So what, you actually want a government that is completely open? Yeah, like that'd work.
Why don't we put all of our troop movements up online. Better yet, live feeds with GPS coordinates of all our military units around the globe hmm? All for the sake of being open.
Or maybe we should tell all of the countries we know that we're spying on them. All our CIA operatives around the globe. Let's publish all our intelligence reports on them. Sounds good yes?
The diplomatic cables that were leaked were hardly illegal shit, just embarrassing. But by them being leaked diplomatic relations have been strained between various countries. Are you really suggesting this should all be public from the start?
In support of that, a lot of people have this myth that "If you're a good driver, you can brake better than ABS. All the race car drivers do it, so it must be true". The truth is, race car drivers drive without ABS due to regulations to make the sport more competitive - because ABS would make it too easy.
It was true that older ABS was not as effective as a good driver, but newer ABS's not only match a good driver for optimal braking effectiveness, but certain units can also send different braking power to different wheels, isolating the ones closer to losing traction.
That being said, from experience, being in an ABS-less car on the race track is a hellova lot more challenging and fun. =)
I've noticed when Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 does play on the radio, they often do mix in "Happiest Days of Our Lives" with it in front. I guess it's a kinda cool standalone song...but yeah, nothing compares to listening to it in the context of the album. Hearing the theme pop back up again in Another Brick in the Wall Part 3 at the climax of CD 1. =)
Back in 1982, most anyone who saw Tron (or a few years after, as it garnered 'cult classic' status) was captivated, not just by the amazing computer-generated graphics of the time, but about the possibility of a world inside a computer system, where programs walk around and interact with each other like humans, where bits and bytes are interactive things you could touch and see, and where artificial intelligence was something to be feared (in the form of the MCP) rather than embraced.
That, or it's just been done so many times its no longer imaginative.
I'm sure back in 1982, computers were a new, and completely unexplored field. The average person probably didn't really think about it much, and didn't understand it much. So yeah, when Tron comes out, of course people are gonna find it really interesting about the *idea* of a world inside a computer system.
How many media have covered similar ideas? Countless cartoons, anime, TV series, big movies (Matrix anyone?) etc etc have had similar ideas, episodes or scenes like that. It's no longer new and imaginative. So it's not that we have a disenchanted imagination - it's just that we've seen it all before, it's nothing new.
I know a graduate who said "Hmm, I wanna bum around for a year without working... Don't worry, the government will support me financially - dole ftw!" and he did.
In fact, the less you work here, the more money you get. It's a system which seems to reward laziness.
Sure, that'd be great for a silent PC type market. But ultimately, it's boring. Sure, the purpose of your case is to be boring, and not attention grabbing, but then why would you try to show it off as a case mod? If you're showing it off, generally you want it to grab attention - not divert it.
It's like rocking up to AutoSalon in a near-stock Yaris, with an even softer muffler, and more fuel efficiency. Sure, great to live with and all that, but not really something anyone would want to see over a 500HP GTR or something.
The pirate analogy is a bad one for copying data. The jesus analogy works better I think... he made some copies of fish and bread and distributed it free of charge.
Makes you think. If Jesus rose again, and went to the starving nations of the world and created fish and bread, I wonder how long till the agriculture industries of the world would start filing lawsuits.
"But I'm the son of God! I was helping people!"
"Doesn't matter, the copyrights on the food you pirated was very clear. You are fined $500M in damages, since you obviously cannot pay it off, you are sentenced to death."
*And 3 days later, he rose again...*
One of the government's jobs is to protect its citizens. It's very possible that in doing this job, they've also done various things that they *do* want to hide. It's not surprising that they want to cover it up, nor do I blame them for trying to (of course, I also give two thumbs up to WikiLeaks for exposing it).
Another thing to note is there is also data there that will give advantages to other nations too. Of course they have something to hide. It's not *always* a terrible thing.
Well, i could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the issue of 'pornography' was a bigger issue before 'child pornography'.
In any case, it's not really all that different from the same issues you get in real life. Parents complaining about a brothel opening up near a school, or billboards advertising 'gentlemen's clubs', or sex-related ads about premature ejaculation placed in between kids shows, etc.
