First, some terminology: Sammelraum is a life-form (allegedly – maybe it is an art bot). The German word means Staging Area in the military sense, Storage Space, or Collection Space … so perhaps collected ‘pure’ space as such, or space for collections. Second Name is a series of unworldly images created by that life-form. Random…
Tag: Internet
Poetry of Anything. Now I Know This Is Called Flarf!
So. I. Have. Forgotten. To. Save. Last Quarter’s Search Terms. I hope you missed my poetry already. What could I do to compensate for that? Inventing an allegedly new genre. Poetry of Anything. The rules are similar as for Search Term Poetry or Spam Poetry: Use continuous, unedited snippets from questionable internet sources. Pick snippets…
The More Content You Have Created
… the more time you need for curating. My first ever attempt at tweeting an aphorism. But it is true for me, and it defines the way I use online spaces. As a contributor of online content, I am operating in different modes: Creator, with emphasis on creating something original – including unintended re-invention of…
When I Did Social Engineering without Recognizing It
I planned to read something about history this summer. Then I picked the history of hacking. My favorite was Kevin Mitnick’s autobiography – the very definition of a page-turner. The book is free of hardcore technical jargon and written for geeks and lay audience alike. Readers are introduced to the spirit of a hacker in…
I Picked the Right Blogging Platform! (Book Review: The Year without Pants)
Before starting this blog I compared blogging tools in 2011. These two facts about WordPress and Automattic did win me over: Every new employee has to do three weeks of end-user support, regardless of position. They have a developer who calls himself the Quantum Bug Creator and has a PhD in Quantum Cryptography. Now I…
Network Sniffing for Everyone – Getting to Know Your Things (As in Internet of Things)
Simple Sniffing without Hubs or Port Mirroring for the Curious Windows User [Jump to instructions and skip intro] Your science-fiction-style new refrigerator might go online to download the latest offers or order more pizza after checking your calendar and noticing that you have to finish a nerdy project soon. It may depend on your geekiness…
I Am Too Googleable!
What a letdown. I wanted to report on near completion of The Website Resurrection Project – but I had a mind-altering experience. On the upside, I am not afraid of identity theft or surveillance anymore. My dentist had to cancel an appointment the day before. I showed up some minutes before the appointed time. The…
Blog Cleanup – Raking the Virtual Zen Garden Again
I am proud owner of a full season of Monk on DVD, and as a child nobody ever had to tell me to tidy up my room. I indulged not only in cleaning my Lego(*) world with a fine paint brush but I rather re-organized all my belongings in Feng-Shui-meets-OCD-style quite often. (*) Lego is…
Search Term Poetry – Spring Edition
Dear Google, you do still encrypt your search results. As a security enthusiast I should like this but I rather suspect you want me to use your AdWords tools. Please stop showing me ads for your “starter package” on all social networks, and give me the raw material for my poetry back. For now I…
The Web As I Want to Remember It
This title might be due to unknowingly plagiarizing dejavu.org – The web as we remember it. I haven’t visited dejavu.org in years, but I did now as I felt I need to wax nostalgic. This might be due to my recent tinkering with my websites‘ layouts. As a child I crafted 200-faced paper polyhedra whose…
Using Social Media in Bursts. Is. Just. Normal.
I have seen lots of turkey pictures last week and this has reminded me of an anniversary: When I saw those last time I have just started using Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. @elkement Little bird has left its egg! #newbie #twitter — Elke Stangl (@elkement) November 22, 2012 So a review is overdue, and I…
Breaking News on Search Term Poetry (Good, Bad, Ugly)
This is a break from quantum physics – you deserve it! Based on your questions – no un-follows so far fortunately – I will follow-up with attempting again to pick the right metaphors for 1026 dimensional spaces and tons of enormous vectors. But there is more (enigmatic) to this universe than quantum field theory – such…
Unplug Myself: First Update
It has been three and a half weeks since I have unplugged myself from social media and suspended blogging temporarily. I was rather active on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter before since I had Connected Myself to the Collective last November. Now my Klout score is dwindling again. This is my first update from the void,…
What Is Normal? (My Way of Announcing Blogging Time-Out)
I remember the best Out-of-Office note I have ever received – musing on not being able to get back to me as quick as normally, and culminating in the philosophical question: But – what is normal? Probably this is one of the hidden, leading questions that have driven this blog ever since I started it…
On Social Media and Networking (Should Have Been a Serious Post, Turned out Otherwise)
It has been nearly a month since my satirical post on LinkedIn and bot-like HR professionals has stirred interesting discussions and unexpected reblogs. I have promised to come up with related posts regularly. To all my new followers who were probably attracted by the Liebster-award-related nonsense: Compared to those posts this one is unfortunately a…
Missing Policies for the Mad Tea Party and What to Learn from The Jabberwocky
I am trying to re-gain control over the blog award nomination process, or I pretend to do so. postmoderndonkey had called it a Mad Tea Party of a nomination process – and right he was. You may accuse me of making this blog the strange attractor of a self-referential loop of weird referrals to itself…
Liebster Blog Award: This Time I Try to Respond in a More Normal Way
It happened again – I have been bestowed a blog award despite the way I handled my last nomination. This time I will respond in a different way. I – the Subversive El(k)ement – will adhere to the rules! Geeks, please bear with me though! I still think that blog awards are just ridiculous chain…
Professional Online Persona or: What Are Your Skills?
My previous post has triggered intriguing discussions – about writing, identity and what I called an ‘online persona’. As far as I remember I borrowed this term from David Weinberger’s book Small Pieces Loosely Joined – sublime reflections on the way the web has impacted culture and communication. I have asked myself sometimes: How should…
On Writing or: What Do I Need to Smoke to Understand Your Websites?
This is a verbatim quote. (“This” refers to the second part of the title. The first one is a lame reference to Stephen King, of course). It is a question asked by a former colleague some years ago who had been exposed to my proto-blog websites for the first time. These websites are subject to…
Website Resurrection: Status Report
It’s nearly EOY (end of calendar year) in corporate lingo, and thus it is time to prepare the last reports and try to meet some deadlines set by top management for political reasons. Corporate thinking is in my bones so I need to apply this approach to my personal Website Resurrection Project. I registered three personal…
F as in Finally
Finally I did it. I. Am. On. Facebook. A week ago I reactivated my dormant Facebook account, created years ago, that has never been associated with any friends. Fortunately I have some friends now. If I die tomorrow, I will not die alone. And I am on Twitter. @ elkement Little bird has left its egg #twitter #newbie So…
A Blank Sheet of Paper
I have a bunch of websites, and I was pseudo-blogging for a while. ‘Pseudo-blogging’ refers to editing old-school static websites not based on blog software. In contrast to what usability experts might say, I feel that the user interface does not matters. There were times of intense (pseudo-)blogging: Coding and writing html tags in a…
Shallow Waters and Deep Reading
I have re-read The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, and this is not a balanced book review. I am an occasional reader of popular psychology books and I am guilty of selecting these books according to my pre-established bias. The following experience puzzled me before I read the book: I spent a two-week…
elkemental Force 