Skip to main content

Facebook isn't all bad

The inevitable vampire bunny from
Dracula, the Pantomime*
I know it's trendy to pooh-pooh the social networking giant, and speak of the way Facebook is so yesterday. And, of course, one doesn't need virtual friends, one has real ones. And all that guff. But, in fact, in a world where many of us don't stay in one place, and may have contacts around the world, I think Facebook does have a lot going for it. 

Let me give you two quick examples. I used to be a member of a writers' online group called Litopia. Over the years some of the people I liked best left, and then the whole thing folded. But I had made real friends - people who I would happily go out for a drink with if we were in the same city - and I was in danger of losing touch. One of our number (partly as a result of my moaning) set up an invitation-only group on Facebook, which is now 120 strong, and it has kept those virtual friendships going - and brought a good number back into the fold. Facebook made this easy to do, compared with all the faff of setting up and moderating an online community.

Here's another example. I'm gradually digitising my pre-digital photos to have a more comprehensive collection in the places I tend to look at photos these days (and to have a Cloud-based backup, which means I wouldn't lose my precious pictures in a fire). A few days ago, I put up a set of pictures from the mid-1990s of a couple pantomimes I wrote and directed, starring the members of a youth group I helped run. I put these up on Flickr and made the only person I was still in contact with from the group aware via Facebook. Within a day I'd made a whole string of connections with people I haven't seen for nearly 20 years - and it's really rather a nice feeling.

The fate of an author/director at the end of the run of a youth group pantomime
So don't always paint Facebook as evil. Yes, it's too big and powerful. And manipulative. Yes, it has problems. But it can also put a smile on your face and re-connect you with people you thought you'd never see again. Which can't be a bad thing.


* The vampire bunny was shamelessly lifted from a joke in the old radio comedy show, I'm Sorry, I'll Read that Again. To get the joke, you have to be aware that in the even older TV quiz show, Take Your Pick, the culminating game involved the contestant choosing between opening a box or taking cash. The audience would shout out 'Open the box!' and 'Take the money!' So, in the panto, a character is running away from the vampire bunny and finds a coffin to hide in. Should he hide, or should he attack the monster rabbit? The opposing shouts go up 'Hop in the box!' and 'Stake the bunny!'
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex
114 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor
24 comments
Read more

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope
22 comments
Read more