Feross.org

Getting Immortal Technique's autograph for my brother.

Immortal Technique

Second famous rapper I’ve met this week: Immortal Technique — most famous for his political activism and political rap music. This guys’s a real rapper (unlike Chamillionaire, who is a commercial hip-hop artist sellout).

Immortal Technique is legit — he’s turned down half-million dollar offers to sign to major music labels like Sony and Def Jam because he doesn’t want to lose control over the content of his music. He’s often been criticized for the content of his music (listen to some and you’ll see why), but there’s more than a grain of truth to what he raps about.

I don’t have time right now to write a long blog post (I have 2 CS assignments due soon, 1 test on Monday, and 20 CS assignments to grade), so I’ll leave it at that. But, I encourage you to take a look at Technique if you haven’t heard of him before — he’s quite interesting.

There is a surprising amount of wisdom to be gleaned from bumper stickers (you know, those rectangular stickers people like to plaster all over their cars ). Most bumper stickers are meant to support this or the other politician, so they’re not that memorable.

But occasionally, I stumble on a particularly humorous or profound bumper sticker. So, a while ago I decided to start writing down the cool bumper sticker slogans I stumble upon.

Continue Reading »

The awesome, organic interlinking structure of the Blogosphere.

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Internet Revolution: Diversification Via Citizen Media

The rise of Internet technology at the beginning of the twenty-first century permanently changed the media landscape for the better. Widespread availability of Internet access, free online publishing platforms like WordPress (which runs this blog) and Blogger, and a fermenting desire for a journalism revolution combined to quickly revolutionize the modern media landscape.

The development of the modern Internet “blogosphere”—the collection of blogs and their interconnections—form a social network in which individuals can share their views with a global audience quickly, easily, and at little to no cost. No editor or central authority can screen blog content for its political message or appropriateness. In short, anything and everything goes.

Continue Reading »