Facebook died today.

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

I love that Bubba Wallace won today and no one can vent their anger outside of their immediate family lol.

Looking at your FB page, that didn't take long to return to normal.

yupididit said:

Duke said:

In reply to yupididit :

WhatsApp may well be great. My annoyance is extremely superficial. I think the name is stupid and it seems full of counterfeit certification peddlers.

 

I've been here long enough to know that you superficially hate many things. No need to explain lol

It stops me from blowing a gasket over all the real E36 M3 that goes on in the world.

Am I the only one that did not even know there was a social medial disruption yesterday?  

FB is useful. I used groups to set up and manage events, as well as discuss subjects with people all over the world (like the old forums used to be good for, but in real time). For example, my car club was coordinating an event with a couple other clubs for this weekend, and we managed it and the invite list with FB. There was open discussion in events tabs on group pages with where to have events and aspects of the background planning that FB and messenger was good for.

My business was also on there, as well as things for sale on FB marketplace (which was much better than CL for stuff)

It isn't about getting out and talking with each other in person, which is harder to do when you are spread out all over the country or world, but more about the annoyance of losing a platform than was working well for it's intended use while in the middle of a number of projects.

Also for a few of the groups I know about, like the PTSD group for veterans a friend is a member of and a suicide prevention group another friend manages, this is one way to instantly take away a really good support group for far flung members that have no other way of dealing with it and could throw some people into a serious issue.

Usenet and BBS, as well as early platforms like Prodigy, were the realm of primarily nerds who knew their way around computers. You weren't talking to your extended and spread out family with them, you were talking with other nerds who were able to use them. That's the reason FB is what it is. Ease of use for everyone. And the interaction was higher and FASTER than those older systems (remember waiting for a small 8 bit image to load on a 9600 baud modem? Good times...), and Myspace and forums. This means that everyone has a rapid communication platform that can easily be used to share scheduling, pictures, videos, and ideas. For good or bad. On your computer, tablet or phone. One place to go to get all that, instead of a bunch of separate platforms competing. Zuk may be evil incarnate, but the platform simply worked too well for too many people. That's why it became indispensable for a lot of underserved groups of people worldwide.

Would we survive without it? Of course. We survived before it arrived. We also survived before air conditioning, cars, electricity, and indoor plumbing. But once those existed, like FB, they became necessary conveniences for many, many people.

Oh and as for forums (or even FB groups) telling newbs to search instead of being helpful, the best way to get the correct answer to your problem is not to search or ask a question, but casually, but intentionally, post the WRONG answer. You will be corrected with the proper information nearly instantly. ;)

Duke said:

yupididit said:

Duke said:

In reply to yupididit :

WhatsApp may well be great. My annoyance is extremely superficial. I think the name is stupid and it seems full of counterfeit certification peddlers.

 

I've been here long enough to know that you superficially hate many things. No need to explain lol

It stops me from blowing a gasket over all the real E36 M3 that goes on in the world.

 

A superficial reason to hate something is every bit as valid of a reason.  As someone who has nursed a grudged against DMB for longer than some of the board members here have been alive, I can also agree with Duke that it can be deeply satisfying. 

eastsideTim said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

Either way it really makes me uncomfortable having my coffeemaker connected to the internet. 

I've been in the tech industry for over twenty years.  None of my appliances are "smart", and I don't have any of the voice-based home assistants.  Quite a few of us are far more wary of that stuff than the average consumer, probably because we see how the sausage is made.

Do you still have a smart phone? Even with the GPS off, it can still track you, for example.

I work for one of the largest tech/cloud computing companies in the world and I'm not worried about that. Nor are any of the other people in my office. And this includes the PMs, software devs, QA, etc. IE, there isn't a single person in our office that doesn't have AT LEAST a bachelors degree and 5+ years experience in the tech world. 

I promise, none of us are nearly as interesting as we think we are. 

In reply to z31maniac :

I have a smart phone.  I'm not generally worried about some nebulous "them", and I'm not that interesting of a person myself, but I still make sure to be careful with privacy settings, try to avoid apps that ask for more info than they need to function, and keep my data off when not actively using the internet.  I try to use technology for my convenience, not the convenience of marketers and others who don't protect private data very well.

