I was thinking about the popularity of Facebook, and what it reminded me of. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, before graphical web browsing, there were BBS. What is a BBS? It is a Bulletin Board System, a place for people to dial in with their modems and connect to a larger world. It was text based, allowed you to message other users, share files, play games, and most importantly, it was localized.
This is where Facebook really reminds me of BBS. It is very local, and a very small part of the Internet. The problem with the Internet is that it is too global and too large to really understand. You have a hard time connecting with people in your area. I love in Facebook, when you are searching for someone, they return the people who are physically closest to you first. So, Facebook is just old BBS reborn. Still mostly text, still a place to meet, play games, and like BBS, it is not dependent on real time. You can post something on your wall (Hmm, sounds like a Bulletin Board), and someone else can comment on it when they have time. It proves that the BBS system was valid, and people liked how it worked. Now we have something that does almost the same thing, just with updated hardware and new protocols.
Rough year so far
Haven’t been in much of a blogging mood. The company I work for laid off about 10 to 15% of its workforce Thursday, so that was not a happy day. I still am employed, but we lost one person from our department. It was across the board, salaried and hourly people. At least they offered a decent severance package, from what I heard. Still, sucks to be out of work in this economic climate. The sign of a good company is they cut costs before they start losing money, instead of after. We shall see what the year holds ahead.
In tech news, I have only been using Opera at home for my web browsing and e-mail. I really like the news feed reader as well. Been very stable under Linux. Windows, meh, but I blame the piss poor memory management of Windows for that one.
Glenn is doing OK. Learning a lot and being hyper at times, but very cute at other times. No more crib for him, he looks very cute in his real bed.
Still looking forward to vacation. At least at work I am not the only one still taking a vacation. My cube mate is going down to Florida next month for a week of golf and relaxation. Life goes on. I miss seeing mountains and trees not planted by man. I also love the arts and craft community as well, it is nice seeing locally made things.
Posted by admin on January 24, 2009 in Family, General Comments
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