The main thing that is attractive about the internet is that it *is* a lawless, unregulated arena of society. That's what I, and many others like about it. But it's not that strange that more conservative people want it to have regulations and laws placed over it like other facets of society do.
Surely it wasn't just me who read that title and envisioned something along the lines of:
*Two figures meet in a dark alley way* MPAA Executive: General, we have new targets for you. General: Hmm, the PirateBay server cluster. Interesting. Shouldn't be a problem for our Predator drones. And our deal? MPAA Executive: Don't worry, next war movie will be focused on the 'war crimes' of Iran. General: And who will play the, ahem, brave general who saves the day? MPAA Executive: No less than Tom Cruise of course.
Let me tell you with normal seats and normal seatbelt you get thrown around so much you need to brace yourself with your elbows and knees. Makes it very hard to steer properly, and control the pedals. This is on normal, fast corners. Getting a bucket seat and a racing harness makes a *huge* difference.
So I imagine in a car crash, where you're thrown around even *more* than a fast, but steady corner, not having a seat belt will make it next to impossible to control the car.
They also called their 10GB, (which later went to 12GB) plan 'Unlimited' (with the other plans being pay per MB over)). They also throttled to 64kbps (and still do), with 128kbps upload at all times (even when uncapped).
At 64kbps the internet is unusable. Certain sites will not load at *all*. The rest you usually have to refresh 4-5 times until it loads anything. Most of the time it half loads, then stops.
I have a feeling it has more than just the speed, because sites just time out most of the time. I end up switching to tethering on my phone recently...but before that, well, I got yelled at a lot by my Dad whenever we got capped because he couldn't even send emails. And the irony is accessing the Telstra site during this period takes around 30 minutes of constant refreshing (just to check what your usage actually is).
Telstra still do the same 64kbps shaping policy. But at least their plans are a tad more affordable. And if you go for the 'extreme' 30mbps cable internet, you get 1mbps upload instead of that ridiculous 128kbps.
Why am I still there? Well, no ADSL2+ at my exchange yet, so on cable until then...
The issue is more with the potential for exploitation. I mean, sure there's a woman who may want some money and agree to suck a dick for $300. But then you do have prostitutes exploited by their pimps, or forced into it by their partners, or even parents. And then there's also concerns over spread of diseases and stuff. You need some level of regulation.
The other thing is...a street prostitute is probably fucked up for life. I mean, there's a difference between some highly paid escort who gets paid well, treated with some level of respect and works with more respectable levels of society, to some desperate gutter whore who goes with any guy, who potentially will beat her as well, gets mistreated and not paid as well. It does fuck you up.
While I do hold your point of view, one could also argue that for thousands of years there was no way *to* enjoy someone's works *except* Live. You had to go to a live performance to hear someone's work. While now, you can enjoy their work at home, in the car, wherever...and in fact, a very small portion actually go to watch it live.
I am in agreement though. I think they should view recordings as advertisement for gigs really. Make money off commercial licensing royalties and performances.
Not even because of what is 'right' and 'wrong', but more on what is the only real viable commercial model they have now. No one is gonna stop file sharing - they need to get used to it.
*shrugs* I do some short term trading in my spare time (I'm an engineering undergrad), and yes there really is a lot of tricks big institutions use to control the market.
On small companies, pending a big company announcement you tend to see share prices go up in preparation for a positive announcement. Sometimes you will see 'capping'. Big sell bids holding the share price down until the announcement comes out. Then when it comes out, you may see a 'pump and dump' where big players will pour huge amounts of money into a stock on good news. It may double, triple, quadruple in a day and people will see this, buying more and more. Then after the shareprice has skyrocketed, you'll see the 'dump'.
One instance saw a share price go from 15c to 40c in one day, then the next day to 60c and on the same afternoon, back to 35c. All on big volume (several millions of dollars).
Then for the next week it traded ranges between 30c and 70c with another two smaller pump and dumps going through.
I guess traditionally, the stock market is based upon "Invest money into a company as an investment, get money back from dividends" but these days its really more like gambling. More people seem to trade based on growth than real returns from dividends. That being said, I enjoy the more liquid stocks more. A lot more money can be made in the short term than the long.
