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Twitterpated
Mar. 20th, 2009 12:04 am- 12:59 I sometimes have the tendency to mix up Truman Capote and Al Capone. Not for long, but still. #
- 15:04 @miscellaneaarts I'm seeing it. #
- 15:04 @kimvermillion My guess would be a windowsill. #
Mar. 20th, 2009
Technobabble
Mar. 20th, 2009 12:22 pmIn this entry, I take a look at a few technology-related items that have been on my mind recently.
First of all, it looks like the redesign to Facebook is universally hated. Granted, I haven't seen a representative sample of opinions, but everyone I've seen comment on it disliked it. A change nobody wants, and that makes things harder to use? Facebook, have you been taking advice from AOL? Personally, I'm a little annoyed because the "share link" option seems to have disappeared. Yes, I can share links in status updates, but that seems a little silly, and it'll no longer display the actual page title or let me choose a representative picture. I'd been linking to my LJ posts on Facebook, but I'm not sure very many people followed the links. I guess a few did, because there were some comments on the entries, but I'm probably not losing much by no longer being able to do this. And maybe there's still a way, but I can't figure out what it is. I sometimes get the impression that Facebook's main goal is to make sure no one has any idea how to use it. It's pure chaos in the form of a social networking site.
Moving on to another item, why is it text messaging so popular these days? It's not that I can't see the appeal; hey, I'm someone who usually finds it much less uncomfortable to communicate via text than voice. It's just that it's something I wouldn't want to do unless I had one of those phones with a keyboard, and I'm not willing to pay for one of those. Why would anyone willingly sit around with a phone with just the regular keypad, and try to have an actual conversation? I guess part of my problem is that I refuse to use ridiculous abbreviations, and the kids probably don't have this hangup. I've heard tell of people trying to use text-speak when writing papers and such, but as much as I hate that stuff, I don't think it's entirely fair to blame it entirely on text messaging. A lot of people have ALWAYS been indifferent when it comes to spelling and grammar. And even the abbreviations aren't really new. Didn't people use them on telegrams, so as to avoid extra costs? I'm sure it wasn't exactly the same abbreviated language, but it wasn't proper sentences either.
Speaking of text messages, I hear that the iPhone finally allows users to cut and paste. You'd think this would be a pretty simple thing to implement, but do any other phones have it at all?
This is only slightly related to my main topic, but I understand that the Sci Fi Channel is changing their name to "SyFy," apparently because they can trademark that. Why they'd WANT to is another issue entirely. I have to wonder if it's also because they want to show stuff that doesn't fit into the sci-fi format, although I'm not sure the change would be necessary in that case. Cartoon Network didn't bother to change its name when it started showing things that weren't cartoons, after all. But everyone knows what a cartoon is, and I'm not so sure about science fiction. I've seen some fans insist that "science fiction" and "sci-fi" aren't even really the same genre, with the former being appropriately applied to the harder stuff, and the latter to the pulp novels and such. And it seems to me that the science fiction label is often implied to things that have absolutely no connection to science. Star Wars is actually fantasy in space, okay? And the last Sci-Fi Channel series I can remember watching was Tin Man, which had about as much basis in science as Creationism.
First of all, it looks like the redesign to Facebook is universally hated. Granted, I haven't seen a representative sample of opinions, but everyone I've seen comment on it disliked it. A change nobody wants, and that makes things harder to use? Facebook, have you been taking advice from AOL? Personally, I'm a little annoyed because the "share link" option seems to have disappeared. Yes, I can share links in status updates, but that seems a little silly, and it'll no longer display the actual page title or let me choose a representative picture. I'd been linking to my LJ posts on Facebook, but I'm not sure very many people followed the links. I guess a few did, because there were some comments on the entries, but I'm probably not losing much by no longer being able to do this. And maybe there's still a way, but I can't figure out what it is. I sometimes get the impression that Facebook's main goal is to make sure no one has any idea how to use it. It's pure chaos in the form of a social networking site.
Moving on to another item, why is it text messaging so popular these days? It's not that I can't see the appeal; hey, I'm someone who usually finds it much less uncomfortable to communicate via text than voice. It's just that it's something I wouldn't want to do unless I had one of those phones with a keyboard, and I'm not willing to pay for one of those. Why would anyone willingly sit around with a phone with just the regular keypad, and try to have an actual conversation? I guess part of my problem is that I refuse to use ridiculous abbreviations, and the kids probably don't have this hangup. I've heard tell of people trying to use text-speak when writing papers and such, but as much as I hate that stuff, I don't think it's entirely fair to blame it entirely on text messaging. A lot of people have ALWAYS been indifferent when it comes to spelling and grammar. And even the abbreviations aren't really new. Didn't people use them on telegrams, so as to avoid extra costs? I'm sure it wasn't exactly the same abbreviated language, but it wasn't proper sentences either.
Speaking of text messages, I hear that the iPhone finally allows users to cut and paste. You'd think this would be a pretty simple thing to implement, but do any other phones have it at all?
This is only slightly related to my main topic, but I understand that the Sci Fi Channel is changing their name to "SyFy," apparently because they can trademark that. Why they'd WANT to is another issue entirely. I have to wonder if it's also because they want to show stuff that doesn't fit into the sci-fi format, although I'm not sure the change would be necessary in that case. Cartoon Network didn't bother to change its name when it started showing things that weren't cartoons, after all. But everyone knows what a cartoon is, and I'm not so sure about science fiction. I've seen some fans insist that "science fiction" and "sci-fi" aren't even really the same genre, with the former being appropriately applied to the harder stuff, and the latter to the pulp novels and such. And it seems to me that the science fiction label is often implied to things that have absolutely no connection to science. Star Wars is actually fantasy in space, okay? And the last Sci-Fi Channel series I can remember watching was Tin Man, which had about as much basis in science as Creationism.
