#TeamWalt, Fictional Heroes and Villains, and Interpreting Morality in Breaking Bad

I am not on #TeamWalt. Walter White should go to jail, for all the morally reprehensibly things he has done for morally dubious reasons. Many people, though, proudly label themselves members of Team Walt, and actively cheer for the Breaking Bad protagonist, and they'll even have justifications for all of Walt's actions; they say Walt's always been doing everything for his family, to provide for them, to keep them safe, and that includes his surrogate son, Jesse. Others don't deny that Walt's done bad things, but they say it's fun to cheer for Walt, to see him succeed, and he is the protagonist, after all. This is his story, and those viewers want him to keep going, keep outsmarting people, keep doing terrible things in order to survive, because that's what keeps the show moving forward. There are people that are fervent in their defence of Walt's actions, and I want to take a closer look at that viewpoint here.

What is Facebook Marketing?

There are people, I understand, who are confused about the whole concept of Facebook marketing and advertising. Why would you waste money investing in advertising on Facebook instead of using traditional methods? Especially for people who didn't grow up with Facebook, it can seem like a fad, something their small business can simply ignore. In fact, I'd agree with that somewhat; not all small businesses can or should invest in Facebook marketing. But we'll get to that in a moment. First of all, Let's go over exactly what Facebook marketing is.

Live Performances of Past Lives - Paralyzer, Fucked Up - The Other Shoe, The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations

Past Lives - Paralyzer (Live on KEXP)

The Poverty Narrative of Africa

These are two links about the poverty narrative in Africa.  One is a TED talk by Chimamanda Adichie about the dangers of the "single story," and the other is a photo project called "Perspectives on Poverty" about the media images we see about Africa. It's always good to be reminded that a bigger pictures always exists out there.  An Africa exists beyond those commercials of starving African kids, those stories of genocide and disease and death and suffering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

http://waterwellness.ca/2010/04/28/perspectives-of-poverty/

Data Mining by Target (and other companies)

From The New York Times, how companies like Target are using data mining to market to you:
New York Times - How Companies Learn Your Secrets

Kid Koala, Arcade Fire, The Naked and Famous

Kid Koala - Moon River Remix (Picnic Electronik): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSsErpzoqr0

Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (MTV World Stage 2010): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QaAdT3zHLs

 The Naked and Famous - Young Blood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YuSg4mts9E&ob=av3n

Dumping out my bookmarks

I have one saved draft in my Hotmail account full of copy-pasted links, and bookmarks spread across multiple browsers, because like I wrote in a much earlier post, the music videos/magazine articles/whatever else I come across on the internet, these are the cultural puzzle pieces, these digital artifacts markered by URLs, these links that could become broken and useless at any moment, these are the things that make me who I am, and I'd like to make some attempt to save them.  Anyways.  I'm going to post some of my bookmarked stuff here, treating this sort of like a Tumblr I guess, just because I don't want to have to sign up for yet another website.