Sometimes I have musings which aren’t complete enough to justify a full post, but are interesting enough to stay swimming around in my brain. So prepare to open some new tabs and waste some bandwidth as I bring you the first instalment of the Goody Bag™.
What’s in a name?
‘The Digital Printing Press’ is a nod to the power of the internet as a social institution, much like Gutenberg’s venerable machine before it. Just like the printing press, the internet has heralded a new age of information dissemination, and will be regarded as a high point in human history and innovation for centuries to come.
Looking to end it all?
Of course, this being a blog on all things virtual, I’m talking about online suicide. That’s right; a Dutch based web-service will now delete any existence of you ever being on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace et. Al. This is a scary thought. How much time has been devoted on our social accounts over the years? For some this would be akin to removing a part of their very being.
To me it’s interesting because I think some people are genuinely scared of how much time they spend online. They fear that they are losing connection with the ‘real’ world, becoming consumed with keeping up online appearances. But despite their fear, they cannot break away from it. It still consumes them. The Dutch company has identified this market and realised that the easiest way to break the hypnotic gaze of social networking is to push it off a cliff. I dislike the title suicide machine and I dislike the imagery associated with it. It’s certainly a dark topic, but despite the macabre connotations of the name and the site imagery (their icon is a noose), the creators promote the site as a healthy, life giving service.
Email Etiquette
One of the stupidest things that I have seen on the internet is unsubscribing from an email newsletter only to have the company/promoter send you a ‘confirmation of successful un-subscription’ email. Surely this last email is actually loaded with spyware and because you have now opted out of the Terms and Conditions of their mailing list the company/promoter can now legally use this final email to download spyware onto your computer and swipe your perosnal information. Sorry about that last typo, I was re-adjusting my tinfoil hat.
In a similar vein, is it bad email policy to write one word responses like ‘Yes; Thanks; Okay; Excellent’ etc? With trillions of emails floating around on the net, it seems incredibly stupid to continue to clog it up with even more inane garbage. But failure to acknowledge someone’s email might mean they think you haven’t got it, so then they send it again, and then you’ll be obliged to send your acknowledgment email anyway and the actual email tally is now +1 on what it should have been. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night.
Book depository tracker
In case you don’t waste enough time on the Internet already, here’s a great site that tracks what books are being sold online around the world. The web app gives a nice visual representation of online bookseller The Book Depository’s global market: purchases in Europe, North America and Oceana are common but rarely is a purchase made in South America, Africa or Northern Asia. A highlight for me included someone in the UK somewhat poignantly buying 1984. Despite its Big Brother undertones, the website is helpful because if nothing else it helps to show that your life is infinitely more exciting than the poor sod from Malta who forked out 40 bucks for ‘Wind Energy Explained’.
That’s all for now. If you enjoyed this post, why not gently spam your friends by reposting on Facebook?
No comments:
Post a Comment