Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

The thing I hate about ANY electronic communications is that it sets up an expectation for an instant answer, and then when I don't get it I'm all cranky. I swear to God I remember and cheerfully lived in an era when people just communicated by telephone or postal mail, and therefore didn't expect instant answers, but I no longer have the feel for that, and I hate it. Stupid computer sitting on my desk always on and stupid fucking gmail account always saying no mail -- how is that better?

"Technology becomes, at some point, like a language itself." Marshall McLuhan to the white courtesy phone. ;)

I feel a lot further away from physically distant friends in the age of Twitter and Facebook than I ever did when we hand wrote 20 something page letters to each other. I want far more one-to-one and far less one-to-many pipelines and far more cool mediums than hot.

and all you kids get off my lawn!

I still have not quite figured out if Facebook fits into what I want from my online experience. The mix of family, online friends, high school friends, musicians, comedians and authors, all of whom can crossover and comment, makes for a strange microverse.

What I find really funny is that Facebook is exactly what my hypertext seminar at Georgia Tech envisioned back in 1999. That seminar was also where I put forth that downloading content (games, music, movies, books) would soon be the norm and the physical artifact would become increasingly obsolete. At the time I was 41, the old man among teenagers, and they nearly laughed me out of the room for such a crazy thought.

Marshall McLuhan to the white courtesy phone.

Oh, is THAT what he meant? Though I guess I'm saying that without the medium, there is no message. Not exactly the same thing, but props where due.