Those users should shop around, any switch that supports DSL or DSL 2+ can be used by any of the ISP. TPG has some of the best plans in AU, however they have really crap customer service, but you really don't need it once your up and running.
Not as easy as you make it out to be.
I've been stuck on Telstra Cable for years because the ADSL2+ DSLAM wasn't rolled out at our exchange for years (despite being in a suburban area close to the city). I've been wanting to move to Internode, but they still haven't got ADSL2+ support here for some reason (despite all the other ones having it).
I'm abstaining from switching just yet because I want to go on Internode over iiNet, TPG or whatever (who aren't as reliable apparently). But yeah, ADSL2+ rollout in Australia has been slow.
But yeah to add some other things to Telstra-bagging, let's add in very slow upload rates (normal cable is limited to 8000kbps down, 128kbps up) and counting upload rates to download limits.
It's interesting to see international students coming to study in Australian universities, some of them talking about 14-hour high school days, 6 days a week. No sport, no other real activities. Just hardcore study.
Then there's lazy Australians doing the same courses...and funnily enough, getting similar marks - especially when it comes to assignments and projects which require lateral thinking, or presentation (reports and whatnot) - and no, its not just the language boundary.
Then when it comes to getting a job, they struggle due to social skills, teamwork, initiative and just generally how they may be as people.
I'm actually Indian by birth (even though I largely consider myself Australian). My parents drove me to excel in *everything* - sport, music, studies, socially. They believed that being all-rounded would help you more in life than purely intellectual pursuits. And they were right. It builds you up as a person which helps you all through life. I know another Indian who was dux of the school, and also someone who did very well at sports and music.
I do think parents should support intellectual pursuits, but I don't think pushing kids to excel in sports and whatnot is a bad idea.
The 7200.11 drives had firmware issues. They'd stutter and just have bad perfomance with the SD-series firmware. Eventually they released a patch and I think that fixed it up.
Then new models came out with the CC-series firmware (Still 7200.11, not 7200.12). These models just died - the 'click' of death. Seems like a hardware issue, despite supposedly being only a firmware change.
In any case, this is happening way too often. Seagate used to be reliable...
I live in Australia and for $69 a month for a 2 year plan, I got a free iPhone 3GS for no extra cost.
Did sell it on eBay for $750AUD, and buy myself an N900 for $800 (not released in Australia).
The issue here in not going on the 2 year contract isn't the free phone as the lack of actual value on the actual contract. $69 a month for 24 months gives you $400 worth of calls and 1GB of data. For 6 month plan, the maximum they have is like $100 a month for $300 worth of calls and 300MB data.
And these people who won't invite you to their "events" if they have to shoot you an email... You call them "friends"?
You're making it out like its a really bad thing, but it makes sense.
The issue isn't with close mates you talk to regularly or who will think of you immediately while organising an event. It'll be when someone you aren't so close with decides to say, go to the pub tonight and invites 50 friends on their facebook. He's not neccessarily going to remember that you don't have a facebook, he may not even realize he omitteed you at all. And even if he did, why would he go out of his way to call/sms you for something small and casual like a pub night? This of course assumes he even has your other contact details.
I used to boycott facebook until I realized I was missing out on these casual events. When I joined I didn't use it for anything other than to get invited to events, but I've been starting to realize how good facebook is to just stay in touch with people. Once again, not your close mates but people you don't see regularly.
It's certainly great for tracking down old school friends too.
Dunno about Friendster, but MySpace was somewhat different to Facebook. Sure, it was insanely popular with younger crowds, but I think the biggest difference was everyone used fake names. So to add someone on MySpace, people would need the person's username - "Hotchick577228" or whatever. On Facebook the norm is to use your real name. This means that people you meet in real life, log onto Facebook and try to add you - almost expecting that you'll have an account. Or at least, it's certainly that way at uni.
The power isn't just that your friends use it, and other people use it, and you can give your username to them. The power of Facebook is the way anyone can search for your real name, with the probability that you have an account, and add you. The only way that's going to change if Facebook dies suddenly due to an external factor (legal, goes bankrupt, etc) and everyone moves to another alternative.
