So long, Facebook, I didn't hardly know ya.

[SteveShaw]

I'm not on anything. It all passes me by. I'm just on this, the poly-thingie and a couple of music boards that work like this. I don't understand how anything else works or why it's needed. I don't know what tweeting or blogging means. I did sign up for Facebook years ago but never did anything at all, and couldn't even work out how to log into it. Eventually, with considerable difficulty, I managed to unshackle myself from it. I'm thinking of joining YouTube to put some of my playing up there but it'll take me yonks to work out how to do that. Oddly, I don't appear to feel miserable.

Cheers

Steve "Diogenes" Shaw

[Denny]

is that an ignorance is bliss argument?


I like it!

[hans]

is that an ignorance is bliss argument?


I like it!

Hardly, if Steve has adopted "Diogenes" as middle name!

From Diogenes life:

When asked how he wished to be buried, he left instructions to be thrown outside the city wall so wild animals could feast on his body. When asked if he minded this, he said, "Not at all, as long as you provide me with a stick to chase the creatures away!" When asked how he could use the stick since he would lack awareness, he replied "If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?"

[s1m0n]

I'm not on anything. It all passes me by. I'm just on this, the poly-thingie and a couple of music boards that work like this.

You're poly? That's, um, more info than I was expecting.

[SteveShaw]

Er, I think I meant poli...

[sbfluter]

This is good news. I keep hoping that people will come to their senses and reject annoying marketing tools like FB. Thank goodness it's happening. Alas, to be replaced by some other marketing scheme no doubt, but for some reason FB bothered me the most.

[s1m0n]

A likely story!

[emmline]

This is good news. I keep hoping that people will come to their senses and reject annoying marketing tools like FB. Thank goodness it's happening. Alas, to be replaced by some other marketing scheme no doubt, but for some reason FB bothered me the most.

Yes. I will reject it as soon as you offer me a better option for reconnecting with people such as my best college friend from my 1.5 year stint at Kenyon in Ohio, who nowadays runs a beautiful little veterinary hospital in Ohio, which I just saw, via pics, on FB. I am pleased. Very pleased!
As for the stupid ads. Yes, they're stupid, but you ignore them. I like people and I like staying in touch with them. FB, for now, serves a function that nothing else quite does.
Golly, even C&F has banner ads. What free online site wouldn't?

[s1m0n]

This is good news. I keep hoping that people will come to their senses and reject annoying marketing tools like FB. Thank goodness it's happening. Alas, to be replaced by some other marketing scheme no doubt, but for some reason FB bothered me the most.

The largest sector on the internet consists of sites that give you something for free in the hope that you will eventually like it enough to pay. I'm glad that SOME people do pay up, because I never do, and if the world was like me, there'd be a lot less free stuff on the net.

Actually, that's not quite true. What works best on the net is stuff that can be given away for free, but the site either costs so little or makes just enough money via advertising, sales, or donations to keep in business. These models work. What doesn't work, and goes on not working over and over, are sites which have come up with another niche where the above works, but then get seduced by the explosive growth that's characteristic of the 'free' model on the net.

Visions of sugarplums dance in their heads, and they rush out and sell shares to Venture Capital funds, or more likely the VC Funds that financed the initial idea and development sell at this point and take their profit. Once a business goes public, people don't buy it for what it is, but for what it could be. This means over and over good ideas which could go on working indefinitely (say Hi to Craigslist) get murdered by the search for the golden-egg el dorado. Site after site gets strip-mined and dumped. Or they get bought up and closed by a competitor eager to defend their own profit source.

This is the fate that Craigslist's Craig Newmark has avoided with his adamant refusal to sell out or to cash-in. If he had, he'd have made enough to retire, but his site would by now be dead. (The newspaper biz, if nothing else, would have bought him out and shut him down in seconds. Classifieds used to be the most profitable part of a paper. They're not now.) Newmark keeps telling the money guys to go get stuffed, but it means his goose will go on laying a golden egg a day for as long as he wants it to.

[Lorenzo]

I will reject it as soon as you offer me a better option for reconnecting with people such as my best college friend from my 1.5 year stint at Kenyon in Ohio, who nowadays runs a beautiful little veterinary hospital in Ohio, which I just saw, via pics, on FB. I am pleased. Very pleased!

Networking is an art. You obviously are the kind of person FB is made for. So am I. For me, those kind of stories never end. It continues to be a blast for most people I know. Many post to my FB account through their cell phones and upload their pics as well. FB has been so much fun that I recently decided to open a separate account for one of my music bands (not my celtic band). The first afternoon we had 50+ friends. The next day...175. And now, one week later, close to 500. FB is not going anywhere anytime soon.

[talasiga]

....... couldn't even work out how to log into it.
.........

Perhaps its just as well.
In a world where we have so many passwords and PINs
why add another?

Unless of course someone comes up with a site that might be aptly called someting like
PCC for Personal Code Central
which could contain all our passwords and PINs (and update them without prompting)
in an index format.

Then all we will need is one log in password to be reminded of all our personal entry codes for the 10 bank accounts, the 20 discussion forums, the FB, the Myspace, the shopping club, the phone company access code for secure inquiries etc etc.

It worries me that some people can juggle so many codes in their brains
but cannot remember that the semitone pattern for Dorian is
2122212 or that the note pattern is
1011010101101 or that the spelling is
1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 8
- codes that are actually passwords to Dorian in any key including from a Martian pitch of Q.

[SteveShaw]

Networking is an art. You obviously are the kind of person FB is made for. So am I. For me, those kind of stories never end. It continues to be a blast for most people I know. Many post to my FB account through their cell phones and upload their pics as well. FB has been so much fun that I recently decided to open a separate account for one of my music bands (not my celtic band). The first afternoon we had 50+ friends. The next day...175. And now, one week later, close to 500.

Define "friends."

[emmline]

I once got an email come on advertising an online service which would "keep all my passwords safe" for me, including those all important financial institution ones. This did NOT strike me as a good idea.

Almost as good was the email I got yesterday, from the FBI, assuring me that I had, in fact, legitimately won $800K, and that--as much as they tried to work it out more conveniently for me, on my behalf (so happy the FBI is bending over backwards for me)--I'd have to send $500 (for assorted, itemized, processing fees) by wire to this nice man in Nigeria who was handling the lottery proceeds.

[talasiga]

A fake email is called a femail.

[Lorenzo]

Define "friends."

Most are people we all know or have met. Some may be friends of friends who found us throught their friends list, and some "friends" may have been to a concert, met us, and want to be FB friends. Once you get in the right "community" of FB friends, it just snowballs. FB lets you know all the friends you have in common.