theflyingswami

I'm with the author of the article on this one. Call me egotistical all you want but yeah, I tried Twitter for a few days and got really bored with it. The author's complaints basically mirror my short Twitter experience. If I tweet something and literally have 2 or 3 followers who will see it, why not just send an Sms? Pointless.

So, I need a larger group of followers, no? But what motive does Twitter have to get me to bust ass and try to build a follower base? None. I already took the time to build a friend base some other social network and I'm in no mood to start that process again.

As a means of getting up-to-the-minute news and information,Twitter excels. But yeah, count me out.

Nothing like an article about Facebook written by someone who admits he hates seeing people, "waste time," on Facebook!

Regardless, I Find using Google+ is just easier. For example, if I want to change my profile picture, all my Picassa albums are right there (as well as phone pics). I can choose any picture I want and edit it right there, in Google+, and poof! New profile pic. I rarely change my profile picture in FB because, frankly, it's a hassle. Maybe not a huge hassle, but the process involves logging into Flickr (or Picassa or whatever), or finding a file on a hard drive, then going back to FB to upload or link the photo, then cropping it from there, then posting. It's always seemed like too much of a bother.

Same goes for Sparks. Rather than find an article on the Web, then copy the URL, go to FB, share it, yadda yadda... I just peruse Sparks (essentially Google News as far as I can tell), find something interesting and hit, "share."

And, of course, there's the invaluable Circles. I can finally brag to a selected social circle that I logged forty hours playing Call of Duty without revealing to everyone else what a total slacker I am.

Personally, I've never been a huge FB fan, but my move to Google+ has more to do with its superior design as opposed to rebelling against FB. So far, Google+ just seems more fun to me.

While many generic games may have been reduced to, 'shitty movies', I think developers have evolved gaming into a medium that would have been hard to imagine twenty years ago. Games like Fallout 3 or Mass Effect 2 are brilliantly designed hybrids of action, adventure, startegy, puzzle and rpg elements all wrapped in gorgeous, well written and immersive worlds built to evolve around a player's individual play style.

Even the base concept of challenge is not a given in modern gaming with titles like Little Big Planet where creating games is a major focus, or Kinectimals in which atmosphere and light hearted play trump all (actually, that second title could use even less, 'forced' challenge, IMO).

I applaud modern developers for constantly pushing the limits of what it means to 'experience' a game, rather than just play one as we have in the past.

That said, Zork totally rules! I've always thought there was room for Interactive Fiction in the modern world, it's just a matter of how/when (I hope!).

Comacast was charging me 4 or 5 times more than Netflix per month and still, twenty minutes of every hour consisted of advertising. That is, a third of my watching time was spent muting the television and twiddling my thumbs.

Pretty much Comcast can go jump in a lake as far as I'm concerned. Of course, now that Comcast, through MSNBC, provides both service AND content, I'm sure they'll put a stop to Netflix as soon as possible. Thanks, FCC!

Keep in mind that's, $9 x 20+ million subscribers a month.