DISQUS

Pure Evil.

Wow, worlds colliding:
communist regime using propaganda and media control to their own ends
meet
21st century network and communication tools
This worked just fine 50 years ago: cover up lies with lies. Not so hot now, as a tactic in general, General.

Sounds like a good time. Keep the pics and posts coming.

Um.. is there a version of linux that people could use that wouldn't require a degree in comp sci to figure out? 'Cause that would be really cool. And free.

This is an interesting question, especially to see it in a tech blog, because most 'users' are fairly basic in their use of technology. However, since for most people IE, MS Office, and Windows are the default norm, they just either learn to live with it or decide they "just aren't computer people" and begrudgingly send emails as required to co-workers and children and otherwise avoid technology as much as possible.
On a population-wide scale, people like us who read blogs, build web start-ups, use FireFox, Flickr, Delicious, iGoogle, etc. are the small elite fraction. We're like wine connoisseurs while most of the population is still drinking cheap beer because they don't know where to begin in acquiring a taste for vino. Ultimately most people will still probably use whatever came booted up on the computer when they bought it. A merger just gives Microsoft more room to push their monopoly further along without the user-friendliness and support is so badly needs.
It's often seemed to me as if MicroSoft must have a department that is solely responsible for making things just a bit more clumsy and awkward before shipping them out. But do people who only use IE, Office, and Outlook know there's any other way?

A year ago when Facebook launched their SDK I was excited that they were turning it into a platform. And then the junk apps started to fly like so many winged monkeys.
So what if they create a search, stock-market simulators, movie listings, games, photo-sharing aps, etc. until the cows come home? At some point all they've done is create a smaller, crappier version of the www. So why bother? So everyone I've ever kinda sorta met can tell how much time I waste? It burns me just a little more every time I log in to FB to check all the useless spam that my 100 friends have generated and there's one more jackass selling me some pepsi or real estate tips or concert tickets I don't want because he's ripped my info off of someone's app. Or basically cold calling me because I'm a "friend" of a "friend".
Great innovations are things that solve problems. Google solved the problem of how to find info. Facebook creates at least as many problems as it will ever solve. There will be a tipping point where just enough people will say "fuck this" and Facebook will sink like the Titanic. Let's just hope the next friendster/myspace/beebo/orkut will be... well what? more of the same? A talking phone book? An embedded chip that vibrates every time someone whose name I know changes their socks? Do we really need to all belong to one big social network? Maybe the future will be more about services that actually solve problems. When the novelty honeymoon of everyone being online (not just your other 2 geek friends) wares off, everyone will come back to the basic question: what do I need this for?

It has always taken a long time for old paradigms to fall away to new science and technologies.

But it's never funny. It boggles my mind how old folks can overlook, underestimate, undervalue, and ignore the internet.

There's no excuse for law-makers to be ignorant of that which they control. The fact that they can get away with it is a sad sign of how ignorant the voting majority is themselves.

Is facebook ever going to upgrade their UI? Half the time I can't figure out where to go to get my messages after logging in in response to the annoying spamlets facebook sends. I can't imagine the pain of going there to get my *real* email, too.

Sorry facebook, you can take my pride, but you'll never take my freedom!

I'm with Daniel: counting reasons to kill my facebook account.

Yes, viral marketing in its tastiest form. And buying drinks for friends is cool, as long as you have friends that will actually use coupons at a bar.

But let's think this one through: there's a girl you like, so you send her a coupon for a drink. If she actually goes out and uses the coupon then she'll be out at the bar without you, getting lit on your ticket, and chatting up who ever's there. Now that's a real nerds night out, lol!

Ya this is exaaaaactly what the world needs: another hype-stir about the impending WWIII and the terrorist attacks that are on the way... How many people are reading The Nostradamus Code thinking it's non-fiction? Obviously, a story about the future is fictitious, but somehow I doubt that the people who buy and read this book have made that cognitive leap. It may be good reading but let's hope it doesn't move from string-betting-marketing-con to self-fulfilling prophecy.