Twitter, du, facebook, etc and so - a view from a long time geek about it all

[The Straight Story]

I got my first computer when I was 13, a trs-80 model 1 with a cassette drive. Z-80 processor (I remember that because my first assembly language program was written in Z-80).

I am 43 now. I remember 300 baud modems. Bulletin Board Systems (we called them BBS's). I remember my first game (other than a chess program my friend and I wrote, plus a re-write of the AI program Eliza) I wrote. A Star Trek game. I could not afford the one I saw in a magazine (was 19.95) so I set about to write my own.

Block graphics. No real Operating system as we see them now. Your turned on your PC, basic command line OS, and loaded a program or wrote one and ran it.

Now we have something else really new in it all - social networking and twitter, as well as places like DU.

What I hope to do is make it all a bit more clear from a long time geek.

So here are my thoughts on these items:

DU: A place where we (like at other sites) can post information we have gathered and comment on it. We can also create OP's (Original Posts) like this one for further discussion with a wide range of people. Getting input back from a wide variety of folks in life.

An exchange of ideals concerning either the news of the day or issues of import to us.

Face Book/MySpace: A place where one defines who they are, and those whom they know which allows people to branch out and find either like minded individuals or folks they have known in the past. You tell the world about you and your likes, and like minded or socially connected people to you link up with you. On a professional level there is linked in, where you link to people you have known professionally over the years and track where each of you have gone in hopes that you can help one another.

Twitter: While it can get can get some crap from folks I think some are missing it's inherent value. I spent some time there tonight and it was eye opening. A young lady who was traveling in the ME was posting short information about her travels (from a large Gecko in her tent to her drive to Victoria falls) and by clicking on her friends there I was transported to the lives of some famous people promoting their tv shows to some average Joe talking about a show he watched tonight.

As someone who loves to write this was all fascinating to me. Here I found a ton of new people all telling me about their lives. What they liked, didn't, etc and son on.

A short and brief way for folks to let us know what they are doing and thinking - except we are not bound anymore to just those few we personally know. We now have a world full of people explaining their lives in some detail or other.

We have communication on a broad scale - from the poor mother in detroit to the wealthy person traveling the world.

We have knowledge and insight we never had before. We are not bound by a few corporate controlled networks for our information.

Never in my wildest dreams back when I was 13 did I see this all. The ability for such a free transfer of knowledge and ideas. The sheer volume of data each day that we could have access to.

The ability to see opinions of others so easily, the ability to see ideas we might have not otherwise have held.

So many people, so many stories.

And yet I find in it all a common thread.

Let's do better by one another. Let's help each other. Let us as a people do right by one another.

Those stuck in the dark ages are not just those on the rw, but those on the LW as well whom dismiss health care, who want to keep funding wars.

Those in power are worried now - because we the people are more aware and in contact with each other.

We have their number. Those special lobbyists can no longer hide their wrong doings.

We have a power now. The power to work together, to network, find out what they said versus what they did. We can now more easily hold them accountable.

The more the net evolves the more I think we scare them.

it is not about a label of D or R, it has become about holding those in power responsible for what they do and how that affects us all.

We will win, because now more than ever before we have the tools to expose those that would push us aside.

[flvegan]

1. Who is your internet provider?

Our corporate overlords I think you'll find, still have a killswitch for that communication you're talking about.

Not to be a downer, but I'm sorry, we don't have anyone's number because nobody's going to do anything about anything.

[The Straight Story]

3. I have more than one -

Not sure what you are getting at - but try this:
http://www.google.com/unclesam

Allows you to search all government documents.

And we have plenty of power to come together and make change. I think this whole internet thing scares them a bit.

Don't get me started on my own conspiracies :)

[Kittycat]

2. I still say Twitter sucks.

[The Straight Story]

4. Oh I can see that - but there is something way deeper there to look into

Following it tonight was eye opening.

Started out with a simple search and led me places I had never imagined.

A real view in to the minds and hearts of folks - something one does not learn in school.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. Among other things, the internet gives some folks a brand new venue in which to complain

about how new communications technologies are "destroying communication".

I'm sure that when the telegraph- or smoke signals, for that matter- were invented, there were similar prognostications of imminent doom.

