Category Archives: media

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Wikileaks 1: Mainstream Media, um, 1

Whatchoolookinat?

Whatchoolookinat?

It’s a tale told in tweets, a very Twenty-First Century tale, for lo, it is all about recycling, Wikileaks, Russia, Orwellian paranoia, US online surveillance, and the Mainstream Media vs the New Media (remember the New Media? This is it. Are we vindicated or embarrassed?).

In other words, this is what my editors over at the DailyDot.com did NOT decide to run with my latest Wikileaks story, so I’m using it here, so there.

They took out all my wacky Cold War jokes, too, damnation! What’s an article about Russia and the US without a few tasteless Cold War jokes thrown in? Whodathunk a few references here or there to Google’s info-capitalist hegemony would get people in Silicon Valley so touchy?

Our story begins:

which comes from the head of RT, the network which has just picked up Julian Assange‘s new talk show. I repeat: JULIAN ASSANGE’S NEW TALK SHOW.

and translates thusly:

The AFP has issued a note that Assange goes with us. Are mixed there, I went to a meeting withthe explosive, and about the alpha male, and about YES:) #chistyytresh

to which we can only reply:

This might actually convince me to get cable. I’ll just let Twitter tell the rest of the story.

and from my former boss at True/Slant, now in charge of the front page of the NYT.com,

Well, you KNOW there’s no way I’m taking THAT lying down.

Canuckistani Revolutionary

Canuckistani Revolutionary

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Social Flow: How to Win with Social Media without Losing Productivity (a new raincoaster media workshop

Social Flow Workshop logo

Social Flow Workshop logo

Social Flow Workshop: How to Win with Social Media Without Losing Productivity

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Mike isn’t well and we’re going to have to postpone our February 4 workshop in Vancouver. We’re going ahead with our February 21st workshop in Victoria, so we hope to see you there. Vancouver workshop will be rescheduled to March.

 

Who: Noted social media trainer Lorraine Murphy and “productivityist” Mike Vardy (editor Lifehack.org)

What: Social Flow: How to Win with Social Media without Losing Productivity

When: 10-4, February 04/2012

Where: ING Web Cafe, 466 Howe Street, Vancouver BC

How: Register here for the Social Flow workshop

It’s a social media struggle!

Wrestling with the idea that you can’t possibly become better at promoting yourself or your business through social media without it harming your productivity?

Well, wrestle no more.

Taking part in Social Flow: How to Win with Social Media without Losing Productivity is your ticket to championship gold in record time!

Social media trainer Lorraine Murphy and “productivityist” Mike Vardy (editor Lifehack.org) will guide you through the ins and outs of managing the social media profiles that keep you both active in your work and telling the public about your work all in one go.

Topics covered include:

  • How to Make Gmail Your Best Friend
  • What Task Manager is Right For You
  • Why Your Email Inbox is Not the Right Task Manager for anyone
  • Improving your Social Flow in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the new kid on the block, Google+
  • Why Planning your Social Media output is Integral to Your Social Flow
  • How to Avoid Falling Prey to the Perpetual Automation Machine
  • What Calendars are actually For
  • How to Increase Your Social Flow Using Hashtags, Twitter Lists…and more

This hands-on boot camp will not only get you on top of your social media profiles, but it will get you on top of what you need to do make sure they add attention to your business rather than subtract your attention from your business.

Register to attend an upcoming Social Flow workshop

Mike Vardy

Mike Vardy

Mike Vardy is the writer, speaker, and “productivityist” behind Vardy.me and the productivity parody site Eventualism. Vardy’s candid satire has made him a desirable speaker on an often dry topic, delivering talks on the topic such as “Hacking Lifehacks” at TEDx Juan De Fuca. Currently a Managing Editor at Stepcase Lifehack, Vardy has contributed to many popular productivity websites and publications, including David Allen’s GTD Times and Productive Magazine. He lives with his wife, daughter and son in Victoria, BC, Canada.

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Julian Assange: shocking suppressed interview!

julian assange needs his personal space. About nine inches of it in fact

Julian Assange needs his personal space. About nine inches of it in fact

While there is no shortage of Assangeology on teh interwebs, this particular interview has never surfaced in the mainstream media: why would that be? Willful suppression? Court order? Self-censorship among a craven, and job-insecure group of journalistic jackals each and every one of which would tear his own grandmother’s living eyeballs out of her skull for the chance at an internship at the Grauniad?

or all of the above?

We at the ol’ raincoaster blog (four million hits! FOUR MILLION HITS! Operation Global Media Domination accepts worldwide accolades; now shut up and buy me some Champagne!) have long had an interest in Assangeology and honest reporting, and it is in furtherance of these twin goals that we present the following, excerpted from that respected media outlet, TheWashingtonFancy:

NYTimes: Why couldn’t you just let real journalists handle these leaks?

Assange: That’s a great question. Why don’t you ask all the whistleblowers.

Heather Brooks: Let’s cut to the chase, sir. Why is your hair gray? There’s been conflicting reports; one claims that it went gray after a sustained custody battle against your ex-wife and the system, while the other maintains that you had a childhood accident with a cathode-ray tube that gave you superpowers. Which is it?

Smirk Julian Smirk

That's not what the photog meant by "show us what you got"

Would you buy this edition of Playgirl?

  • Yes
  • No

View Results

Assange: The tube thing. Definitely.

Heather Brooks: You know I still find you incredibly sexy.

Assange: I know, Miss Brooke. Please let go of my leg.

…

Guardian: What about the rumor that you’ve agreed to pose naked for Playgirl? Is this true?

Assange: What? Ridiculous. Absolutely not.

Guardian: But you agree that there exists such a thing as Playgirl Magazine? Yes or no?

Assange: Yes.

Guardian: Aha!

Now, do we have any faithful, leaky readers on staff at THAT prestigious publication?

No reason I ask.

Julian Assange is no poodle, teacup or otherwise

I...what?

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Harry Potter’s Day Off

The Harry Potter saga, if it had been filmed by John Hughes. You know, there’s a certain part of me (the 80′s part) that can’t help but think this would have been way better.

according to the YouTube, I’m supposed to credit this to ’Thewlis Rox’ @ davidthewlis.net so, thereyago!

In related news, click over the jump to today’s celebrity gossip links.

Continue reading →

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and fur wat?

and now, for a musical interlude…

what did elise ever do fur this?

what did elise ever do fur this?

Which reminds me of the time I lived in a basement apartment, underneath the living room of a woman who was practicing hard for the extremely, extremely, Southern girls you’re not even in it; you don’t have Tiger Mothers, EXTREMELY competitive Miss Chinatown contest.

Every night, she would play the piano; just one piece, over and over, loudly, with an oompah beat and great gusts of ambition, although apparently no past history of experience with the instrument. She practiced this bouncy Germanic tune nightly for about six weeks before my roommate looked up from her book, turned to me with tragic spaniel eyes, and said, “It’s the Moonlight Sonata.”

And so it was.

As if that weren’t soul-killing enough, here are your celebrity gossip links for the day:

Continue reading →