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TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

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Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#91
post #4

In the distant future, when they discover the endless jars of eggs and sperm in Mark Zuckerberg's basement, somewhere, Chris Holt will be saying "I told you so."

I mean, no one in their right mind REALLY believed that Facebook needs all that server farms, right? :)

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#92

Jesus christ. It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. I feel like that era transpired 40 years ago. The period of time before smartphones feels like it happened in the 1970's to me. The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief.

Were things that primitive?

"A car phone is a mobile phone device specifically designed for and fitted into an automobile. This service originated with the Bell System, and was first used in St. Louis on June 17, 1946."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_phone

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#93
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief. The first movie I watched on my GearVR headset was called Strange Days, a 1995 film rather aptly about the introduction of Virtual Reality and how the government is involved in all sorts of dirty cover-ups. The movie was terribawesome, but it was amusing to see what 90's ideas of the future were getting right and wrong. Though, the time b…

It is not terrible, but legitimately awesome. Written by James Cameron and directed by his then-wife Kathryn Bigelow. It's such a great movie. And has a great track by Peter Gabriel at the end as well!

The very ending is a little bit cheesy. But apart from that, it's a great ride.

The interesting thing about it, in relation to this thread, is that they consciously tried not to extrapolate too far technologically (apart from the whole record all your experiences thing); in fact, pretty much the only noticeable advance is speech to text translation on voicemail.

Some legit stupid outfits as well. Very 90s-cool...

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#94
post #71
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is crazy. Why make it an entirely new syntax with an entirely new lexicon? Bgc () instead of background-colour? I feel like new people keep entering the web field and forgetting all the lessons learned from the (very very recent) past. The inline approach might work for a small site. But in that case, why use a pre-processor at all and why would you need config objects? CSS doesn't need to be rocket science. If…

I wonder how much of those entering The Web Field have any formal education on CS and CS history, and to what extent most of them know the tools at their hand (HTML, JS, CSS, Standards, HTTP(S), browsers, other programming tools, etc). It seems to me that most of the professionals in the sector are actually paid amateurs with shallow knowledge of their own fields. This leads to reinvention of tools for that are at mo…

"The Web Field" is a pretty big group but if you mean "Front end web" then people with a background in graphic design or content creation (writing/video) are probably not going to have much formal CS history.

There _are_ people who are good at both visual design and computer science, but not as many as designers who learned enough to code what they needed to.

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#95
post #4

In the distant future, when they discover the endless jars of eggs and sperm in Mark Zuckerberg's basement, somewhere, Chris Holt will be saying "I told you so."

I mean, no one in their right mind REALLY believed that Facebook needs all that server farms, right? :)

They did when they ran PHP. Now they compile their PHP to C++ so it'll run faster and with less CPU and cooling requirements.

Also, writing PHP is easier than C++ so it's beneficial in that they get a wider pool of developers to use, and they can pay less.

Genius really.

So, now their server farms must be a cover-up, or they're using an old version of MySQL that kept a lot of its clustering data in RAM and are afraid it'll bomb out :-)

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#96
post #77
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orville Wright (of the Wright brothers) went from developing early airplanes to seeing the development of international travel and the jet engine. He lived until 1948 and his last flight was in a Lockheed Constellation[1] In computer science we are similarly privileged. We've gone from basic ideas of transistors and turing machines to having a global network of interconnected supercomputers in our pockets. [1] https:…

Quite interesting that super-sonic flight was achieved 1946. I don't know if Orville was informed, but imagine that - from barely flying to supersonic in 40 years.

23 more years and we were on the moon!

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#97

Jesus christ. It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. I feel like that era transpired 40 years ago. The period of time before smartphones feels like it happened in the 1970's to me. The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief.

> It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. It's surprising Holt could still get away with writing "Cornell girls are hideous" as late as 2004!

It's surprising he got away with the term "webmasters".

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#98
I remember being able to look up who was in your class. Facebook was so much more enjoyable when it was just university students, it was more fun, playful, and I guess innocent.

Since facebook expanded outside of universities its become more generic, and corporate and lost its "joie de vivre"

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#99

Jesus christ. It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. I feel like that era transpired 40 years ago. The period of time before smartphones feels like it happened in the 1970's to me. The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief.

> It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. It's surprising Holt could still get away with writing "Cornell girls are hideous" as late as 2004!

I think 2004-me would see a future in which it was politically impossible to write that kind of thing as a horrible dystopia.

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#100
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> And for all the joys of smartphone browsing on the go and novelty of proximity based search. Still remember ATT Mobile in early 2001 had a "find me" service you could use to find your friends. It was like a messenger app you logged into and then it would show you where your friends were located on a google maps interface. Then you could text or chat with him. They used the example of a guy who wins some concert ti…

Google Maps? in 2001??

Probably cell-tower triangulation, not GPS, and just a GMaps-like interface (as in a map image with a blinking dot ;-)
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