Review of the day: Google+

Most of you have by now heard of the new Google+ (or G+, for brevity's sake). Some of you may have an account, some of you may not; I fall into the first group and am going to write up a review of G+ as it is so far. I'll break it down into three sections: Pros, Cons, and Thoughts in General.

Pros

• It's really easy to get from Gmail, iGoogle, or any other Google page to G+. Click the Your Name+ link at the top left, and there you go. G+ homepage ahoy.

• The new Hangouts feature is very cool and has a lot of potential to be incredibly useful, but I can't help but think it's a (very nice) rehash of the already-existant Google Chat features (voice, text, video).

Oh dear, that was short.

Cons

• Adding a post is slightly obnoxious: you can't make a post from the Posts page, you have to be in your Home page. What's most obnoxious? You can't just post a status or whatever, you first have to choose which of your circle(s) you'd like your post to be seen in; a notice then comes up about who does or doesn't have a G+ account, but how this doesn't really matter since they'll receive an e-mail of your post if they don't have a G+ account. Having now pressed the Share button several times, your status or whatever is posted.

• The feature for commenting on photos is placed in a somewhat awkward, inconvenient-seeming spot: in the far right corner, away from the photos themselves.

• Circles? What is this nonsense? A bizarre, unnecessary way to categorize people you've connected to?

• The Buzz account that I deleted forever (or what I thought was forever) sometime last year or so is back. Somehow I'm managing to follow myself. Twice.

• It is far, far too easy to potentially undo the entirety of one's blog through G+. If you're going through your photo albums (somehow I had three, and I never uploaded a thing to G+), it's entirely possible to say "What is this, I don't want all my old blog banners/deleted images/etc. as an album, Delete!" and get rid of every image on your blog without the possibility of getting it back. On that token, though, you can delete single photos, but only one at a time and that's very time consuming.

• The layout is just plain ugly. It's a stripped-down, too-much-whitespace ugly hack of the Facebook homepage.

Thoughts on G+ in General

G+ is pretty much a Facebook ripoff. We knew that it was, and perhaps wanted it to be, an answer to Facebook's "evil," but here we have an ugly Facebook clone. G+'s picture viewer? Almost identical to Facebook's "theatre" version of photo viewing. G+'s Suggestions? Same as on Facebook. G+'s Home is almost identical to Facebook's current Home page. And if it's not a Facebook ripoff, it's just another version of something Google already had going on: G+ Sparks is the same as GReader, and GChat (voice/video/text) is Hangouts.

Why are people going ape over G+? This is how I see it: OMG, guys, it's a Google Thing! It must be better than Facebook, because it's, like GOOGLE! Facebook is just SO typical, how gross, and nobody cares there! Google cares! My friends, if this is your reasoning for hopping onto the G+ bandwagon, I find your reasoning faulty. Google is great, but going gaga over G+ "because it's Google" is as stupid a reason as any I've ever heard. Why? Because...

In short, there is absolutely nothing innovative and novel about Google+: it's a hodgepodge of Facebook and rehashed Google features. I find it to be an unnecessary, uninteresting, and generally useless new feature that people are going ape over simply because it's Google.

I'm sorry Google, I do love you, but I have tested Google+ and found it lacking.

Yes, I'll post a photo later.

"You psychotic... NERD!": brief _Paul_ review and some thoughts

My favorite acting duo are Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and their most recent movie Paul is pretty danged funny. Not quite as funny as Shaun of the Dead, but still pretty good. As the post's title promises, here is a brief review.

Synopsis: After visiting San Diego's Comic Con, hilariously shy sci-fi nerds Clive and Graeme (Frost and Pegg, respectively) decide to make a tour of popular alien "sites", such as Area 51. During their trip they meet Paul,  a laid-back, smoking, clever and somewhat vulgar alien. After not-quite kidnapping a woman, the party makes their way to where Paul is supposed to meet his fellow aliens, where a fistfight with Sigourney Weaver ensues and fireworks are set off, and everyone lives happily ever after.

