h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That sounds like I good one, must follow it!

Talking of which, have we a Young Apprentice thread?

The Norn Irn candidate, is one of THE most infuriating and annoying persons to grace our telly screens in a while. To quote the Kit-kat ad, she'll go a long way...

Anyway, last week's task was Design a Cookbook. Maria's "brilliant" idea was a book aimed at "the professional woman". Despite being blindingly obviously an appalling bit of retro cliche marketing (and not at all ironic), they ognored the feedback to this effect from the focus group, and got very few orders, so losing the task (though bizarrely Maria survived)

And the winning team? Designed quite a nice quirky comic book style cookbook with the hashtag #where'smummy

to interrupt this discussion
which has taken on some of the
friendlier and more positive aspects
that one hopes for in social media...

but this news item appears to be
an example of the potential danger
in being on Facebook...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20267989

Carry on.


~jwf~

So what you're saying is "there are good points but also potential dangers"?

I would have thought that much was obvious. I'd hate to have to count the number of people who were killed because of the printing press, but I'm sure it numbers in the millions.

But that storey isn't about somethign bad with* facebook, rather its about very bad news reporters, not checking their details, and assuming the person they found on facebook was the person they were looking for, and without checking used the photo
Having said which I can't stand facebook, too much advertising, and badly designed site navigation. I got locked out of my account a err year or two ago; And facebook won't let me back in Unless I send a photocopy/scanned immage of my passport, to them, in the USA, strangely enough I don't want to do this, so can't get into my Facebook account to close it down, which is annoying, this also happened at the time I'd been selected to have a remix I did featured on an album, and that was all, for some strange reason being organised through Facebook, so I've still no idea what ever happened to that in the end
It seemed most of my 'friends' from school., etc., developed into wildly boring people, who only watched, and hence talked about reality TV, so I didn't really enjoy facebook too much when I was on, and hardly used it much anyhow really.
Twitter is useful though; following local news organisations, job sites, etc., plus keeping in contact with some friends, and just amusing accounts and useful/interesting ones, but I go in and out of it, not used it for ages now really to read any tweets, though I TXTed through a few updates to it recently
I did get in touch with a cousin and a school friend through facebook which was nice, but as I only spoke to them on facebook, I'm not in contact anymore

>>..facebook won't let me back in Unless I send a
photocopy/scanned immage of my passport, to them... <<

I have a strong suspicion you are not talking to
the real Facebook people but one of several spam
accounts that keep telling me I have friends in
Russia anxious to explore my nethers or asking
me if I know X, Y, Z and XX, YY, and ZZ. There's
another less polite group who keep admonishing me
for ignoring 'chat' requests and 'friends' approvals.
Delete. Delete. Delete!

Be safe.

~jwf~

>> I would have thought that much was obvious. <<

Would you? Really? Hmm...
How many fingers am I holding up?


~jwf~

No, its definately facebook I'm communicating too... I couldn't do the normal verify your account stuff, to reset my password, and after much trawling about on facebook, found an E-mail address to contact them on... I may have another go to activate my Facebook again, just so I can obliterate it entirely, and close it down

Well, to be fair, you did make rather an asinine point, ~jwf~.

>> you did make rather an asinine point, ~jwf~. <<

Obviously.

~jwf~

A long time ago when the earth was green
and telephones were still the best and only
means for the public to communicate over any
significant distance, say as late as the 1960s
in some jurisdictions, there still weren't enough
phone lines to accommodate every household.

Many families on a block would share a party line -
which is like every house on your block having
an extension of the phone in your house.

People would invariably end up listening in
to their neighbours conversations. If you had
planned to make a call and picked up the receiver
you would immediately be 'party' to any conversation
already on the line.

Etiquette of the time said you should quietly hang up,
wait a few moments and try again. Only if your call
was an emergency should you interrupt and ask for
someone else to clear the line. It was hoped that
those already conversing would hear the click as you
picked up and the click as you put the phone down
and give some 'consideration' to the apparent fact
that someone else needed to use the line.

Patience not being a virtue, in spite of our being
told it is and fighting wars over its value, people
would interrupt other peoples' conversation to say
they should hang up and allow someone else to use
the line.

