What's up world?

I know, I know. I'm so lazy and I haven't even taken the time to open semagic, or even read my LJ friends page. So expect me to be boring and post this using the web interface of Live Journal.

I have been thinking lately about my social networking life and which of the social networks, Twitter or facebook I am predominantly on. The reason why I have excluded such networks as MySpace or Bebo is because I have used them, deciding that I don't like them ending up sticking with Twitter and Facebook. Now you guys would probably kill me for saying that twitter could even be classed as a social network. Indeed, it does not have the features or capabilities of a fully fledged social networking site such as facebook but personally, I still get quite a lot of social interaction from the Twittosphere.

When I first heard of Twitter I immediately ridiculed the idea concluding that it was utter nonsense and quite frankly, only for weirdo's who have no life apart from preaching to the world 'what are you doing?'. Yet I had this uneasy pang in me to give it a test drive. It was beginning to take off in the technology world, which incidentally I follow closely. I also knew a couple of my online mates who I knew well enough to follow on twitter. So anyway, I created my account and started to follow people.

Initially I had what, 15 followers and I was following ten tweeters? yeah, it was something along those lines. before I knew it, 10 following had rapidly shot up to 50, then a hundred and now it's at a wopping 131 following. My followers count is at 140. Granted some of those followers are stupendous twitter spam, but I really don't give a fuck to be honest. I can rest assured that I do have what, 100 following me that are real people.

Twitter focuses on one question. 'what are you doing?' and this is what makes it so addicting amazing and connecting. On twitter we (Tweeters) can really focus on one area and no more. I'm not by any chance saying that this area of status updates
should rule the entirety of your social networking life, but if you are someone who is well-spoeken or just has a point that you can express online, it can really open up doors.

At first you will post tweets to your public timeline and think, 'nah, I'm not stirring up any attention'
Well, that's how I felt, anyway. Once you begin to find people on twitter with similar interests to you, all that can change. Your tweets resemble your interests. you generally interact with people with similar interests replying to their tweets, retweeting their tweets etc. One great thing I have noticed with Twitter is that artists especially indipendent and underground ones are starting to embrace twitter which I have found invaluable. Following music from the underground UK hardcore rave scene and the universal but not exactly popular in the street trance scene, I have been able to keep up with my favourite artists on twitter and see what on earth they are up to.

As much as I have expressed my love for Twitter, this is indeed one problem with the site. It is incredibly difficult to find friends and people that share common interests. Facebook has networking facilities and groups where members are united by there interests. All that twitter has is a one-line bio, where you are restricted to 160 characters. whether the facebook way of doing things though, would work on Twitter though, is a topic for a completely different blog post.

You think, why on earth is he obsessed with updating his status, being restricted to 140 characters? I mean couldn't it get any more freaky? Well I hope this portion of the blog post has been rather insightful. You still probably think it's 'bollocks', but you predict what I am gonna say, I love it.

I was never a huge fan of following the crowd and joining Facebook. Some one and a half years ago a firefox extention known as Web Visum was released. This extention was able to solve captcha's for the blind and I thought, ya know, it wouldn't be much of a fuss to create a facebook account and see what all the hype was about.

Similar to twitter, my count of friends rapidly increased. But these weren't people in the online world. They were real-life friends from school. However, on twitter you generally choose to follow people. On facebook, as soon as I joined my schools network, I experience an influx of friend requests. 'Oh look, everyones adding him, so why not? He appears in my suggestions so let's go for it'
I'm not claiming that everyone does this, and I have known people that wanted to know me. But the general consensus I have seen is what I have stated. And it just makes me think, 'how many of these people do I know in person?' 'Have I really interacted with them?'

This is what for me makes interaction on facebook rather dull and uninteresting. The majority of my social life comprises of online activity, which probably explains why.

In contrast to twitter, facebook bosts an array of social networking features such as status updates, videos, photo's notes (I don't see the point of them, blogging is far more preferable) etc. I guess this puts across the facebook ideal of being a connective tool for real-life friends, rather than something geared for the online community.

I think that Twitter for me, is preferable because of the vast online interaction as a pose to Facebook. This blog post has been twitter biased, however I wanted to clarify misconceptions such as 'twitters shit!'.
If the vast majority of your social life revolves around the internet, I am heavily inclined to say that twitter is for you. On the other hand, if your social life is a lot more based on Oh, I dunno interacting with your school mates online, then facebook is really the ideal choice. Or like me, you could be on both, which is really what I would encourage you to do. Soon though you will be asking yourself which of the two you prefer and trying to justify one over another.

