Facebook’s Scale

Adrienne LaFrance, writing for The Atlantic, “Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine”:

People tend to complain about Facebook as if something recently curdled. There’s a notion that the social web was once useful, or at least that it could have been good, if only we had pulled a few levers: some moderation and fact-checking here, a bit of regulation there, perhaps a federal antitrust lawsuit. But that’s far too sunny and shortsighted a view. Today’s social networks, Facebook chief among them, were built to encourage the things that make them so harmful. It is in their very architecture.

I’ve been thinking for years about what it would take to make the social web magical in all the right ways — less extreme, less toxic, more true — and I realized only recently that I’ve been thinking far too narrowly about the problem. I’ve long wanted Mark Zuckerberg to admit that Facebook is a media company, to take responsibility for the informational environment he created in the same way that the editor of a magazine would. (I pressed him on this once and he laughed.) In recent years, as Facebook’s mistakes have compounded and its reputation has tanked, it has become clear that negligence is only part of the problem. No one, not even Mark Zuckerberg, can control the product he made. I’ve come to realize that Facebook is not a media company. It’s a Doomsday Machine.

I disagree with the idea that Zuckerberg can’t control his creation. Facebook can be reined in, if Zuckerberg wanted it controlled.

The Grouchy Chef

The Grouchy Chef

Before you get to the menu, you first have to get through the manifesto.

It’s a binder of rules presented to diners at Mukilteo’s Grouchy Chef restaurant.

No shoveling food in your mouth like at some cheap eatery (or at home).

No blowing your nose or fixing your makeup at the table. No clinking crystal glasses. No shorts. No sandals. No personal requests. No frills. No substitutions.

Don’t like it?

Eat elsewhere, said Takayuki Masumoto, the chef with the curmudgeonly persona.

Interesting dining concept. I especially love that Chef Masumoto is doing four-course dinners for $15. Maybe if I get some time I will have to make a trip to Snohomish County.

Apple Event Tomorrow, January 27

Tomorrow, January 27, will see a big announcement come out of the Apple compound. A lot of people are predicting a tablet computer while others are saying the announcement will be a new handheld media device, the one thing everyone agrees on is that whatever it is could be a game changer.

This draws the skeptic out of me. I tend to think that it will be a tablet but is that enough of a “new” device to be a game changer? The Kindle was a game changer because it was so focused on books, magazines, and newspapers and has an ease of use that has not been matched. Carrying all of your books on a single device everywhere you go is huge.

If the news that comes out of the Apple event is related to a video and reading device, it may be bigger than the Kindle. My hope is that it is a device just as beautiful as the new Macbooks and easy to use like the Kindle. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

Want to read more speculation? Here are some links for you: