I met my wife online 18 years ago. Another good friend who hangs with us almost weekly I met on OKCupid. I heard about my friend getting shot within hours of it happening, due to Facebook. The social networking naysayers basically belong in the same category as those people in the 90s who said broadband was useless, and the internet's only purpose is for porn.
Oh, and twitter is only for telling everyone when you take a shit:)
I love how because you went on vacation somewhere, you think you know more than organizations that actually collect and analyze real data. You are the epitome of an asshole.
I blocked a douchebag I know. I don't see his posts, due to the block, but he still gets to harass me via friends' buzz postings. Apparently the only way to not be harassed is to not use Buzz.
ROTFLOL... I tend to always close with multiple parentehsis, so as to restore the 4th-dimensional balance. Because if something is left open for a year and you close it, there's still a year of openness, fourth dimensionally, just sitting there. Put 2 closing ones and then the balance is slowly restored by it being twice as closed. Once this happens for half as long, balance is restored. And no, multiple closing parens don't bother me.
There were tons of asbestos lawsuits that were thrown out back when people were saying they were hurt, and were, simply because the science still supported the corporate version of events.
Now I think this person is crazy, but I enjoy playing devil's advocate. I (and all of us) *could* be wrong. It might simply be something science hasn't found yet. And if it did, there would be a cover-up. Remember the Slashdot story about 30% of scientists having been bribed or influenced to change their results to suit the corporation? You can bet that's on the rise as the market [and money lost] gets bigger and bigger.:)
You also conveniently ignored my real life example of the DC metro subway collision. Actual body counts, subway rerouting information, and other info was available on twitter FIRST. Before the local news websites. Before the TV mentioned it. I know because I made it a point to compare them in order to evaluate how good the medium is. The fact of the matter was, it was EASIER than the news. It self-updated the page with new info. It didn't require waiting through commercials or paying for. It contained links to official stories in those cases that one existed. Hell, the entire DC Metro system has twitter feeds for every color line, so that people can follow the line they take and get UP TO THE MINUTE updates on train schedules. Crap that is minutiae the news does not cover!
Most of ANY communication medium is "babble" to most people. I could just as easily claim that most television is babble - infomercials, american idol, advertisements. Or that most phone calls are babble - phone sex, psychic hotlines, housewives gossiping with other housewives. You seem to think you can define a communication medium by it's worst, but that's not how communication works. Just because some people talk shitty (literally, babble) doesn't mean oral language is useless.
You just don't seem to get it, and that's okay. Every new medium has been misunderstood and decried. People used to think email was stupid. People used to think the internet was just for porn. VHS and even cassette tapes were decried by the MAFIAA, albeit for different reasons. (Turned out they were wrong, VHS helped the MPAA get tons of rental money, and cassette helped the RIAA trick me into buying all my albums twice, sometimes thrice.)
A lot of news sources have twitter feeds that are the equivalent to RSS feeds. It's just as useful as RSS in this context. That it can be less useful in other uses doesn't mean jack; RSS can be useless in some contexts too! I've seen RSS feeds that are broken -- just a number, with no body. You have to click to get through. Bad apples do not mean all apples are bad; a concept you don't seem to get.
The fact of the matter is, most people can't figure out RSS [i've been trying to convince even my online-alot friends for 4+ yrs, it's NOT happening]. But virtually everyone CAN figure out Twitter. And virtually every news source has a twitter feed that they subscribe to for timely/not-having-to-manually-check updates in the EXACT SAME FUCKING FASHION that you or I would use an RSS feed.
Incidentally, i RSS subscribe to my twitter updates.
If a news source has RSS and Twitter, guess which I'm going to use? The twitter. Because it's 2 clicks - go to page, click follow. RSS requires a click, then another click to say add to google, then another click to say google reader, then another 2 clicks for me to tell it to sort oldest-first, then another 2 clicks per label I add, plus I rename the feed so that it appears in an organized fashion in my feed list (over 250 scriptions -- I want blogs to be together, so they all get named "blog: " at the beginning. Or "news: ". Or "comedy: ". Or "pictures: ").
Now going through that rigmarole is nice, but sometimes I just want to try something out. Guess what? The end result is exactly the same: I see things in my reader, and i click them to read the whole article.
Now you want to act like the best features of a medium mean nothing, and only the worst features mean anything. That's simply not reality. But if it were, then every medium is evil: Phone is only telemarketers, television is only infomercials, the internet is only child porn, telegraph is full of spam [check history: telegraph lines were hacked and spammed int he 1800s], speech is all profanity and babbling, and every communication medium in the world is useless.
Fortunately for reality, a communication medium is as useful as its MOST useful examples, not its LEAST useful examples.
BTW, I'd much rather get my news from rss/twitter feeds than from the TV. I canceled my cable and now save $600 a year [which would require earning some $900 a year pre-taxes to pay for]. So what you call "easier", I call "harder", because-- while I don't know how many hours you work-- you are doing a LOT MORE WORK to pay your cable bill to get your news. Way more than 2 clicks, no matter how you want to rationalize it away.
RSS feeds contain a link to the original article. Twitter feeds do the same. The only difference is, GASP, you have to click the link to actually read the article. Now tell me -- which method do you think you could get 100 non-techies to do? Answer: Twitter. RSS is "too hard". My "poor man" is poor in terms of technical prowess. Something that's easier and used by more people indeed becomes popular -- why do you think Mac beat out Linux?
You still don't get it. I WAS NEVER TALKING ABOUT MANHATTAN. Really, you get fixated on one thing and completely stop listening.
And yes, Twitter is a communication platform over the internet. Just like IRC, just like email, just like the web. Only it allows you to input MUCH easier than ANY other medium, and you don't have to remember people's email addresses or run a server for people to get to that information.
That's why it's a success, and that's why it's not going away any more than facebook status updates [same thing, but they are closed to your friends instead of facing the public world] are.
If you find them trivial, unsubscribe. The fact of the matter, in a real emergency, twitter has more information than the TV [which you have to watch forever as they slooowwwly say stuff and cut to commercials], or the news websites. The DC metro collision helped prove this to me; I had accurate body counts 10-20 minutes before local news sites were updated. Each new body I knew about before the news sites posted it.
Twitter is communication. It's a poor man's RSS feed. You do know RSS, right? You get a link everytime something new comes out, which is exactly how the newspaper twitter feeds work.
You lose.
The best part is where you tried to redefine the word communication to your own subjective standards. Unfortunately for you, you don't get to rewrite the definitions of words. Even animals communicate, and they transfer way less than 140 characters of information when they do. And it saves their lives as well.
Sounds like you're also making an argument about unannounced fire drills, and tests of the emergency broadcast system that don't announce themselves until they are over.
No, it wasn't bullshit. Landline calls would *occasionally* go through. I got to my parents after an hour of randomly trying every few minutes. So yes, I could make land calls if I was lucky. My use of "you" is meant "one", not "Anonymous Coward". Sorry for using an ambiguous colloquialism... But my statement was neither bullshit nor made up.
The point stands: Internet wins. And I heard stuff on IRC before it was on CNN. Oh, and in case you didn't figure it out, Twitter is Internet too.
So basically you're scared that 4chan will convince them to warn you of an earthquake or something? That's a small price to pay for those more cautious to be able to get potentially life-saving advice that YOU don't approve of.
Distributed input of unknown emergencies absolutely should be considered in any disaster scenario. I don't know if you remember 911, but I'm inside the DC beltway. You couldn't make cell calls OR land line calls [unless you were lucky] due to the system not holding it up. How was I getting updates? 1 line at a time, except from IRC, not Twitter.
And you're an idiot if you make an ad hominem attack in the face of the overwhelming truth:
Communication saves lives. Always has, always will. You are arguing against communication, saying that in an emergency, other people's communication is useless. Good luck supporting your argument in a conclusive fashion.
When the zombie attack comes, I'll definitely hear about it before you.
Go move to a country where your government DOESN'T warn you that a bunch of people are tweeting "help! i'm dying". Maybe during the extra lag in you getting an emergency notice, your house will fall on you and do us all a favor.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and twitter is only for telling everyone when you take a shit :)
I love how because you went on vacation somewhere, you think you know more than organizations that actually collect and analyze real data. You are the epitome of an asshole.
I blocked a douchebag I know. I don't see his posts, due to the block, but he still gets to harass me via friends' buzz postings. Apparently the only way to not be harassed is to not use Buzz.
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480a7dc9b
ROTFLOL ... I tend to always close with multiple parentehsis, so as to restore the 4th-dimensional balance. Because if something is left open for a year and you close it, there's still a year of openness, fourth dimensionally, just sitting there. Put 2 closing ones and then the balance is slowly restored by it being twice as closed. Once this happens for half as long, balance is restored. And no, multiple closing parens don't bother me.
Nevermind that this creates a compilation error!
Do you think the government involvement somehow reduces the value of customer rage?
I think you missed the part where distributing was never proved.
Fan death!!
Now I think this person is crazy, but I enjoy playing devil's advocate. I (and all of us) *could* be wrong. It might simply be something science hasn't found yet. And if it did, there would be a cover-up. Remember the Slashdot story about 30% of scientists having been bribed or influenced to change their results to suit the corporation? You can bet that's on the rise as the market [and money lost] gets bigger and bigger. :)
If not, it must not be harming you.
Yeah.. Heh heh M heh he.... And then you said "bone". Hehehehehehemehh.
You also conveniently ignored my real life example of the DC metro subway collision. Actual body counts, subway rerouting information, and other info was available on twitter FIRST. Before the local news websites. Before the TV mentioned it. I know because I made it a point to compare them in order to evaluate how good the medium is. The fact of the matter was, it was EASIER than the news. It self-updated the page with new info. It didn't require waiting through commercials or paying for. It contained links to official stories in those cases that one existed. Hell, the entire DC Metro system has twitter feeds for every color line, so that people can follow the line they take and get UP TO THE MINUTE updates on train schedules. Crap that is minutiae the news does not cover!
