIONS="--exclude=*.svn-base"
export GREP_OPTIONS


Now save and exit the file. Before it will work you need to either restart the session or enter this in the console:

source ~/.bashrc


Wave goodbye to all those pesky svn file.

What did you guys think of the live-action version of “The Last Airbender”?

Konietzko: We’re just really focused on this new show right now, and kind of taking this off in its own direction and not concerning ourselves with that right now.

So you didn’t follow the casting controversy about the movie version of “The Last Airbender”?

Konietzko: We didn’t head up that film. We’re just happy to be back generating the original content in this mythology, which is what we do.

The epicenter of the modern Avatar world is Republic City, a metropolis fueled by steampunk technology. It is a virtual melting pot where benders and non-benders from all nations live and thrive. – AvatarSpirit

I seems rumors have been floating around for months and I’ve missed them because I don’t hang out in forums much.