Most people don't care about the sharing of private information really. I mean, the primary reason I signed up was I was sick of not being invited to events (which seemed to be completely planned on facebook). Are you going to protest the way Facebook handles your data by boycotting it, and boycotting half the social events that may pop up over time?
It's no longer about being in this cool, online environment with your friends (MySpace) and more about an expected form of communication and networking - like a mobile phone, email address, etc.
Accident? Or intentional.
I wonder how many 'short sells' (selling shares you don't own, then buying back at a lower price...you get to keep the profits) were put just before Accenture flew from ~$40 to 1c and back up to $40 within an hour. A one billion trade would have activated many stop-losses (Automatic conditional trades - "If it goes below this price, sell"), which would have tanked the SP even more and that would have induced strong panic selling. Everyone else would have just withdrawn their bids from the market and held.
You could have made a 99% gain on the short sell, and 40,000% on an entrance at 1c.
People wanting a bear market would have had fun too.
Probably a good thing the trading authority in US is planning to reverse all trades made with more 60% deviance from price within that period. You'd be annoyed if you daytraded that well though.
Yes, F1 drivers are awesome. Yes, I couldn't hope to drive as good as they can. But what differentiates the winner comes largely down to the technology, and the workers in the pits - as opposed to differentiation in skill.
Sure you can argue other conventional sports rely largely on fancy sports medicine, or whatnot, but really, it's not to the same level as F1. Differentiation in other sports comes more down to the skill, morale and strategies employed by the team/individual who are *on the field*.
Rally driving on the other hand, certainly seems to have more emphasis on driving/navigation skill. I was just reading any article about how someone built up a cheap E30 318i which cost him $500 + money on cheap modifications. With no team, no fancy tools, he placed 3rd in a rally against $400k+ professional race cars with full teams. You'd never see that in F1.
Let me make an analogy we all understand. When you meet a girl and she wears these big unsexy undies, you don't really care because she'll look great to you anyway. When she becomes your wife, you'll suggest sexy, minimalistic underwear. And sooner or later, even that won't help.
Slashdot Mirror
So what, you actually want a government that is completely open? Yeah, like that'd work.
Why don't we put all of our troop movements up online. Better yet, live feeds with GPS coordinates of all our military units around the globe hmm? All for the sake of being open.
Or maybe we should tell all of the countries we know that we're spying on them. All our CIA operatives around the globe. Let's publish all our intelligence reports on them. Sounds good yes?
The diplomatic cables that were leaked were hardly illegal shit, just embarrassing. But by them being leaked diplomatic relations have been strained between various countries. Are you really suggesting this should all be public from the start?
In support of that, a lot of people have this myth that "If you're a good driver, you can brake better than ABS. All the race car drivers do it, so it must be true". The truth is, race car drivers drive without ABS due to regulations to make the sport more competitive - because ABS would make it too easy.
It was true that older ABS was not as effective as a good driver, but newer ABS's not only match a good driver for optimal braking effectiveness, but certain units can also send different braking power to different wheels, isolating the ones closer to losing traction.
That being said, from experience, being in an ABS-less car on the race track is a hellova lot more challenging and fun. =)
I've noticed when Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 does play on the radio, they often do mix in "Happiest Days of Our Lives" with it in front. I guess it's a kinda cool standalone song...but yeah, nothing compares to listening to it in the context of the album. Hearing the theme pop back up again in Another Brick in the Wall Part 3 at the climax of CD 1. =)
Back in 1982, most anyone who saw Tron (or a few years after, as it garnered 'cult classic' status) was captivated, not just by the amazing computer-generated graphics of the time, but about the possibility of a world inside a computer system, where programs walk around and interact with each other like humans, where bits and bytes are interactive things you could touch and see, and where artificial intelligence was something to be feared (in the form of the MCP) rather than embraced.
That, or it's just been done so many times its no longer imaginative.
I'm sure back in 1982, computers were a new, and completely unexplored field. The average person probably didn't really think about it much, and didn't understand it much. So yeah, when Tron comes out, of course people are gonna find it really interesting about the *idea* of a world inside a computer system.
How many media have covered similar ideas? Countless cartoons, anime, TV series, big movies (Matrix anyone?) etc etc have had similar ideas, episodes or scenes like that. It's no longer new and imaginative. So it's not that we have a disenchanted imagination - it's just that we've seen it all before, it's nothing new.
