Comments for sursumcorda.salemsattic.com/post/mutton-dressed-as-lamb

Comment #1985

2007-12-19T02:40:17Z

One nice thing is that it's possible to join and use it minimally. You can get e-mail notifications so you don't have to check Facebook itself, and you can control (supposedly) what you're notified about. The ads on Facebook itself are a little more annoying than I thought they would be. I can easily ignore the ones on the sidebar, but "sponsored news" shows up in my news feed, too, and -- unlike other kinds of news -- you can't tell Facebook not to show you those.

But it's chief value, I think, is in finding people. The network explosion is amazing.

To me, the main question is -- is it really worthwhile getting in touch with long-lost people? The obvious answer is yes...but as you point out, our time is limited, and are we doing anyone any favors by so greatly expanding our network? As they said about the telegraph, "But do Maine and Texas have anything to say to each other?"

Comment #1984

2007-12-19T02:33:57Z

Well, I like Facebook applications simply because people (well, one guy so far) hire Jon to write them...

I doubt I will join. I have a hard enough time keeping email and blogs to a reasonable amount of time consumed.

Comment #1983

2007-12-18T22:58:15Z

(a) Death to Facebook applications.

(b) I'm with Andy. The predictive input also learns with time, as you add to the dictionary, so every now and then I'm tempted to try to retrain a language to Swiss German, but then I always think the better of it because of the boatload of work involved.

Comment #1982

2007-12-18T22:42:31Z

I don't care how you write it. I love hearing from you!

Comment #1981

2007-12-18T22:39:47Z

I have to say, it's funny getting a text message from my Mom. In fact, the only two real messages I've gotten on my phone were from her, and her first one I thought was "spam" until I looked a little more closely.

Comment #1980

2007-12-18T22:17:55Z

Entering text via a phone's numeric pad is way too tedious for me. I think I might actually like the ability to send text messages if phones had a decent text input device.

Comment #1979

2007-12-18T15:23:46Z

I've played with predictive entry a little, but so far am mostly in agreement with your mom (are you surprised?) and your girlfriend. Apparently I'm not predictable enough. I do like the idea of it automatically capitalizing after periods, though.

Comment #1978

2007-12-18T15:07:13Z

My mom's been having the same adventure. It led to a conversation about the relative merits of "predictive entry." That's where, instead of having to press keys multiple times to get certain letters, you just press once for each letter and eventually it guesses which word you're trying to spell (e.g. "which" would be "94424," not "944...4442244"). I find it much faster, and one upshot is that it becomes actually faster to spell correctly and fully. Plus, when you use a period, it automatically upper-cases the next letter for you. Mom and my girlfriend, though, are against it, and find it more frustrating when it guesses incorrectly or doesn't know the word you're typing. I still find it worth it, though.