benrasmusen.com » Entertainment

FTWeet.com - Your FTW vs FTL Ratio on Twitter

Ben Rasmusen — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:48:44 +0000

I just finished adding some final touches to a new app: ftweet.com. FTWeet.com is just a simple application that lets you see what your FTW (for the win) to FTL (for the loss) ratio is on twitter.com. I wanted to get a cumulative score of my overall emotional read based on how many times I used FTW and FTL (silly I know, but it was bored and it was quick to code). It’s not anything crazy but kind of neat to checkout. It uses the summize.com API and my good friend Ben Lew hooked up the sweet design.

My ratio can be found at ftweet.com/benrasmusen.

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Rockstartup.com

Ben Rasmusen — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:15:39 +0000

I’ve been catching up on the latests episodes at RockStartup.com. I must say the owner sure seems like he’d be a tough person to work with and I’m not sure why anyone would. Though at this point, I’m not sure why anyone would work for anyone… but that’s for an upcoming post.

I actually heard about it when they were about 3 episodes in and then forgot about it. I was reminded again by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch (PayPerPost: Wasting Investor Money While Offending Native Americans) last week when they had another on camera blunder according to Michael.

Anyway, if you like the culture surrounding startups especially those that are loose with their cash, this free vidcast is for you. I found it pretty enjoyable when Ted Murphy wasn’t on the screen.

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Ideas, ideas.

Ben Rasmusen — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:03:25 +0000

Hold My Record

Wow, this is in league with the million dollar home page and the lady that had advertising tatooed to her forehead (sidenote: found this and thought it was somewhat related and definitely interesting).

There are some very interesting ideas on how to make money emerging. This guys offering to legally change his name to whatever you want (”…company name, website address or any other name you choose”) and then break a Guinness World Record so that whenever anyone mentions his record they will be saying your chosen name. He’s doing this to raise money for his internet startup. Sounds like this has more to do with exposure than money since he’s already gotten some good reviews from some credible people. If you’re interested, the top offer (as of me writing this) is $16,000 or you can “Buy it Now” for only $250,000.

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No more The Office on iTunes after 2007

Ben Rasmusen — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:49:38 +0000

NBC Bails on iTunes - TechCrunch.com

So NBC is out of the iTunes family of content providers at the end of their contract. Too bad, I was this close to paying for tv shows from iTunes… no, seriously.

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Harvey Danger

Ben Rasmusen — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:45:02 +0000

Wow is all I had to say when I saw the distribution model Harvey Danger is currently trying with their new record “Little by Little”.Â This new album is currently available for download free in it’s entirety here.Â And if you want to see their sensible, logical and well explained reasons for doing so check it out here.Â And download and enjoy the great new album.

I thought a $12.00 ‘contribution’ would be worth it to support this method of distributing music, with the added benefit of the great music.Â We need more bands following this example.Â If after enjoying the album you decide you’d like to give back, directly to the band, click here to contribute.

Note: the music is available for free and no contribution is necessary to download and enjoy the album.

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Commercial Free National Public Radio

Ben Rasmusen — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:54:58 +0000

What makes NPR commercial free?Â I know what they’d like you to think keeps them commercial free.Â It’s the generous donations from listeners and businesses.Â I know that they are supported by these donations, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t make them commercial free, it just makes the commercials under-produced and boring.Â A typical station goes out and drums business by approaching businesses around town and convincing them to buy ad space, which actually involves some work.Â NPR takes a different approach.Â They sit in their studio and annoy the crap out of their listeners by doing pledge drives and begging for donations.Â Sure there are incentives to “donate” like books and CD’s or some artwork, but it hardly seems worth it since the amount they require you to pledge to get the incentives is usually quite a bit higher than if you just went and purchased it directly.Â But then again you’re doing the community such a service with your donation… right?Â After all, now that you’ve donated you can enjoy “commercial free” National Public Radio.Â I usually just stop listening during these drawn out requests for cash, but the fact that they lie about the whole thing is what really irritates me.Â They claim to have commercial free broadcasting, but before, after and often during the shows they announce the kind businesses that have “supported” that particular show.Â And depending on how much you “donate” you get that amount of air time.Â To me that sounds like ad space, just with a different name.Â So no we’ve got advertisements for those businesses whether they want to admit it or not, but it’s underproduced and boring, because it just involves a DJ naming the company along with a quick blurb about it.Â Is it just me or does it seem hypocritical?Â Maybe I’m just going overboard on this.

Don’t get me wrong I still listen to NPR via our local station KRCC whenever I can. I have nothing but love and respect for the actual programs. I just get annoyed easily.

(This is written from my listening experience of our local radio station: KRCC http://www.krcc.org/)

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Thanks Ze Frank for the Show

Ben Rasmusen — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:19:44 +0000

Just a short year after it’s inception Ze Frank concluded his daily vidcast “the Show” on March 17th, 2007. If you haven’t seen it you should head over to the archives and spend the next couple days catching on them, you will not regret it. Since, as some of you know, the 17th of March is my birthday, I felt obligated to email Ze regarding his choice to end the show (a very sad occasion) on my birthday (a relatively happy occasion, depending on who you ask). Here it is:

Ze,

I must say I have enjoyed this past year of the show. It has given me something to look forward to each day. The show’s were amazing. I know that this is going to be just one of the millions of emails you receive similar to this. But there is something I wanted to say that might be a bit original.

My birthday is on the 17th of March and I found it kind of heartless of you to end the show on my day of birth and ruin not only St. Patricks day but also my birthday from this year forward. The ending of the show will forever overshadow this once special day.

But given how much joy you spread to me and millions of other people, I really can’t be too angry for the decision you made. Thanks again for the great times!

Ben Rasmusen

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“Don’t be a douche” - Jack Black

Ben Rasmusen — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:22:18 +0000

This video is too good for anyone to miss. You must check it out here:

YouTube - Jack Black on Piracy PSA