Monthly Archives: May 2011

links for 2011-05-26

  • "I think we’re failing as a culture, when the only effective way to connect with people is to hand our social (online- and offline) network graphs to a corporation to monetize at will. Our social connections are far too important to trust them to Google, Facebook, Twitter, or the next big shiny thing."

Natty Latinisms

I’ve had occasion to think fondly of 3 years of Latin, 50 years and more ago. I wasn’t ever really engaged in rigorous study of the language, though my boyish charm got me the Latin Award at least one of those years. Wish I’d really comprehended the possibilities for fine-tuned imprecations at the time, and been able to summon such as this:

“vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuo,” which, loosely translated, means “Go shit in a hat and pull it down over your ears” (lit., “go shit in a [knit] hat & let that same hat itself be pulled over your ears.”)

(See this BoingBoing story for context)

Not exactly moderate sentiments

Jason Scott on the Facebook:

Facebook is a living computer nightmare. Just as viruses took the advantages of sharing information on floppies and modems and revealed a devastating undercarriage to the whole process, making every computer transaction suspect… and just as spyware/malware took advantage of beautiful advances in computer strength and horsepower to turn your beloved machine of expression into a gatling gun of misery and assholery… Facebook now stands as taking over a decade and a half of the dream of the World Wide Web and turning it into a miserable IT cube farm of pseudo human interaction, a bastardized form of e-mail, of mailing lists, of photo albums, of friendship. While I can’t really imply that it was going to be any other way, I can not sit by and act like this whole turn of events hasn’t resulted in an epidemic of ruin that will have consequences far-reaching from anything related to archiving…

Now me, I don’t have any truck with the Facebook, but I haven’t tried to articulate why it squinks me out. Perhaps I no longer need to try?