[NYC Liberal]

12. It's actually really funny to me

People sitting on their computers, eyes glazing staring at the screen and typing, probably with the TV on in the background -- complaining about how this "new technology" is just another way to keep the masses dumbed down and brainwashed or somesuch thing.

Think about it...

[DCKit]

13. Wow, it's like you're right here with me.

DU, email and Yahoo searches are about as dumbed-down as I get, so no facebook or twitter for me, and I'm watching permaculture (and other) documentaries on the TeeVee instead of American Idolatry. I don't think there are many twittering twits or desperate-for-any-kind-of-attention-you-can-bad-touch-me-if-you-want facebook poseurs on the DU.

I see both sides, but still think twitter (and, eventually facebook) is a fad. It's kind of like that time I interviewed for a job at one of those places that used those walkie-talkie phones and the manager was calling the guy I was supposed to replace every three seconds berating him for being out and doing his job.... Do I *really* need to go on?

Given the current need to be connected to untold masses of people every second of every day, I have to wonder how a child - even a young adult or 30-something adopter of the technology - would fare if dropped into the world of the 60's, 70's or 80's. It would make a hell of a sitcom, for sure, as the lead character(s) quickly lost their minds from a lack of over-stimulation, miniature gadgets and legally prescribed brain altering drugs.

[tabbycat31]

18. today's teens would go crazy if the internet was taken away

I'm currently working on a paper about teenage internet use and predators, and many of these teens go bezerk if they're even away from facebook for an hour. It's insane.

[Indiana_Dem]

6. I've had the same experiences as you except I was a little older (45 now)

and worked on the TS-80 at work! I worked on computers hooked to a mainframe in a newsroom also.

I'm on both FB and Twitter. The best thing about Twitter is that I've connected to almost all congresspeople who are on Twitter. There are a considerable amount of them who are RW. At first, I hated the idea. When I found the website to connect to all congress critters at the suggestion of Claire McCaskill (I followed her first), I just hit the "follow all" button! Yuck! When they said everyone, that means I got everyone--even McCain! However, this is also an opportunity to broadcast my opinions to them so they can also see there is another side out here...and they can see it in real time! So that has been a powerful feeling.I like that ability.

[Wednesdays]

19. I was brought up on TRS-80's great competitor, the Commodore PET

The PET was actually a really cool machine. It was a complete, portable system (although it weighed a ton), and it had 8k memory (the early TRS-80 had only 4k). The downside was it had a calculator keypad, and so typing on it was tedious.

My father and I invested $795 for a PET in 1979, and we were the first in our neighborhood to own a microcomputer, and maybe even the first in our city. Even though it had a cassette tape drive, there was virtually NO software for it--everything you ran, you created yourself in BASIC. Since there was so little commercial software at the time, we actually formed a fledgling software company (wouldn't dream of doing something like that today).

In 1983, I replaced the PET with the Commodore 64, and my then-girlfriend had a tantrum about it because she felt I "wasted" $200 on a "toy." She may have had a bit of a point then, because there still weren't many practical applications for it outside of simple calculating programs. However, software for the Commie 64 boomed within a few years (they even developed a Windows-like interface for it), and even today there are a few people logging onto the Internet using just a Commodore 64. So much for being just a "toy."

During that period, I had a friend who was both proudly liberal and computer-savvy, who was an expert on the Commodore 64. He and I had long conversations about how most liberals seemed to sneer at the idea of using computers (because of computers' association with the business world). He and I predicted that it would be to the detriment to liberal causes if conservatives had sole access and use of computers. I'm sure that when only Repukes build databases, communicate online, and run organizing software, that it gives them a huge advantage. I remember seeing how America Online was totally dominated by wingnuts in the 1990s (there is still a rightwing slant, but thankfully not quite as much now). I believe that those things contributed greatly to the surge of rightwing power in the 1980s and 1990s.

Now, I haven't really had much experience with Facebook or Twitter, but after reading about it here, I'll be certain to check them out thoroughly. Anything that can potentially enhance communication can be useful for our side. If we sneer at them as potential tools for the Democrats' agenda, we do so at our own peril, for the same reasons I pointed out above.

[Joe Fields]

7. I have no animosity toward face book, myspace or twitter, but....

It isn't for me. I am pretty guarded about my private life, and do not wish to stand naked, in front of the world, passing out all sorts of private info about myself that could potentially come back to haunt me later.