I'm sat here waiting for my transport service to arrive.

Yesterday was a kinda shitty day as I had six lessons to attend in school, or college, or what ever. I mean I don't attend school in the literal sense: it's not compulsory or anything. The appropriate term is a sixth form, but anyone outside the UK probably won't know what that is.

I've got a timed essay for english lit today. Here's hoping it goes well.

Oh yeah now i'm in the taxi. I'm off to drown myself in a taxi journey with stinky little kids. Well at least the radio isn't on sunrise radio with high pitched bollywood women who sound like they're having an orgasm as they are singing.

Device: NokiaE71-1/0.07.76

This is a client for symbian. This should mean I update my journal more frequently. Currently i'm in bed so there! The client is a little querky but nevertheless perfectly manageable.

Well, it's been a long time for some, not for others. I updated this thing in the commencement of this month, and we're drawing to a close. I will reserve judgment as to whether I should update this thing more often.

Life's been the norm, I've started school and am now doing A-Levels. I decided to go with for A-Levels as this offers more flexibility next year or when I drop just in case I become unstuck. I know, I know, doing three A-levels from the start makes things a lot more easier, but I don't mind a challenge.

It's been a bit hectic to be honest. I got my screwed exam results through and they're OK. I decided in the end not to in fact pursue ICT A-Level. I am doing English literature. ICT isn't going to benefit me in any way after I graduate college. English Literature will. The awkward thing about ICT is that if you do intend on going in to a career that involves ICT, more specifically computer science, universities prefer it if you don't have ICT. ICT doesn't gain nor lose me anything so that idea changed dramatically. Apart from that, nothings really new. I've started using the netbook in lesson and can immediately see the advantages over something like a BrailleNote. It allows me to rely considerably less on braille, which I really need to do. Rofllmao I'd hate to imagine reading a 15 page print document about privateers in braille. Anyway, there's really nothing to say, apart from the song that I'm listening to, being so awesome.

Well, I'm finally back! Ok, I couldn't muster up the effort to think of a title that would describe what I'm going to blog about. You may know that I recently attended a computer camp in Austria. It wasn't the most technical computer related camp for say, but we had a great time generally socialising, taking the piss out of people hahahaha *shut up about that* lol. Also, I went to Turkey, and family holidays and all that stuff. I just got my GCSE results, and most of them look really good and I'm rather pleased. There's been a couple of fuck ups, but I'm trying to sort them out and see what really went on, because I know they aren't my real results. Oh well. I don't want to reveal anything on my blog. I am very cautious about what I blog about and what I don't as it's made publicly available and I could never imagine using this as a diary. Oh well, I'm lazy to actually blog about this in Semagic. So yeah, that's really it, I start school next week.

I just discovered a couple of days ago, thanks to blindraver a couple of north american dance stations which look pretty promising for what they are.
IDanceRadio and IDanceTechno


IDanceRadio focuses on the more commercial side of dance music, like a wide variety of house music genre's and some trance music. The latter, IDanceTechno, focuses on more underground dance music genre's such as hands up, jumpstyle and hardstyle. Give 'em a listen, they look pretty cool.

DI.FM has also launched some new channels, and the eurodance channel looks pretty cool, as it's playing new euro styles such as Hands up. Old eurodance has been renamed to classic eurodance.

In my life, nothing really has been going on. We're gonna have a BBQ tonight, which will be epic as always.

Will I delete this post? Probably not... I can't be bothered to delete a test.

( read more, this may be considered unsuitable content for some, due to the sole purpose of LJ-Cut ) JamesScholes000 just testing stuff

So I went in to school todays and yeah, I'm sticking with my A-Level choices, after all...

Why you may ask, surely your last post was a hint of change?

Ok, here we go...

ICT: Most uni's are not so strict on the mathematical side of things, and I could potentially do a course such as software development. All they require is 320 Ucas points, which totals to either two A's and a C in your A-Levels, or one A and two B's. Granted, it's hard to get, but that's really for the top universities and some have lower demands. But an A and two B's I presume would certainly be achievable and yeah, I've heard that GCSE's are nothing compared to A-Levels.

Business: reading the prospectus this morning made me actually take in what the course was to offer, and I feel that I'd enjoy this course. It really builds on core development of idea's, from what I've seen, which is a good thing...

History: Was really doing this anyways for certain, just had to confirm with school due to there being so much reading material involved, Braille would just not be efficient enough.

