People is sometimes kind
Sat Nov 29, 2008 15:17 (UTC -5)So yesterday I had some pretty harsh words. New Yorkers “the worst people on earth” because they are all extremely rude? I said that.
I was wondering how fast I could get a discussion (or flame war) going. The answer: pretty quickly. Casey wrote: “I honestly find it really close minded when someone who has never been to the city says such terrible things about it. Everyone who I have met in new york has been nothing but nice and helpful.” Other people said similar things.
Aw man. What are my impressions from TV and the Internet when someone has lots of actual experiences? Nil, I say. Nil. I was being closed-minded, and I didn’t even know it. This sucks a lot. So the rude New Yorker might be… a stereotype? What the heck, guys. Can we please stop having stereotypes? People are actually probably pretty good everywhere. And that is the end of that.
Here’s something else I have been wondering about: Twitter. It’s rapidly becoming popular. If you don’t know what Twitter is, you’re probably not cool, but I’ll tell you anyway. Twitter is about microblogging, which means writing brief descriptions of what you’re doing at every moment. So basically it’s like Facebook minus everything except the status feature. Kind of.
With many up-and-coming things, I take a look, ask “What’s the point?”, and then eventually decide they’re cool anyway and start using them. But I haven’t gotten on Twitter yet. MySpace and Facebook are one thing (well, two things), but I don’t think anyone should know what I’m up to or what I’m thinking all the time. What’s more, I don’t feel like flipping out if I remember I haven’t updated my Twitter status in the past six hours.
It seems like everyone is using Twitter these days except for everyone I know. But some of you I don’t know. How many of you use Twitter? What do you think of it? How is it useful? I’d like to know what you think.
In case you didn’t already know, here’s why Ticketmaster Is Evil and Must Die.
There are a lot of dumb names for web-based companies, but few are dumber or less pronounceable than these: the 15 Dumbest Names for Web 2.0 Startups.
And in case you didn’t already know why copy protection was bad, here are 25 Arguments for the Elimination of Copy Protection.
5 comments
#1 by Luke: Sat Nov 29, 2008 20:06 (UTC -5)
I just made a rancid peanut butter sandwich and if I had more than 50 characters to work with I would go into greater detail or maybe I will just whine about it in my next posting in five minutes.
#2 by kristen: Mon Dec 01, 2008 21:57 (UTC -5)
ok, i actually wanted to comment on the literary rules link, but i couldn’t in the last post because the comments got closed after the whole new york debacle.
“Puns are for children, not groan readers.” I HAD TO ROLL MY EYES. i don’t even know why anymore. (maybe it’s social learning to hate puns?)
and i sort of like mixed metaphors.
and another thing: stereotypes are cognitive shortcuts that we all inevitably make, so yeah. probably it will be hard to eliminate them. and i think you saying that people are generally good is a stereotype, too. (because we’re not.)
#3 by Jordon: Mon Dec 01, 2008 22:39 (UTC -5)
Isn’t saying that people generally aren’t good also a stereotype?
Here’s a great mixed metaphor I heard in class today: “Muddy waters are the meat of what social scientists study.”
#4 by Keith: Tue Dec 02, 2008 20:40 (UTC -5)
I tried Twitter for a while. It pretty much sucked. 140 character limit? That was just too little. Plus, everyone just spreads longer messages over multiple posts. I deleted my account there, as well as at MySpace. No reason for having either.
#5 by Luke: Wed Dec 03, 2008 17:39 (UTC -5)
Yeah, what’s with the bad rap for stereotypes? They’re not all negative or false, just the stereotypical ones. Have you heard the one about the profession member?