You just don't seem to get it, and that's okay. Every new medium has been misunderstood and decried. People used to think email was stupid. People used to think the internet was just for porn. VHS and even cassette tapes were decried by the MAFIAA, albeit for different reasons. (Turned out they were wrong, VHS helped the MPAA get tons of rental money, and cassette helped the RIAA trick me into buying all my albums twice, sometimes thrice.)
A lot of news sources have twitter feeds that are the equivalent to RSS feeds. It's just as useful as RSS in this context. That it can be less useful in other uses doesn't mean jack; RSS can be useless in some contexts too! I've seen RSS feeds that are broken -- just a number, with no body. You have to click to get through. Bad apples do not mean all apples are bad; a concept you don't seem to get.
The fact of the matter is, most people can't figure out RSS [i've been trying to convince even my online-alot friends for 4+ yrs, it's NOT happening]. But virtually everyone CAN figure out Twitter. And virtually every news source has a twitter feed that they subscribe to for timely/not-having-to-manually-check updates in the EXACT SAME FUCKING FASHION that you or I would use an RSS feed.
Incidentally, i RSS subscribe to my twitter updates.
If a news source has RSS and Twitter, guess which I'm going to use? The twitter. Because it's 2 clicks - go to page, click follow. RSS requires a click, then another click to say add to google, then another click to say google reader, then another 2 clicks for me to tell it to sort oldest-first, then another 2 clicks per label I add, plus I rename the feed so that it appears in an organized fashion in my feed list (over 250 scriptions -- I want blogs to be together, so they all get named "blog: " at the beginning. Or "news: ". Or "comedy: ". Or "pictures: ").
Now going through that rigmarole is nice, but sometimes I just want to try something out. Guess what? The end result is exactly the same: I see things in my reader, and i click them to read the whole article.
Now you want to act like the best features of a medium mean nothing, and only the worst features mean anything. That's simply not reality. But if it were, then every medium is evil: Phone is only telemarketers, television is only infomercials, the internet is only child porn, telegraph is full of spam [check history: telegraph lines were hacked and spammed int he 1800s], speech is all profanity and babbling, and every communication medium in the world is useless.
Fortunately for reality, a communication medium is as useful as its MOST useful examples, not its LEAST useful examples.
BTW, I'd much rather get my news from rss/twitter feeds than from the TV. I canceled my cable and now save $600 a year [which would require earning some $900 a year pre-taxes to pay for]. So what you call "easier", I call "harder", because-- while I don't know how many hours you work-- you are doing a LOT MORE WORK to pay your cable bill to get your news. Way more than 2 clicks, no matter how you want to rationalize it away.
RSS feeds contain a link to the original article. Twitter feeds do the same. The only difference is, GASP, you have to click the link to actually read the article. Now tell me -- which method do you think you could get 100 non-techies to do? Answer: Twitter. RSS is "too hard". My "poor man" is poor in terms of technical prowess. Something that's easier and used by more people indeed becomes popular -- why do you think Mac beat out Linux?
And yes, Twitter is a communication platform over the internet. Just like IRC, just like email, just like the web. Only it allows you to input MUCH easier than ANY other medium, and you don't have to remember people's email addresses or run a server for people to get to that information.
That's why it's a success, and that's why it's not going away any more than facebook status updates [same thing, but they are closed to your friends instead of facing the public world] are.
If you find them trivial, unsubscribe. The fact of the matter, in a real emergency, twitter has more information than the TV [which you have to watch forever as they slooowwwly say stuff and cut to commercials], or the news websites. The DC metro collision helped prove this to me; I had accurate body counts 10-20 minutes before local news sites were updated. Each new body I knew about before the news sites posted it.
You lose.
The best part is where you tried to redefine the word communication to your own subjective standards. Unfortunately for you, you don't get to rewrite the definitions of words. Even animals communicate, and they transfer way less than 140 characters of information when they do. And it saves their lives as well.
Too much is always better than not enough.
The point stands: Internet wins. And I heard stuff on IRC before it was on CNN. Oh, and in case you didn't figure it out, Twitter is Internet too.
Distributed input of unknown emergencies absolutely should be considered in any disaster scenario. I don't know if you remember 911, but I'm inside the DC beltway. You couldn't make cell calls OR land line calls [unless you were lucky] due to the system not holding it up. How was I getting updates? 1 line at a time, except from IRC, not Twitter.
Communication saves lives. Always has, always will. You are arguing against communication, saying that in an emergency, other people's communication is useless. Good luck supporting your argument in a conclusive fashion.
When the zombie attack comes, I'll definitely hear about it before you.
Go move to a country where your government DOESN'T warn you that a bunch of people are tweeting "help! i'm dying". Maybe during the extra lag in you getting an emergency notice, your house will fall on you and do us all a favor.
lol
typo - i meant to say "it is illegal to discriminate against someone due to their medical situation". not legal situation. obviously.