Duke said:

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

I love that Bubba Wallace won today and no one can vent their anger outside of their immediate family lol.

Looking at your FB page, that didn't take long to return to normal.

 

Right?!?

Headline:

"All Medical Research Grinds to a Halt"

volvoclearinghouse said:

Duke said:

yupididit said:

Duke said:

In reply to yupididit :

WhatsApp may well be great. My annoyance is extremely superficial. I think the name is stupid and it seems full of counterfeit certification peddlers.

 

I've been here long enough to know that you superficially hate many things. No need to explain lol

It stops me from blowing a gasket over all the real E36 M3 that goes on in the world.

 

A superficial reason to hate something is every bit as valid of a reason.  As someone who has nursed a grudged against DMB for longer than some of the board members here have been alive, I can also agree with Duke that it can be deeply satisfying. 

Dave Matthew's Band?

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Early gen X had U2, late gen X has DMB. Some of the best musicians ever to play found their way to performing together during the 80s and 90s, yet somehow these two acts came to extreme prominence. 

And for the record I like DMB, almost entirely live and that's in spite of a certain percentage of their fanbase. 

OHSCrifle said:

volvoclearinghouse said:

Duke said:

yupididit said:

Duke said:

In reply to yupididit :

WhatsApp may well be great. My annoyance is extremely superficial. I think the name is stupid and it seems full of counterfeit certification peddlers.

 

I've been here long enough to know that you superficially hate many things. No need to explain lol

It stops me from blowing a gasket over all the real E36 M3 that goes on in the world.

 

A superficial reason to hate something is every bit as valid of a reason.  As someone who has nursed a grudged against DMB for longer than some of the board members here have been alive, I can also agree with Duke that it can be deeply satisfying. 

Dave Matthew's Band?

The very same. Motherberkeleyers gave me a raw deal.  I was a fan of theirs, liked their music, and wore the band shirt. When they went on tour back in '97, some of my buds and I bought tickets to see them at Darien Lake.  Turns out, they berkeleying oversold the show, and we got caught in a hot mess of a traffic jam for hours on the NYS Thruway.  When we finally got in, they were most of the way through the encore, so we missed basically the whole berkeleying show. There was a class action lawsuit regarding it, and I got back something like 4 or 5 dollars.  The tickets were way more than that, even back then, which was some cash for a poor college student to scrape together. 

Motherberkeleyers have been dead to me ever since. 

Chris_V said:

FB is useful. I used groups to set up and manage events, as well as discuss subjects with people all over the world (like the old forums used to be good for, but in real time). For example, my car club was coordinating an event with a couple other clubs for this weekend, and we managed it and the invite list with FB. There was open discussion in events tabs on group pages with where to have events and aspects of the background planning that FB and messenger was good for.

My business was also on there, as well as things for sale on FB marketplace (which was much better than CL for stuff)

It isn't about getting out and talking with each other in person, which is harder to do when you are spread out all over the country or world, but more about the annoyance of losing a platform than was working well for it's intended use while in the middle of a number of projects.

Also for a few of the groups I know about, like the PTSD group for veterans a friend is a member of and a suicide prevention group another friend manages, this is one way to instantly take away a really good support group for far flung members that have no other way of dealing with it and could throw some people into a serious issue.

Usenet and BBS, as well as early platforms like Prodigy, were the realm of primarily nerds who knew their way around computers. You weren't talking to your extended and spread out family with them, you were talking with other nerds who were able to use them. That's the reason FB is what it is. Ease of use for everyone. And the interaction was higher and FASTER than those older systems (remember waiting for a small 8 bit image to load on a 9600 baud modem? Good times...), and Myspace and forums. This means that everyone has a rapid communication platform that can easily be used to share scheduling, pictures, videos, and ideas. For good or bad. On your computer, tablet or phone. One place to go to get all that, instead of a bunch of separate platforms competing. Zuk may be evil incarnate, but the platform simply worked too well for too many people. That's why it became indispensable for a lot of underserved groups of people worldwide.

Would we survive without it? Of course. We survived before it arrived. We also survived before air conditioning, cars, electricity, and indoor plumbing. But once those existed, like FB, they became necessary conveniences for many, many people.