[Canuckistanian]

8. I remember the first time I used the internet

I was on a large commercial BBS and they offered something called an "internet portal". Nothing special, just a connection to a GOPHER server. It had a cheesy script interface that would type all those arcane UNIX commands. I quickly learned the commands and bypassed the interface.

But what a world that suddenly opened up. Going to Universities and looking at their databases and articles - from all over the world. There was a server in Minnesota, I think, that had links to everywhere. I remember sitting up all hours just seeing where I could go. Australia, Germany, the UK, Japan...

I knew that my world had changed and I told anyone who would listen that this would be BIG.

Then, when the WWW came on with PICTURES and FORMATTED PAGES, well..... I knew it wasn't just going to be geeks like me able to use it.

Hard to believe that we now have grandmothers twittering and 4 year olds watching Youtube.

[grasswire]

9. one blinding moment for me was the first time I saw chat

I was on AOL then and the first chat room I stumbled on was the ACLU's forum there. When I saw the words that someone was typing in real time appear on my computer screen, it was really freaky. Wow.

That forum was a blast. It was the only uncensored chat on AOL. I learned a lot of new words there.

And I KNOW that at least one of my old pals there is on DU. There was another one, but she got the tombstone during the campaign.

[Canuckistanian]

17. I met my wife on a BBS chat in 1994

We were using emails to leave messages for each other long before emails caught on.

I think I still have the log files from those those very first chats. Maybe I'll archive them for my grandkids if I ever have any.

[grasswire]

21. I wonder why no one ever compiled a book of chats

They were instantaneous records of historical happenings. Election 2000, 9/11, etc. Real time commentary on horrible events, coming straight and uncensored from people's hearts and minds. There could be a serious book of the record.

And there could be a book about the silly side of chat.

[fujiyama]

11. I still remember when my dad had Prodigy back in the day

I was fascinated that he could get all this information from "out there". Some time later I was logging into local BBSes to download small Doom Mods. The coolest time was running into the guy at school that RAN one of the BBSes! That was of course before the web and it was a fairly tight knight community running those...

I remember some fun times calling friends up and trying to connect a modem client software so we could "chat". Why we couldn't just talk on the phone I don't know. I was so frustrated because we had a slow 2400 Baud Model (or maybe it was even slower).

Then the internet grew and we went through our CompuServe and AOL days. I remember getting an email address and dealing with SPAM. And then finally my dad got sick of it and we were early adopters of broadband. I remember video chatting for the first time with relatives in other countries.

It's been a crazy evolution. It took me a while to get facebook. I didn't sign up until after I graduated college. But I've used it since to get in touch with friends I hadn't seen in years...

[Canuckistanian]

16. I used to be on Compuserve

What a money pit that was. All the cool stuff cost $$$, and it was hard to resist using it.

My girlfriend's son maxed out my credit card in one night. It was gone the next day.

[Norrin Radd]

15. You know, I did the same thing back then, foretelling and preaching it like

John the Baptist, and got the same naysaying/belligerence that is being thrown toward Twitter. I find it amusing.

[alittlelark]

10. This shit lets them win w/o firing a shot.

I have 2 kids in the trenches.

[Wednesdays]

20. I assume you mean, they win if we don't get in the pit with them

See my post above. Just like wingnuts took over America Online, they can dominate Twitter, Facebook, etc., if no one else is there to counter them.

Since those types of sites are the future of mass communication, whomever can dominate those sites will be able to dominate the nation's political dialogue. Not something I'd like to see fall to the batshit-crazy Repukes.

[Norrin Radd]

14. kr

Rogue...Trade Wars, fuck yeah! I was there, too. Then, years later, in the late 90's, WBS chat. I wish we'd had social networking sites, then. Lost touch with people when WBS got dismantled by bigger fish. I met my current girlfriend on WBS.

Now, as far as Twitter. Michael Ian Black's Twitter, for the win. Oh, and Levar Burton. There are some hilarious, edifying, outstanding fuckin' Twitter feeds out there. It's only useless to the uncreative who don't know how to use it.

[The Straight Story]

22. Trade wars was a blast

The pastor who ran the church of christ had a bbs with the game on it. It was strange being able to play a game with someone else involved who was far away (although, I did that with chess tournaments years before when teams like ours in columbus played teams in DC).

And early porn in 16 colors...lol