Darwinia

[Mas Tnega]

I see why he might be popular. I'm so deafened by his screaming I can barely hear my inner-voice telling me that he sucks.

That said, who even does any of the things he's describing? Are his friends seriously that boring?

[GreenRock]

Ace Rimmer wrote:

To all those who use Facebook (I don't, but my wife does), why in the world would we care about what you eat? [/rant]

I'm going to post this on my facebook so people think I'm funny and interesting.

[Xarlaxas]

If you're friends with lots of middle-aged women on Facebook you can expect lots of "what I ate at [insert meal]" and "isn't [musical instrument great!?] or "Who doesn't love tea?" status updates, with all of them responding to each other in the affirmative/discussing calorie intakes etc.

Or so I have been told. . . .

[Mas Tnega]

Ah. That's my problem. None of my female friends on Facebook are over the age of 24. Out of... two.

[FF]

Ace Rimmer wrote:

Why in the world would we care about what you eat?

I don't use Facebook myself...
...but If I make myself a nice/fancy meal you damm well know that all those in Defcon spectator chat will know about it.

After all, when one lives alone who cares for one's domestic triumphs?
the defconites sure as hell don't, that's for sure

[jelco]

Since about two years ago I've been wondering whether it's just a matter of time before I finally give in to the masses and start using Facebook and the like. So instead of just not using them because of my main reasons (waste of time, nothing I don't hear from friends in real life, etc), I've also started looking at it as some kind of experiment to see how much it has to integrate with the world around me before I'm finally forced to convert. I have to say that it's alarming how many websites these days seem to require you to log in through Facebook, or at least make it very hard to find the 'regular' login screen that doesn't do this, but overall I'm coping just fine.

I should note that I do loads over IRC, and a lot of friends and colleagues do so as well which makes it very easy to keep track of things. However there's no profiles, it's a very fleeting medium etc. Admittedly not everyone I know uses it (and I have to be honest, the male/female ratio is stereotypically skewed) but then again it has a very different purpose. I don't need to keep track of everyone's life all the time, but keeping in touch with loads of friends while doing other things is definitely fun.

Jelco

PS: I'm generally sceptical about arguments like "oh my god the big corporations will have all my data so I don't use their services" but I have to say Facebook seems way more likely to abuse their position and power than the other usual suspects like Google. You could say there's something inherently wrong with a company making money off of people sharing their lives with each other. However I still think there's a bigger issue in the practice of sharing all the details of your personal lives in the first place, so with that in mind the company could very well just have found a very genuine and fair business opportunity.

[Xocrates]

The only social site I use (not counting Steam) is twitter, and that was because I wanted someplace where to post my opinions on games without going for a full blog. I use it for other random stuff on occasion, but that's still my biggest use for it.

I've been quite able to avoid Facebook so far, mostly because I'm a bit anti-social by nature and therefore have very little use for it, however I fear I might have to end up joining for professional reasons.

[Feud]

One week from now I'll be smack in the middle of my road trip. 36 driving hours total, plus however many it takes for food, gas, rest, etc. Phoenix to Washington DC!

[jelco]

I didn't have any great expectations about In Time and after a quick glance I just learned that most critics would agree with that stance, but I have to say it turned out to be quite entertaining. For a movie that seems to base itself around a gimmick it's set up surprisingly clever with some genuine hints at the real world, including the modern "time is money"-mentality, the house of cards that is our economical system and how both the rich and the poor seem to be in perpetual self-maintaining (somewhat vicious) circles. Not everything's executed extremely well and of course some subjects are a little chewed out by this point, but the writers were perfectly aware of that and dose it just right so that it never seems to put too much focus on these things, instead leaving them for exactly what they are (details on the sidelines) while spending the majority of its time (harhar) on what is rightfully its core business: simple action. The story's definitely not weak and does what it has to do, but it is too weak to carry the movie by itself, so a supporting role feels very natural.

The movie has great potential for being a giant punfest and sure enough it quickly throws one pun after another at you - however instead of feeling like trying too hard, a parody of itself or even just misplaced, it blends into the whole well enough that it's properly dosed comic relief. After all the entire movie portrays a slightly warped world, where cars seem very advanced (my petrolhead housemate and I agreed that they sound very much like a turbocharged engine without an actual engine - I suppose that's one way to portray electric engines) and people have successfully modified human biology but cellphones or indeed any wireless technology of sorts seems to be mysteriously absent. On the one hand this is a tad bit odd, but on the other hand it makes you feel that little bit out of touch with the world that it becomes easy to excuse other strange elements such as the duality of the concept of time by blaming it on something along the lines of artistic license. (I'm inclined to use the same excuse for their portrayal of travel times, because even for a movie bending 'time' it's just unnatural that at first it seems to take hours to travel across 12 'zone borders' whereas towards the end it turns into a matter of minutes.)

So yeah, it has its flaws. I guess the characters aren't particularly deep or likeable, and sometimes it's a bit unclear whether they want you to think of the Timekeepers as good or bad guys, but to be honest that's quite alright. It's not a great movie, but it's certainly entertaining, and for something that takes a spin on the ancient ideas of both immortality and time as an instrument it's a refreshing enough take to excuse the fact that it may not make perfect sense all the time. No pun intended.

On a side-note: in the group of musicians-gone-actors, Justin Timberlake is one of the more likeable people that I've seen make the transition over the last few years. He's not stellar by any means but does a good job considering the overall track record of the music industry in Hollywood, and he manages to make his characters that slight bit more likeable than the character design allows.

Jelco

[jelco]

Well this is fun. Remember how I said our campus interwebs is 1 Gbps? With the student association responsible for managing the network (of which I'm on the board) we decided to put out a small press release. Next thing we know there's people from the national news calling for interviews, with one guy even travelling across the country to record a radio item and the local TV station recording a full item. The reason? Apparently if you say that you offer the fastest home internet connection in the world people suddenly become very interested.

Jelco

[tabasco boy]

was awake all night and early morning in hope of getting hold of the first batch of this raspberry pi only to be greeted by error 503

[MrBunsy]

I didn't get a Rasberry Pi either, I'm hoping I can at least get one from either RS's batch or Farnell's next batch.

[Feud]

What's up with all these names? Raspberry Pi, Icecream Sandwich, Honeycomb, etc.

Now, if someone came up with a device with the name "pork spare ribs", that would get my attention.

[Montyphy]

Feud wrote:

What's up with all these names? Raspberry Pi, Icecream Sandwich, Honeycomb, etc. Now, if someone came up with a device with the name "pork spare ribs", that would get my attention.

Just for the record, Raspberry Pi isn't a version of Android.

[Feud]

I know. It's hardware, not software.