 

 

Oh and as for forums (or even FB groups) telling newbs to search instead of being helpful, the best way to get the correct answer to your problem is not to search or ask a question, but casually, but intentionally, post the WRONG answer. You will be corrected with the proper information nearly instantly. ;)

That's what I miss about the old BBSs and the Usenet. Those places were filled with intelligent creative people. Facebook is always trying to hook me up with not so interesting people whom I don't really want to know for god knows what reason. Social media today is filled 'influencers' who are young, kind of dumb, mediocre and very attractive. I really don't care about the latest fashions or what the Kardashians or Justin Bieber or whatever mediocrity the masses are worshiping are doing today. The Usenet was like getting into a highly selective university. Facebook is like high school. 

The other thing is that Facebook is a smaller, fenced off version of the larger internet that designed from day one to be monetized. It isn't about you and your interests. It is about pushing you towards interests that make them money. The internet is the wide wild world. Facebook is like Disney World. 

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

I have to ask, is there anything that you do like? We see al the things you don't, but nothing good. You got any?

FB is very much a platform you get what you want from it. 

bobzilla said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

I have to ask, is there anything that you do like? We see al the things you don't, but nothing good. You got any?

FB is very much a platform you get what you want from it. 

Is there anything wrong with not liking Facebook? 

Facebook is always popping up in other parts of the internet wanting me to log in using Facebook. I find that rather creepy. Facebook is always trying to track everywhere on the internet that I go that isn't Facebook. Creepy, creepy, creepy. 

I prefer stand alone forums and specialized forums. 

For the record, if I could easily follow bands/comedians/venues without social media or having to check multiple websites, etc, I would delete it all. 

In reply to z31maniac :

The bands I like have their own websites. Some of them are cool and well made. 

I would actually rather pay Craigslist to sell cars and motorcycles than deal with Facebook Marketplace. If you search for Miatas on Craigslist you get Miatas. If you search for Miatas on Facebook marketplace you get Nissan Whatevers and dinner place settings. I don't get how that works. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

I would actually rather pay Craigslist to sell cars and motorcycles than deal with Facebook Marketplace. If you search for Miatas on Craigslist you get Miatas.

...except when shiny happy people tag every post with a laundry list of unrelated cars / terms just to get hits.

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Usenet was largely college students, college faculty, and tech industry.  The signal/noise ratio was really, really good.

There were also a lot of WWII and Korea vets posting stories and such.  It was "only" 40-odd years later.  Most of it is long gone (who keeps a Usenet spool from 1988?) but some has been saved in places.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to z31maniac :

The bands I like have their own websites. Some of them are cool and well made. 

Yes, but as mentioned, I don't want to constantly check a bunch of websites for bands/comedians/venues, that the show has been cancelled/rescheduled, etc. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

I would actually rather pay Craigslist to sell cars and motorcycles than deal with Facebook Marketplace. If you search for Miatas on Craigslist you get Miatas. If you search for Miatas on Facebook marketplace you get Nissan Whatevers and dinner place settings. I don't get how that works. 

You're joking, right? Craigslist pops up 100 other items and one Miata.  Usually it's very unrelated items like dishes and Twilight books. 

I love this place but I do miss "Team Dot Net."

z31maniac said:

I promise, none of us are nearly as interesting as we think we are. 

The aversion to voice-controlled coffeemakers isn't about tracking -- I just don't want to have to wait for a 30 minute software update before I can make coffee. :)

bobzilla said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

I have to ask, is there anything that you do like? We see al the things you don't, but nothing good. You got any?

FB is very much a platform you get what you want from it. 

Exactly. You have to do some "weeding" once in awhile to remove content you don't want to see.  If you find yourself getting annoyed with what you're seeing in your feed, then click on the three little dots (on the phone app) and remove said content from your feed.

Also, the AI is cumulative. It just gives you more of whatever you click on. So if you constantly click on stuff that annoys you, then you'll just get more of it and it becomes a cycle of annoyance. I click on lots of cat pictures. So guess what - my feed is filled with cat pictures. I like cats, so I'm ok with that.