I’m sure you’ve noticed the lack of blog posts recently here at WriteTilt.com. I haven’t posted because I’ve been too busy to do so. My lack of posts is quite simple: lack of commitment and desire.

I have fallen victim to these issues before in the past. For three straight years, I blogged very consistently, pretty much on a weekly basis. Back then, blogging was new to me, and I loved the idea of free-form communication on the web without restraints. There was a time when I thought I’d never stop blogging but I did. I didn’t feel as committed to blogging every week and that I was forcing myself to write about something just to post and appease my readers. However, forcing words just for my audience felt false because I just wasn’t feeling it the way I once did. The shiny luster of blogging had worn off, and I also felt burned out. So I took a hiatus and eventually decided to shut my first blog down about two months later.

For approximately one year, I didn’t blog before I got the itch to return. I resurfaced under this domain and took a different approach to blogging from my previous one. I wrote whenever I felt like I wanted to write and tried not to fall under pressure to post every day or even every week. I succeeded and actually thought I could survive the blogosphere, possibly for good. Then Twitter happened.

I love Twitter - when it isn’t failing of course - and used the micro-blogging tool as an “ad hoc service” to blogging here at WriteTilt.com. When I first started using Twitter, I dismissed the tool as a blogging replacement. And of course, you can’t say as much with 140 characters as you can with a blog. However, an odd thing happened to me. As I used Twitter more, my desire and commitment to blogging slowly diminished. I found that I liked the idea of expressing myself in small spurts throughout the day rather than sitting down and thinking about a topic to expand upon in a blog post. Still, I didn’t think that long-form blogging was dead…until I heard a recent Net@Night episode. Read the rest of this entry »

For months, I have watched the media and the masses badmouth China on everything from Internet censorship, lead-filled consumer products, and most recently, China’s treatment of Tibet (complete with Olympic torch protests). I have been staying attuned to the coverage of China in western media over the past several months, and I have reached a verdict: we are being brainwashed into thinking China is bad. This is similar to how we were brainwashed into thinking Russia was bad when they were a communist nation. This is something that concerns me because it seems like we’re heading towards a new cold war era thanks to mainstream media’s propaganda.

First, I want to say that I’m not some communism-loving fanatic. I love democracy, even though I don’t think a democratic government can work for some countries and cultures (Iraq, for instance). Like most kids, I was taught that communism was a bad form of government in school, which is not surprising since I grew up during the height of the Cold War era (the Regan years). My classmates and I were taught that the U.S.S.R. along with any other country with a communist government was not our friend. However, I have also learned not to believe everything you read in textbooks because history is often not reflected accurately. I have applied this method of thinking when it comes to items I read in the news, hear on podcasts, and watch on TV. As a result, I am instantly inclined to believe that much of what I’m hearing or reading is not entirely accurate. Someone is pushing an agenda to brainwash millions into believing something that may or may not be true. After all, something must be true if you repeat it enough, right? This is why I look at the news coverage of China doing “bad things” with a side eye.

Do I believe China is doing some outlandish things to its citizens? Of course, they are, but tell me, what country isn’t? I’m absolutely positive that many of the western countries pointing fingers at China are doing bad things to their citizens on a daily basis. But our faults and problems in the western world are not as important as what China is doing at the moment. To me, it’s a hypocritical way of thinking that we, as westerners, should sit back and evaluate before casting stones at a glass house. Read the rest of this entry »

Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback finally put the last nail in the coffin for the IPTV’s latest effort, Social Brew. If you don’t know what Social Brew was, it was a show dedicated to covering social networks on a weekly basis such as Twitter, Zune Social, Facebook, etc. When the show debuted, I wondered how anyone could possibly sustain a weekly show on social networks, so I decided to see for myself by subscribing to it via Zune Marketplace. From episode one, I had a feeling that Social Brew was doomed for failure.

Non-compelling and/or Mismatched Hosts

Social Brew’s main host was Irene McGee of Real World Seattle fame. I thought it was an odd choice from the beginning, but I definitely felt it wasn’t the wisest of choices after watching episode one. One thing I noticed about McGee was that she seemed uncomfortable and nervous on camera. She talked – a whole lot – with her hands, which I spent more time watching (in annoyance) than listening to what she was saying. She also had an irritating tendency to ramble, make things about her, and take over the conversion, which she did improve upon in future episodes. I know some viewers also held the “Stephen incident” against her, which turned into a minor controversy on Rev3’s forums. I’m also aware that some people just didn’t think she had enough “geek cred” to host the show, but it wasn’t as if she was hosting Systm, people. Personally, I found that McGee, aside from the other annoyances, just wasn’t interesting as a host and lacked the “it” factor.

I can say the same for co-hosts Johnny Hwin and Neha Tiwari (who was actually good on Tekzilla). While I felt they were better hosts than McGee, I found them mostly boring whenever they were on camera. They primarily lacked a “spark” whenever they were discussing topics for their segments, which made me wonder if they really liked what they were doing. The only exception was Moujon Z. whose personality stood out and whose comic relief was the best thing about the show; however, I felt that in some ways, she didn’t belong on Social Brew. Moujon was the extreme opposite among all of her co-hosts, which made it even more obvious that she was neon pink and everyone else was just beige in terms of on-screen personality. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, I was sitting on the edge of the couch with my parents watching CNN=Politics as the polls closed for the last two primary states. Despite the primary results, I knew what was coming, that a history making moment was minutes away. I watched as the numbers gradually decreased for the delegate count Barack Obama needed to clinch the democratic nomination. Even though I knew what was coming, I had to watch until he actually had the numbers on his side. So when the newscasters finally proclaimed Obama as the democratic nominee, I felt an emotional response unlike never before. I was happy, sad, exhilarated, amazed, motivated, and a whole host of emotions. An historic day that I wasn’t sure would ever come did. Americans decided that skin color was not a factor when it came to their democratic nominee. They wanted change. They wanted enthusiasm and hope. They wanted new blood. They wanted Barack Obama, and it didn’t matter that his father was a black man and his mother was a white woman. Considering what I know about American and African American history, I watched a miracle occur on June 3, 2008.

This country was largely built on the backs of slaves from Africa and their decedents. In fact, African Americans invented many amenities that we enjoy in our every day life – the traffic light, the filament in the light bulb (the filament actually makes the light in the bulb), elevators, and even the ironing board. Still, despite African American’s contribution to the country, they were treated less than human by many, before slavery and after slavery ended with Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Read the rest of this entry »