The most subtle and effective way to discourage any
one else's conversation was to make it obvious you
were listening but not actually say anything. Very
quickly, those already having a conversation would
either give up or get angry and tell you not to listen.

My point, if it isn't obvious, is that divining information
about other people through their use of the new media
is not really new, nor is invading their privacy. And
curiously, if you said nothing they would never know
for sure who you were - just like the current anonymity
offered in cyberspace.

And since no one could ever be sure their conversation
was not being heard by others, most people were very
careful and cautious about what they said. Party lines
really amounted to being in a public space - just like
today's Faceplant and Twits. The only real difference
is that instead of three or seven or thirteen other
phones on the line we now have millions. So get off
this doggone line goshdarn it, I gotta make a call.

Hello, Margaret? It's me, God.

~jwf~

I just can't help feeling that getting sucked into all this wealth of information about the trivial details of people's lives is a curse rather than a blessing - a bit like the Belcerebons.

Exactly... I find it a bit odd, for some of the 'plus reasons', for using facebook, are in regards of finding out utterly inconsequential details of someones life, and, often, someones life to whom there is little connection; I.E., someone you were* at school with twenty years ago, and haven't seen since... Though it was a bit interesting, at first, to see how many of my old school companions, are still in the same town, and how many had moved, and how far., etc... But that quickly lost its apeal, and once I@d seen that, I'd seen it, and knowing that Sarah from class 4 1981 had 'Just got back from Tescos'' seemed to have little entertainment, or other value

Twitter on the other hand is weird... It can be such a 'varied experience', for the individual user, depending on whom, and what kind of, people one's following... Some of the 'conversations' on twitter I have, are very remanisant of the sillier end of the spectrum of daft, strange, somewhat surreal, conversation that I used to have on hootoo, back in the early 00's... partly that's helped of course, by some of the people concerned being ex-hootooers, or current ones..
Plus one can be a little less.... restrained in the language or topics on twitter
Recently on twitter, I boared everytone to death with bacon, then with sausages, got married and had an affair (virtual marrage, and virtual affair, BTW...), went on a quest to save someone from Cliff Richard, did a minute by minute feed on a strip-poker game, bwetween my Father and Cliff Richard, attempted to sell my toenail clippings, and dead foot-skin shavings, and other assorted mentalisms...
For some, they use twitter as a political type affair; helping spread news, and details of marchs, ralleys, and various causes, etc., or of course all the news feeds, and bisuness etc., I tend to use twitter, for example, to follow the headlines, in the Cambridge Evening News (our local paper); its just easier to see each headline, as it appears on their website; but on the twitter timeline, rather than remembering to check their website each day; anything that takes my interst, from the headline on their tweets, I can of course click on and follow up with the full storey on the website... Some companys I buy stuff from, have twitter feeds, and again, without having to constantly check their websites, one knows when they've added new lines/products, or have a sale/special offer on, etc... It can all get a bit too much though; just like when you've subscribed to too many E-mail newsletters from bisunesses, but that can be sorted with a bit of housework, and unfollowing the random person you followed for some unlost reason, who just seems to tweet about where they are at any given moment

Now maybe this is just hype but according to this
'news report' Facebook is getting really creepy in
what it does with your information:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/facebook-creates--creepy--couples-page-for-all-users---without-warning.html

There's probably pictures of me and some lady Russian
weightlifter out there somewhere.


~jwf~

really?! I thought that was me in the picture.... oh... ahhh... not me with a Russian weightligter.... nor you with a Russian weightlifter... I think the weightlifter may have been me... I was in my 'purple phase', t as I recall...

Hmm, I've just checked that out and can't find anything that it's done in that regard to me and t'other half - good so far.

I read an article today about fb hiring people to get the false idenity pages closed.
It was in the Huffington Post.

I closed my account a few months ago.
fb insisted on a reason and then took a 2 week delay that was mandatory
If you did not check in during that 2 weeks, it is closed.
You had 2 choices, freeze your page or erase.
Mine was erased after 2 weeks.

Twitter I use for sorting some news.
I do not post there.
I could easily close it and not miss it much but I cannot remember my info to do so.