Come to Australia.
I know a graduate who said "Hmm, I wanna bum around for a year without working... Don't worry, the government will support me financially - dole ftw!" and he did.
In fact, the less you work here, the more money you get. It's a system which seems to reward laziness.
Sure, that'd be great for a silent PC type market. But ultimately, it's boring. Sure, the purpose of your case is to be boring, and not attention grabbing, but then why would you try to show it off as a case mod? If you're showing it off, generally you want it to grab attention - not divert it.
It's like rocking up to AutoSalon in a near-stock Yaris, with an even softer muffler, and more fuel efficiency. Sure, great to live with and all that, but not really something anyone would want to see over a 500HP GTR or something.
They'd turn to their satellites to try to search for cloaked ghosts.
The pirate analogy is a bad one for copying data. The jesus analogy works better I think... he made some copies of fish and bread and distributed it free of charge.
Makes you think. If Jesus rose again, and went to the starving nations of the world and created fish and bread, I wonder how long till the agriculture industries of the world would start filing lawsuits.
"But I'm the son of God! I was helping people!"
"Doesn't matter, the copyrights on the food you pirated was very clear. You are fined $500M in damages, since you obviously cannot pay it off, you are sentenced to death."
*And 3 days later, he rose again...*
One of the government's jobs is to protect its citizens. It's very possible that in doing this job, they've also done various things that they *do* want to hide. It's not surprising that they want to cover it up, nor do I blame them for trying to (of course, I also give two thumbs up to WikiLeaks for exposing it).
Another thing to note is there is also data there that will give advantages to other nations too. Of course they have something to hide. It's not *always* a terrible thing.
Well, i could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the issue of 'pornography' was a bigger issue before 'child pornography'.
In any case, it's not really all that different from the same issues you get in real life. Parents complaining about a brothel opening up near a school, or billboards advertising 'gentlemen's clubs', or sex-related ads about premature ejaculation placed in between kids shows, etc.
The main thing that is attractive about the internet is that it *is* a lawless, unregulated arena of society. That's what I, and many others like about it. But it's not that strange that more conservative people want it to have regulations and laws placed over it like other facets of society do.
Surely it wasn't just me who read that title and envisioned something along the lines of:
*Two figures meet in a dark alley way*
MPAA Executive: General, we have new targets for you.
General: Hmm, the PirateBay server cluster. Interesting. Shouldn't be a problem for our Predator drones. And our deal?
MPAA Executive: Don't worry, next war movie will be focused on the 'war crimes' of Iran.
General: And who will play the, ahem, brave general who saves the day?
MPAA Executive: No less than Tom Cruise of course.
Completely agreement.
I run my car at the race track on track days.
Let me tell you with normal seats and normal seatbelt you get thrown around so much you need to brace yourself with your elbows and knees. Makes it very hard to steer properly, and control the pedals. This is on normal, fast corners. Getting a bucket seat and a racing harness makes a *huge* difference.
So I imagine in a car crash, where you're thrown around even *more* than a fast, but steady corner, not having a seat belt will make it next to impossible to control the car.
For a long time Telstra was just as bad.
They also called their 10GB, (which later went to 12GB) plan 'Unlimited' (with the other plans being pay per MB over)). They also throttled to 64kbps (and still do), with 128kbps upload at all times (even when uncapped).
At 64kbps the internet is unusable. Certain sites will not load at *all*. The rest you usually have to refresh 4-5 times until it loads anything. Most of the time it half loads, then stops.
I have a feeling it has more than just the speed, because sites just time out most of the time. I end up switching to tethering on my phone recently...but before that, well, I got yelled at a lot by my Dad whenever we got capped because he couldn't even send emails. And the irony is accessing the Telstra site during this period takes around 30 minutes of constant refreshing (just to check what your usage actually is).
Telstra still do the same 64kbps shaping policy. But at least their plans are a tad more affordable. And if you go for the 'extreme' 30mbps cable internet, you get 1mbps upload instead of that ridiculous 128kbps.
Why am I still there? Well, no ADSL2+ at my exchange yet, so on cable until then...
