On the detour-ridden walk home through smoky downtown, I really missed my dance class (we are on holiday break and classes resume January) and the absolute joy of salsa beats. To make up for the vacuum and erase an overdose of lady blabla and the impersonal nature of electronic music, I dropped by Club Barcelona hoping to catch the latin jazz project and Ibrahim Ferrer in the making. Turned out they had taken a leave of absence just for yesterday.
As I walked two other annoying points came to mind. My übercool salsa teachers are on facebook and nowhere else. And not just that, my primary citation manager is now suggesting that I "like" articles and login with my facebook login. To give in or not to give in to facebook-it's-so-cool pressure? That was the irritating question.
I don't want a connection with the planet. I like my own little flow of thoughts here and I completely love the new interface of the site. Big thumbs down to Dr. Evil. I am not filling in the mini-me shoes anytime soon.
THEY were right THERE in downtown on saturday. :::link:::
DAMN, you fb. Don't want to join you and yet everyone I am seeking is with you. Aaarrgh. Wish I had seen this sooner - I would have headed straight to the Pucho Olivencia Center on Swan after the party!
haha - I think the dangers and distractions of joining outweigh the pleasure of stalking my teachers. I don't think I am quite at the desperate stalkerish level yet. May in a few months... :-)
I tried twittering and it totally wiped out my desire to write here for a bit. When I was twittering, I felt like I was frittering away my thoughts in 140 characters and being even more vain and trivial than I usually am... I see facebook as a similar, if not worse, experiment.
I think you should join and also stay here. Maybe connect with the dance people and try to get them to Join Here?
Well the thing that is funny about facebook is that I have friends on there that I have meet at (e:strip) parties that I'm not sure if they are on (e:strip). Or if they are I don't know there user names..............
(e:paul) - I think your analysis is spot on. If people put in as much energy here as they do on facebook, estrip would be a different place.
I'm a member of facebook but I don't really very much there at all.
I like the idea of a blog better than the idea of immediate social networking. The only places that I've blogged are estrip.org and wordpress. I like the control that I have over the look of the interface on wordpress. But I also really like the new estrip. I've decided that for the nonce if I'm going to blog only in one place, it will be estrip.
Ironically enough, as the internet has gotten more into the social side, I've become more of a recluse. I used to be on irc, on usenet, on aim, on icq sometimes all at once. It was great to be able to talk to someone half a world away. It seems less cool to talk to someone online that you just saw at work. But that is just me.
I've been thinking that I'm going to post links to my estrip stuff on facebook. Go figure.
I think that I might be a bit of a Luddite or some sort of dinosaur destined to die when the next social networking comet hits the earth.
"you entire friends, family, and coworkers are here"
That FREAKS me out. I am SO glad I am boring and don't want to be poked or liked. I use (e:strip) almost as a personal reference. I wish I had kept a regular record even earlier when I was in med school. My life was so jam-packed with craziness then and now I can't really identify with that crazy person anymore...
You don't have to feel guilty and I don't think they are evil. (e:enknot) is right, estrip is boring now because no one posts anymore besides a very few of us. Its especially boring if you are the type of person who is always on the prowl for "La fille du jour" or the internet meme of the day.
For me I prefer the longterm journal nature of a blog than the immediate feedback of of a whole slew of semi random acquaintances feeding each other links and brief status updates. I mean its fun to have other people participate in your life but even if everyone one else left I would keep writing as I love in my blog as I love being able to flip back through my life.
At the same time, I can understand wanting move to a more immediate feedback environment if that is the type of thing someone is looking for - especially for more social individuals. There is really nothing estrip can do to compete with the "you entire friends, family, and coworkers are here" and they all want to "like" what you say and poke you to make you feel special that face book has. I guess unless that is what you were not looking for in the first place.