Slashdot Mirror
Smart Mobs, Swarms, and Flash Crowds
PizzaFace writes "Personal communication devices always allowed people to communicate easily and to coordinate their plans at the spur of the moment. As PCDs became widespread, they allowed their owners to converge rapidly in large groups, for purposes social or political. Now something else is happening. Ubiquitous PCDs give each owner multiple simultaneous opportunities for communication or convergence. People surf their PCD network from one conversation to another, and physically surf the most promising of the gatherings to which the network invites them. Their web of social contacts is as broad as the globe and as shallow as a cell phone's keystroke. What happens when people become nodes on a network? Joel Garreau reports provocatively in the Washington Post. His sample is skewed by Washington's summer influx of interns, who come from around the country to work for little or no pay in part because they're chasing 'peak experiences,' and who have lots of disposable time and energy, no local roots or tethers, and an unusually large network of like-wired acquaintances." I think the conventional (and most descriptive) term for this behavior is flash crowd.
but aslong as you have SMS itll be ok!
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
That's it that confirms it. I am going to be a phone mercenary. Me and my swarm can get there and leave before the police arrive, and we know when they are coming and where they are. Don't like your boss? Need your wife removed? Someone steal your stapler for the last time? Message me.
"Smart Mob"
News for Linguists. Stuff to banter.
No Zen is good zen
I can't get to the link. It's been flash-crowded already.
do not read this line twice.
I think the conventional (and most descriptive) term for this behavior is flash crowd.
I thought the term was Crowds Gone Wild!
Exponential" means something - it does not just mean "high acceleration" as the author of that quote seems to think.
But most people don't know what an exponent is. Heck, they've probably never had a _teacher_ that understood exponential growth.
I beg to differ.
You said:
"Most of these kids deserve a swift kick in the balls."
Now, I put to your attention that a significant number of the aforementioned annoying kids are female, making the "Kick in the balls" a more difficult proposition.
I propose we use "Boot to the head".
He who has too much time on his hands:
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
The Flashdot Effect.
Don't quote me on this.