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I was once a Facebook fool

public.numair.com

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Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#111

Post by noahc »

randomdata wrote: post #87
raganwald wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accept that in response to abuses, the practice may have evolved over time. However, that does not in any way diminish the value of the metaphor, because the vast majority of people who encounter the word “sharecropper” think of the kind of farmer who can be evicted after harvest and often were. Further to that, I strongly suspect that most of those who are aware that the practice has evolved since those draconian…

The term computer used to mean a person who sat at a desk doing mathematical calculations. When someone talks about their Amazon computing cluster, I don't picture a huge office building full of people putting pen to paper, crunching numbers all day long, even though that is exactly what computing cluster would have meant at one point in time. When the term sharecropper is used, one will naturally turn to the meaning…

The term sharecropper has two meanings.

The first one is the modern day practice. "He's a sharecropper because he uses share cropping in his business" refers to the modern day agricultural practice. Whatever economic system they use is irrelevant.

In almost all other cases, particularly in regards to Technology, it refers to the old school practice of share cropping and is using it as such.

Present day usage has nothing to do with it. It is all about context. If 80% of HN agree that sharecropper means X, then it means X. Sharecropper in this sense has become a piece of jargon among business and technology folks.

Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#114

Post by Raphael »

sidcool wrote: post #103
numair wrote: post #88

Wow, well, this got way more attention than I wanted. First, to be clear -- I have nothing against the guy who took Dave Morin's job (who wasn't supposed to be named -- Amazon CloudFront didn't bother to invalidate its cache when I uploaded the final edit of that paper). He played his cards right, came out hundreds of millions of dollars ahead, and then he got out . He's not in this to control your social life or any…

I didn't get what you mean by 'not web-scale'

I think he means that gatekeepers are a step down from the web, which is not censored.

Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#115

Post by mmaro »

larrys wrote: post #85
aridiculous wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In his mixergy interview, he was a nice, great, caring guy, but when Andrew took a wrong step, Blank sort of lost it on air. I chalked it up to he having a bad day or being highly stressed, but it was interesting to see such a quick shift in character. It reminds me of that scene in "Inside Job" where Columbia Dean Glenn Hubbard changes tone after a question he doesn't like. It's as if he pulled a mask off and became…

That type of behavior is representative of someone with an anger problem. And you're right this could also be chalked up to someone, anyone, having a bad day. But in this case (as you described) he was doing an interview and is for all intents and purposes retired and having a great time being toast of the startup town. He's didn't just get fired from HP or anything. (And of course what you described is what I did ex…

http://ifile.it/mdk43ht - this link will probably be dead in a week or two

(BTW, if you save everything you find interesting, you realize just how much disappears from the Internet. The half-life of the average link is about 4.5 years.)

Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#116

Post by hello_moto »

rch wrote: post #36
zerostar07 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand that doesn't mean you can avoid them altogether. In the ideal case, you have the option to choose among competing platforms. The problem with facebook is that since the end of myspace, it's still the largest web app platform.

For how long? I casually mentioned deactivating my facebook account over dinner in Mexico last weekend. Two strangers from elsewhere in the world perked right up as they had just done the same thing. None of us had any specific reasons; we just 'felt' like turning it off. So, it doesn't matter if Facebook is evil or not - I simply don't like it, and it seems that others share that sentiment. I had seen notable figure…

Would be cool to have a website that list people who just turned off their facebook account :).

The latest Facebook Timeline feature is creepy and I'm starting to think in your direction as well. But having said that, I'd like to know what my friends are up to once in a while and have casual sudden conversation with them.

Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#117

Post by joebadmo »

res0nat0r wrote: post #92
numair wrote: post #88

Wow, well, this got way more attention than I wanted. First, to be clear -- I have nothing against the guy who took Dave Morin's job (who wasn't supposed to be named -- Amazon CloudFront didn't bother to invalidate its cache when I uploaded the final edit of that paper). He played his cards right, came out hundreds of millions of dollars ahead, and then he got out . He's not in this to control your social life or any…

I think comparing Facebook to having access to water or power is a bit of a reach.

I don't think he's comparing FB to water, he's comparing social networking/communication/connection to water. Facebook would then be the utility company, with a de facto monopoly, but no check on its power. (Personally I think competition is the check, and I'm on team Google.)

Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#118

Post by swalkergibson »

moondowner wrote: post #18
eyko wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Against bad-mouthing big, powerful, businesses? Yeah, I think so.

It depends on the country maybe. That's why nowadays in almost every company in the agreement the employee signs one of the terms is that he is to never talk about the company in a way that will affect it's reputation negatively.

IANAL, but it sounds like a clause like this flies directly in the face of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. I very seriously doubt that any company can control its former employee's true speech.

Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#119

Post by stmartin »

I've said this many a times, over and over again, but it bears repeating - again.

If a one cheats on a spouse and marries the guy or girl she cheated with, that new marriage is doomed to failure. Sooner or later, the situation becomes unbearable and you either have an explosive divorce, separation, repeat infidelity, violence, the 'silent treatment', or some other unhealthy and dysfunctional dynamic.

There is no difference between lacking integrity in a marriage and lacking integrity in business. Facebook is a bubble. The founder, Mark, is unrepentant and left people feeling screwed over. He can deny it all he wants, the reality of the situation is different. He can even try to cover it over by his commitment to the Giving Pledge, but the lack of integrity and the anger some of his former partners rightly feel has not altered one bit to this day.

Sure, they may have made money and have gotten appeased somehow, or even 'beaten' in court, but this still does not change people's feelings about what happened.

Facebook is rotten in its foundation. Everything else that was built upon that foundation is bound to collapse.

The only thing it is useful for is stalking on other people's "Relationship" status and giving the wolves an opportunity to go after its prey when that changes or a sincere thought or feeling is shared on it. That's what Mark wanted it for anyway, since he never quite outgrew his adolescence, nor did he ever found God.

Re: I was once a Facebook fool

#120

Post by mmaro »

mmaro wrote: post #80
aridiculous wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In his mixergy interview, he was a nice, great, caring guy, but when Andrew took a wrong step, Blank sort of lost it on air. I chalked it up to he having a bad day or being highly stressed, but it was interesting to see such a quick shift in character. It reminds me of that scene in "Inside Job" where Columbia Dean Glenn Hubbard changes tone after a question he doesn't like. It's as if he pulled a mask off and became…

It's been a while since I've watched it, but I didn't get the impression that Blank lost it. As I remember, Andrew just made a big deal out of his minor misstep and focused on the misstep rather than getting the interview back on track. I think most interviewees, not just Blank, would find this annoying.

Please consider my comment retracted (I can't delete it); Andrew did a much better job than I remembered.
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