If you're already familiar with Pegg/Frost movies, you know to keep an eye out for constant references and clever revisitings to other Pegg/Frost/pop culture movies, and this movie is brimming with such things. General sci-fi nerddom references (and characters from other Pegg/Frost movies!) appear, and according to this interview, the references just happened (as one who is surrounded by near-constant nerddom, references do just happen). Now, since I rather like references to things and appearances of cool people, I was very fond of the movie. References aside, the movie is a general haphazard journey of nerds and an alien being chased by Jason Bateman through the Southwest, and is tremendous fun (<-- very!!).

Paul also mercilessly pokes fun at Christians for being ignorant, hokey and slightly crazy, which brings to me to my thoughts:

First, No, I'm not offended by this, and I think that this reputation is worth addressing. So here we go.

The not-entirely-kidnapped Ruth (Kristen Wiig) in Paul is the movie's shining example of Wacky Christian Lady, calling unfamiliar things "of the Devil" and resorting to singing "Amazing Grace." She insists quite fervently that the Earth is only 4,000 years old, and is the only world because God made it (this logic doesn't follow, but whatever, I'll leave it). Eventually, she "learns better," and learns how to employ painfully awkward swearing.

Sure, you can say the directors were "being mean," but really, can you tease a kid about being fat if he isn't? Likewise, can you mock Christians for being hokey and ignorant and crazy if there aren't Christians who are like that? You can't really tease a reputation that doesn't exist. We certainly do seem to get people angry and upset with us, and I don't think it's necessarily got anything to do with what Jesus said about the world hating us because of him. Certainly, that happens, but I think more often the case is, quite simply, that we come off as ignorant asshats.

Again, as I've said before, I don't think the age of the Earth (or evolution) matters beans in regards to God's character, so I'll ignore that point right now. The point at hand is our character, fellows, and how we react to the world and the people in it: do we react with the love we were commanded to conduct ourselves with, or do we cover our ears and whine apoplectic insanities? Can't we just hush ourselves and listen to what other people might have to say? I dare say we still have plenty to learn. 

If you recall, you're still imperfect, too. I know I'm still figuring this "love others" stuff out.

School work what? I have Muse to geek about, here!

Indeed, here we go with an (probably) obligatory "Holy crap I've seen Muse for the first time" bloggery, because YES they are that ridicufreakaliciously fantastic. Music review time!

The opening act were Silversun Pickups. I'd heard one of their songs before, and it was listenable (even likeable- rareish for a pop band whose male singer sounds like a woman with pop-angst for a voice).My conclusions are thus for the Pickups: their synth player knows what he's doing about half the time-- the half that he doesn't he is using is synth to sound-warp your eardrums with searing, high-frequency PAIN-- searing, high-frequency, half-step flat pain (but to his credit he owns a nice hat); their drummer is very good indeed, as is their bassist (who is a lady GIANT); and their lead singer/guitar player is a leprechaun who is a pretty good guitar player with a strange fondness for the effects pedal.

...And then there were three. And by that I mean Muse happened. They did not "play next,"  "start playing," or "come on stage" or whatever. I said Muse "happened" and that is exactly what I mean.

It should be mentioned first that the stage setup was a stage with three giant fabric columns on it- the Ministries of Love, Peace and Truth (if you don't understand that reference, please go read 1984). We figured Muse were hiding in these columns (and they were), but we didn't expect the fabric to glow and have the electric white silhouettes of people walking up and down stairs, and really didn't expect the fabric to drop to the ground at the first chord of "Uprising", revealing Muse on columns glowing with lights and imagery and under columns of the same. The only appropriate response was to make a lot of noise.

The next two hours consisted of some of the most creative, interesting, thoughtful and exhilarating prog rock on the planet (or, if you prefer the vernacular, "Muse rocked us like a hurricane, sir"). This involved a grand piano that lit up when Bellamy felt like it should light up, a bass/drum solo of Rush excellence, a megaphone, Bellamy skidding across the floor like an excited twelve-year-old, lasers, intermittent jam sessions, a very happy and weird Dominic wailing away on drums, and giant floating eyeballs. Eyeballs? Yes, giant floating eyeballs. With red confetti in them. I took pictures:

Oh yeah, I found a shot of the stage too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MuseNIA.JPG.

Also, I want to be one of their sound people. Why? Because I like doing sound engineering-like things, and their setup looked like the controls of a spaceship. If there's a cooler assistant's job than that, somebody tell me.


"They rocked us like a hurricane, sir!"