Philosophy: Again, rereading the prospectus with a clear mind made me think that yeah, the whole argument and development thing is for me. I could of done Sociology, but reading that, it was just like we were gonna do hard coded facts and opinions (I know they are not hard coded) but I want something that I can expand my mind to. Government and politics was an option, but it's not for me. I am hoping to do something computer related as a proffession and not something political lol. Now you could argue the same about History and Philosophy, but History is another thing I enjoy, and Philosophy, has a specific style of presentation, where you have to be very critical. I'm moderate when it comes to politics, thus I don't really see the point of doing a whole course for it. Now this doesn't mean I don't have political views and I am completely unaware, all this means that I personally wouldn't like to study it as a qualification, you can't do everything after all to look good, there's just some things, you can't. You've gotta find what's best for you.

Ok, here I go, my brainstorm of A-levels related. I'm still choosing and shit so yeah. Hopefully by writing in my LJ I can clarify my blurred thoughts...

ICT: I'm doing this A-Level because it's gonna be extremely easy in one sense. But for a career, I want to go in to something computer related. For this reason, I am strongly thinking about doing ICT A-Level.

However, ICT has some drawbacks as well. it gets mindlessly boring because I can't resist but be a smart arse, and rant technically and yeah, ya get the jist, basically with out being too Cocky, I know everything. I was also considering computer science, and ICT A-Level really isn't gonna be benificial when it comes to it. I'm not exactly sure whether I want to go in to programming, but it looks pretty likely. Problem is, a lot of universities favour Chemistry or Mathematics A-Level. The latter, I am useless at. So I dunno if CS is really the right root to go, perhaps I should look in to other technically orientated computer courses.

Business: Never done this. A lot of people say it's not that great at GCSE but I am in to business and marketing and whatnot and I think it will help me in later life. Heard it's a lot of coursework and essay orientated but I like doing coursework and essays so really, I don't think it should be too much of a challenge.

This is one I could consider dropping at year 13 if it really came to it.

History: Loved the GCSE course. Not a fantastic source analyser but I do the job when it comes to source analysing. Content was pretty cool. I feel I will really enjoy this next year.

There is going to be a lot of reading involved, but I'm going to sort this out with the school so I get my material in electronic format.

Philosophy: I think I'd find this one a more not necessarily easy subject but more let's say, open. It involves heavy arguing so I think I'd excel at it.

The thing is, I really don't know if I should be taking this. I'm just trying to balance out my course schedule but easy courses do give you grades, which just looks good at a fundamental level.

In conclusion,
I think that ICT is really the one I should be concerned about. Perhaps I may do the ICT double course, and two more A-Levels. We'll just have to wait until August and see what my GCSE results are. I'm also gonna talk to my ICT teacher and see what he thinks on the whole Computer Science matter.

Ok, so what I'm trying to say is that getting your own place is just awesomeness... Why you may ask? Because you can have music as loud as you want... I'm so critical lol I'm not taking anything in to consideration, musical freedom!!! at least I don't have to listen to music in my headphones at 10:00 PM or something because there will be no one. And the neighbours can deal with it haha, and no one will tell me to turn it down lol... I'm bored so I wrote this lol, I'm actually doing it in LJ Talk, I really should be using Semagic, but I can write my blog post in an IM window so it's all cooooool.

Now using LJ talk with jabber (obv) with Miranda IM. This why Live journal is such a good blogging platform imo, it really is more social orientated than anything I've seen...

Ok, so I haven't posted here for ages but, I am now, at 12 in the morning. OH well...

Basically school is over, which is awesome!!! Ok, what can I say? I mean, I can't make up this imaginary story, but I do wish I was in Loret de mar seriously stompin in the sun!!! Maybe when I finish college, hopefully A-Levels won't extend too deep in to June...

On the more technology front, Apple recently announced accessibility for the iPhone... Here are my views on the subject matter...
1: on windows mobile or symbian, we have a choice of screenreaders. On the iPhone, we don't. You are stuck with Voice Over.
2: switching to a mac, or in this context an iPhone limits your choice. Let's say on the mac, what choice of media players do you have, how many accessible twitter clients? etc, the same in a way goes for the iPhone.
3: you are relying on third party devs to make their applications accessible. The majority of devs probably just won't give a fuck about accessibility... Sorry evangelists, but it's true. There is no scripting framework or anything.
4: The iPhone is totally flat. The touch screen has not a single trace of a raised part, or anything. Get real Apple, how the hell do you expect people to operate this thing efficiently.
5: Apple are obsessed with this idea of knowing where things are on the screen, where they are placed, I can see this becoming counter productive. Let's take the browser for example, for all it's worth I couldn't care if an element was on the top left of the page, All I care about is what's on the page, and Talks from experience on Symbian does this very well.