The issue is more with the potential for exploitation. I mean, sure there's a woman who may want some money and agree to suck a dick for $300. But then you do have prostitutes exploited by their pimps, or forced into it by their partners, or even parents. And then there's also concerns over spread of diseases and stuff. You need some level of regulation.
The other thing is...a street prostitute is probably fucked up for life. I mean, there's a difference between some highly paid escort who gets paid well, treated with some level of respect and works with more respectable levels of society, to some desperate gutter whore who goes with any guy, who potentially will beat her as well, gets mistreated and not paid as well. It does fuck you up.
While I do hold your point of view, one could also argue that for thousands of years there was no way *to* enjoy someone's works *except* Live. You had to go to a live performance to hear someone's work. While now, you can enjoy their work at home, in the car, wherever...and in fact, a very small portion actually go to watch it live.
I am in agreement though. I think they should view recordings as advertisement for gigs really. Make money off commercial licensing royalties and performances.
Not even because of what is 'right' and 'wrong', but more on what is the only real viable commercial model they have now. No one is gonna stop file sharing - they need to get used to it.
*shrugs* I do some short term trading in my spare time (I'm an engineering undergrad), and yes there really is a lot of tricks big institutions use to control the market.
On small companies, pending a big company announcement you tend to see share prices go up in preparation for a positive announcement. Sometimes you will see 'capping'. Big sell bids holding the share price down until the announcement comes out. Then when it comes out, you may see a 'pump and dump' where big players will pour huge amounts of money into a stock on good news. It may double, triple, quadruple in a day and people will see this, buying more and more. Then after the shareprice has skyrocketed, you'll see the 'dump'.
One instance saw a share price go from 15c to 40c in one day, then the next day to 60c and on the same afternoon, back to 35c. All on big volume (several millions of dollars).
Then for the next week it traded ranges between 30c and 70c with another two smaller pump and dumps going through.
I guess traditionally, the stock market is based upon "Invest money into a company as an investment, get money back from dividends" but these days its really more like gambling. More people seem to trade based on growth than real returns from dividends. That being said, I enjoy the more liquid stocks more. A lot more money can be made in the short term than the long.
Those users should shop around, any switch that supports DSL or DSL 2+ can be used by any of the ISP. TPG has some of the best plans in AU, however they have really crap customer service, but you really don't need it once your up and running.
Not as easy as you make it out to be.
I've been stuck on Telstra Cable for years because the ADSL2+ DSLAM wasn't rolled out at our exchange for years (despite being in a suburban area close to the city). I've been wanting to move to Internode, but they still haven't got ADSL2+ support here for some reason (despite all the other ones having it).
I'm abstaining from switching just yet because I want to go on Internode over iiNet, TPG or whatever (who aren't as reliable apparently). But yeah, ADSL2+ rollout in Australia has been slow.
But yeah to add some other things to Telstra-bagging, let's add in very slow upload rates (normal cable is limited to 8000kbps down, 128kbps up) and counting upload rates to download limits.
It's interesting to see international students coming to study in Australian universities, some of them talking about 14-hour high school days, 6 days a week. No sport, no other real activities. Just hardcore study.
Then there's lazy Australians doing the same courses...and funnily enough, getting similar marks - especially when it comes to assignments and projects which require lateral thinking, or presentation (reports and whatnot) - and no, its not just the language boundary.
Then when it comes to getting a job, they struggle due to social skills, teamwork, initiative and just generally how they may be as people.
I'm actually Indian by birth (even though I largely consider myself Australian). My parents drove me to excel in *everything* - sport, music, studies, socially. They believed that being all-rounded would help you more in life than purely intellectual pursuits. And they were right. It builds you up as a person which helps you all through life. I know another Indian who was dux of the school, and also someone who did very well at sports and music.
I do think parents should support intellectual pursuits, but I don't think pushing kids to excel in sports and whatnot is a bad idea.
The 7200.11 drives had firmware issues. They'd stutter and just have bad perfomance with the SD-series firmware. Eventually they released a patch and I think that fixed it up.
Then new models came out with the CC-series firmware (Still 7200.11, not 7200.12). These models just died - the 'click' of death. Seems like a hardware issue, despite supposedly being only a firmware change.
