October 8, 2010

  • Ode To An Outdated Website

    It took some time, but I finally left MySpace,
    booked faces and twitters have taken its place
    Too much information on those old sites I visited
    I'm fine confined, to a hundred forty letters limited

    I've sat here  so long, I have back and butt-aches
    I only leave for chips, cokes, and nature-call breaks
    Linked in, logged on, I bought 600 friends more
    Don't know a one, but  how else to keep score?

    Dearly blogged, we are gathered here
    to raise crops on Farmville and brew virtual beer
    to link to new friends and post silly jokes,
    to drink Virtual Marys whilst sending out pokes

    What new social networks will be the next crazes?
    Instead of words typed, will friends smiley-face us?
    You can count on this, cyber-friends and relations,
    The next big thing won't enhance communication.

Comments (22)

  • So many things have come and gone since we started using computers not so many years ago. Remember taking those weekend courses at the college? Learning to use the computers before Bill Gates made it easier with Windows?

    I also wonder what the next big thing will be. And whatever it is, I agree that it probably won't enhance communication.

  • I actually remember when we built home 'computers' with individual switching transistors. The 2A2222 was biased to create an 'and' gate, or wired upside down as an inverter. (simplified somewhat) The goal was to get the thing to add and do simple logic manipulations. It was all we had until integrated circuits came out. 16 bit (not bytes, or the parallel data-stream width, no, simply lonely 16 ones or zeroes(!) RAM chips still litter the attic floor, but I understood what I was doing at least.
    I actually believe we've hit apogee and are on our way back down toward a sad splashdown somewhere near La Brea. Incredibly, even voice conversations these days seem to have the parties cutting each other off at 138 character cusp. This should be investigated. If the goal in life is to amass tricks with which to prune one's thoughts into the space inside the box, as on Xanga Pulse, we are in doo-doo, upside down.

  • @jsolberg - You used more than your quota of characters just on that comment. // I was never that deeply into computing; took a Fortran course my freshman year (punchcards) and used Minitab and SPSS in grad school, typed my thesis on a Zenith Z-100 (may still have the 5 1/4" floppies somewhere), but only had the vaguest idea of how it all worked.  Now I could fit all the data that my university's mainframe computer handled on a chip the size of my little fingernail. Even back then there were multiple layers between the 1s and 0s and what was on the screen or printout; the size of the software it now takes to run my laptop would have tied up the combined mainframes of numerous universities in the late 70s.

  • I have been ragging on Farmville for some time but I gave it a shot and I got addicted.  I am currently 1 month sober.

  • I find it odd that even though lots of words get posted, there is less and less communication.  

  • haha... right on the money!!! 

  • @godfatherofgreenbay - my wife has a farm and a restaurant. I tell her she has a kitchen and a laundry room, too, but she doesn't hear me.

    @jsolberg - And I thought I was a big deal for using geometry when cutting sheetrock for skylights. My dad knew all those old languages, fortran, cobol, but I never cared a whit for it.I did enjoy going to work with him, at the Norad radar center on Tyndall AFB. The place looked like an alternate set for the movie 'Fail Safe'.

  • @MelFamy - yeah, I hear you. I just choose to ignore you! ; )~~~

  • haa haa, love this. 

  • I remember a time when I thought that computers were only for either playing those games they have on there (like Solitare and Minesweeper), killing Sims, or for using Paint (we didn't have Internet). *sigh* I was so innocent back then...

    Anyhow, I love this. The next thing you know, Facebook and Twitter will be outdated too, but Xanga will never die.

  • @Queen_of_You188 - Me too. 

    I remember how simplistic it was back then..things do change for sure. 

  • @Hinase - :O You used to kill Sims too!?

  • @Queen_of_You188 - I watched friends do it lol I have several friends addicted to the Sims

  • @Hinase - that's because killing them is soooooooooooooooooooooo fun!

  • @Hinase - @Queen_of_You188 - I bought SimEarth; I killed entire planets at a time. Never could figure that stuff out.

  • @MelFamy - sounds like you did it by accident. But me, I did it on purpose. 83 Imagine a little four year old drowning Sims in a pool or building a room with no doors and locking Sims in there. That was me.

  • @Queen_of_You188 - You're bent, Queen. I like that, Come visit anytime.

  • @MelFamy - I'll think about it. :3

  • I thought my daughter was mean when she took away all the bathrooms so they would have to pee on themselves. I see she was just an amateur!

  • @joiwinds - I cannot believe a daughter you raised could do such a thing. I blame it on our public education system.

  • @MelFamy -Yeah, let's go with blaming the school system.

  • I recently read an article about how little connection actually occurs even though so many of us use social media sites.  It must be that those sites remove us too many steps from each other.  I'm the person who goes INSIDE the bank to do business, no drive-thrus for me.  Odd that I like Xanga.

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