So anyway, I await people in the blind comunity to try this thing out, and then I'll make my final comments...

On a completely different note, I finally motivated myself to stop exporting my LJ entries to facebook as notes... You can't do it on the stupid mobile site, so the endurance of the standard FB lol :P

Step 1: put your mp3/media player on shuffle.
Step 2: for the first 20 songs that appear, write down the first line, no matter how stupid, cheesy or whatever.
step 3: strike through the songs when someone guesses correctly. Warning! You can't mention a song that someone else has mentioned in their comment.
Step 4: Looking up the songs on google, or any equivalent search engine is cheating. If I catch you, I'll kill you! :D

1. World don't turn around....
2. Did I ever tell you?
3. Where were you to hold my hand?
4. traveling somewhere, could be anywhere.
5. Let's get away, fly away...
6. You, can't appologise.
7. When will I see you?
8. I wanna know...
9. Rain, in the rain...
10. Whenever you walk through my door...
11. If, you, see, me, on the street, all I do is smile.
12. Shining light...
13. Say you wanna be under water...
14. You took me up..
15. Remember the feelings, remember the day...
16. Come on and follow me to my wildest fantasy...
17. Since your gone...
18. There's somethin' about you, and the way you look tonight...
19. look at you, stood their, with the sunlight in your hand.
20. It was a cold day in december...

hey'yaz all,
Just updating my unread blog because, I can and I've got nothing better. As I said in my prior post, Cascada's new single was claimed to be a lady Gaga wannabe. I can now confirm it is. I can't be bothered to link any of you, I'm too lazy.

In other news it's half term so I'm trying my best to just kick back, but inevitably due to the amount of revision I'm doing this is somewhat limited. I know I'm sorta bitching, but I'm not stressed or anything, just there's loads to do. And I mean loads, which brings me on to what I really wanted to say.
I'm having to deal with a literal pile of braille books, and I mean textbooks, not my class work. Now granted the amount of work I'm doing for my courses is a lot, but honestly? I struggle to find things now, I've got 12 freakin history volumes to plow through! Well, I'm exaggerating a little, yes, but there seriously is 12 volumes of history textbooks. It is just not efficient enough. The school has always recommended to it's students to devise timetables, but that wil never work for me. Time is just too constrainted with braille. So this brings me on to the conclusion that next year, no way am I using braille. And the teachers and what not will just have to get used to either sending work direct to me or not having to get it brailled and sending it to the VI department which will give it to me in an alternative format.

Anyway, I can't believe that I'm officially a graduate of secondary school in exactly 2 weeks from today! All exams will be done, party for the world! :d :)

Just thought I'd update this blog. Again, appologies to facebook people who are reading these notes.

As I've been saying lately, exams are approaching rapidly. To be honest with you, I'll be glad when they're over. I'm not going to talk about grades and what I'm taking here as I think that really is inappropriate for my blog. Other than that, I can't say much has been happening.

Cascada's new single was premiered on radio 1 last night. It's called Evacuate The Dancefloor and is apparently a Lady GaGa wannabe; though I haven't heard it, I can't say. New bonkers came out on the 11th and all I've been hearing from the online community is complaint after complaint. It might not be as good as other bonkers releases, but bonkers was never a Hardcore Underground or anything. It was a step below the mainstream. And for those who complain that people like Scott Brown aren't on it, well honestly, what is he doing now? I will agree though Hixxy's classics disk was a waste of time because we've heard the songs time after time. Oh well. I guess it will be a good introduction to up and coming hardcore ravers. I think people need to embrace the fact that hardcore is evolving like anything else, and the scene isn't about popping copious amounts of pills and listening to chipmunk samples and saying "We're free from society". It's only music, get over it. It has to evolve, if happy hardcore was so great why did it lose popularity in 1999/2000,. I think the rave scene in general is divided, but hardcore is going to get bigger than ever. If they can sell Bonkers and Clubland X-Treme hardcore in shops like Tesco and Asda then you know what I mean. People are bitching like crazy about AATW, but AATW is a huge record company. For them to invest in hardcore actually means something. It's getting bigger, whether you like it or not. And let me clear up something: hardcore isn't chav music. Who the hell came up with such a retarded idea in the first place? And when you ask chavs about hardcore it's either Scooter (which is no way hardcore anymore, that was 93/94 now they're jumpstyle and other random commercial exploits) or Rankin. Who the hell is Rankin anyway.