In any case, this is happening way too often. Seagate used to be reliable...
I live in Australia and for $69 a month for a 2 year plan, I got a free iPhone 3GS for no extra cost.
Did sell it on eBay for $750AUD, and buy myself an N900 for $800 (not released in Australia).
The issue here in not going on the 2 year contract isn't the free phone as the lack of actual value on the actual contract. $69 a month for 24 months gives you $400 worth of calls and 1GB of data. For 6 month plan, the maximum they have is like $100 a month for $300 worth of calls and 300MB data.
And these people who won't invite you to their "events" if they have to shoot you an email... You call them "friends"?
You're making it out like its a really bad thing, but it makes sense.
The issue isn't with close mates you talk to regularly or who will think of you immediately while organising an event. It'll be when someone you aren't so close with decides to say, go to the pub tonight and invites 50 friends on their facebook. He's not neccessarily going to remember that you don't have a facebook, he may not even realize he omitteed you at all. And even if he did, why would he go out of his way to call/sms you for something small and casual like a pub night? This of course assumes he even has your other contact details.
I used to boycott facebook until I realized I was missing out on these casual events. When I joined I didn't use it for anything other than to get invited to events, but I've been starting to realize how good facebook is to just stay in touch with people. Once again, not your close mates but people you don't see regularly.
It's certainly great for tracking down old school friends too.
Dunno about Friendster, but MySpace was somewhat different to Facebook. Sure, it was insanely popular with younger crowds, but I think the biggest difference was everyone used fake names. So to add someone on MySpace, people would need the person's username - "Hotchick577228" or whatever. On Facebook the norm is to use your real name. This means that people you meet in real life, log onto Facebook and try to add you - almost expecting that you'll have an account. Or at least, it's certainly that way at uni.
The power isn't just that your friends use it, and other people use it, and you can give your username to them. The power of Facebook is the way anyone can search for your real name, with the probability that you have an account, and add you. The only way that's going to change if Facebook dies suddenly due to an external factor (legal, goes bankrupt, etc) and everyone moves to another alternative.
Most people don't care about the sharing of private information really. I mean, the primary reason I signed up was I was sick of not being invited to events (which seemed to be completely planned on facebook). Are you going to protest the way Facebook handles your data by boycotting it, and boycotting half the social events that may pop up over time?
It's no longer about being in this cool, online environment with your friends (MySpace) and more about an expected form of communication and networking - like a mobile phone, email address, etc.
Accident? Or intentional. I wonder how many 'short sells' (selling shares you don't own, then buying back at a lower price...you get to keep the profits) were put just before Accenture flew from ~$40 to 1c and back up to $40 within an hour. A one billion trade would have activated many stop-losses (Automatic conditional trades - "If it goes below this price, sell"), which would have tanked the SP even more and that would have induced strong panic selling. Everyone else would have just withdrawn their bids from the market and held. You could have made a 99% gain on the short sell, and 40,000% on an entrance at 1c. People wanting a bear market would have had fun too. Probably a good thing the trading authority in US is planning to reverse all trades made with more 60% deviance from price within that period. You'd be annoyed if you daytraded that well though.
Yes, F1 drivers are awesome. Yes, I couldn't hope to drive as good as they can. But what differentiates the winner comes largely down to the technology, and the workers in the pits - as opposed to differentiation in skill.
Sure you can argue other conventional sports rely largely on fancy sports medicine, or whatnot, but really, it's not to the same level as F1. Differentiation in other sports comes more down to the skill, morale and strategies employed by the team/individual who are *on the field*.
Rally driving on the other hand, certainly seems to have more emphasis on driving/navigation skill. I was just reading any article about how someone built up a cheap E30 318i which cost him $500 + money on cheap modifications. With no team, no fancy tools, he placed 3rd in a rally against $400k+ professional race cars with full teams. You'd never see that in F1.
Let me make an analogy we all understand. When you meet a girl and she wears these big unsexy undies, you don't really care because she'll look great to you anyway. When she becomes your wife, you'll suggest sexy, minimalistic underwear. And sooner or later, even that won't help.
I still don't understand. =(