This weeks track of the week is Force & styles - heart of gold. This version is the best IMO, the 2002 trance remix just doesn't work for me. I'd love a new twist to it in the ever so expanding capabilities of UK hardcore. UK hardcore isn't just trance influenced anymore, it takes influence from lots of genres. The genre is not speeded up trance, it's something unique. It's getting bigger, but still retaining it's undergroundness which is what I personally want. Anyway, here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srDJLEAZSZg

Yeah, I finished my orals. And I'm in one of those days where I just don't wanna do anything because it's cool to not and just chill. I dunno what else to write about. The oral went well, beeing French I obviously stuttered a bit and got a little muddled, but that doesn't bother me. Now, my next exam is on the 12th of may, oh yeah! I need to do track of the week haha soon. Bye.

Orhan.

Doing exam revision prompted me to write this entry in my LJ. I have come to the conclusion that vraille is simply not productive enough for me. I mean, Let's take my history course for example, the textbook is 12 freaking volumes. The topic russia 1900-1941 is about 3 or 4 volumes. To find one bit of information isn't easy to do. Especially when the book doesn't really have chapters. Even if a braille book has chapters, it's a nightmare to find that little bit of detail. What also annoys me about braille is the fact that it requires 100% concentration. While this is a good thing, you can't sustain this for 3 hours can you honestly? Skipping through information is just srtupid because you have to read everything unlike on a PC or in electronic form.

I'm not saying that braille should die, however when a school student comes to let's say Year 10, or 10th grade, they should be given the option on what to do, stick with braille, or go the electronic root. I would have personally chosen the electronic root, as it would make my life a lot quicker when doing work, revising etc. Luckily students do get this choice in college, well in the UK they do (If they ask) but I think it should happen a bit earlier. I'm not saying that a teacher should come up to me and go:
"Orhan, do you want to stick with braille for year 10?" that's ridiculous. What I think is the problem is the lack of technical communication in school. Problems with Jaws on networks, problems with computers in school, etc. Of course it's the students responsibility. And, I must admit that I never thought that braille would be so unproductive until I reached GCSE. So my advice for anyone doing intense courses like GCSE's is to think:
"Hey, this is going to be long. What do I want to do?" Then you can go up to your VI department etc. Studying shouldn't be unproductive, many people don't realise that is what can make it really boring and tiring. It's gotta be something you can do when it's right for you with out too many time constraints. Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I've gotta revise using unproductive braille for my orals.

Again, these are my personal views, so if you don't like them, I couldn't care less.
BTW, sorry facebook friends, these notes are beeing imported from my live journal. If any of you are on live journal, then add me as a friend.
http://worldandother.livejournal.com
KTHX Bye.

UK Hardcore for the win, helps my blurr of strange thoughts in this blog post.

You know, one of those days, before the start of something long, you have this feeling of not knowing what to do. Everything seems so normal to you, and you want a change. It's really strange, but yeah. It's seriously the most obscure feeling I think one can have, because you don't know what to do, and what to change.

Yeah, anyway, on to some topical stuff.
French orals are approaching. I think I'm going to do well, and to be frankly honestly with you, I am pretty confident about what I'm doing. Not doing languages next year means that I can let it go a bit less on my priority list, though this weekend it's my top priority. Apart from that, school's going well, with revision and such. I'm still contimplating weather to come in to school for some additional help with maths and the such during study leave, but I know that a lot of my subjects I am capable of revising at home. Well in fact, all.

Omg, James is on livejournal. This is so awesome. But seriously, what with LiveJournal's friends features etc, it makes it awesome. But anyway, regardless of that, I'm updating. I need to make writing in my blog more often.

Texplosion is a new blog me, jamesscholes000 and blindraver have set up. We have a slant towards accessibility, with out accessibility taking over the focus of the blog. What this means, is we'll cover news from both the tech world, and blind or access tech world. We try to make the post as mainstream or whatever as normal, and then comment on accessibility towards the end. As a blind person, I feel that this is a good approach to take. Anyway, the URL of the blog is:
http://www.texplosion.net

School is coming to an end, and GCSE's are approaching. Of course this means that I'm going to be busy, but I just don't get the mentality of revising all the day long. Get up at 9AM, revise till 5. I mean, do three hours a day, or even four, but, just take regular brakes.