Category Archives: Technology and Society

Social Commentary, Technology and Society

A Facebook Problem

9 Comments

Jonah has one:

Is it bad form to “un-friend” folks I don’t know personally and send them to the fan page? It seems awfully rude. But I have actual longtime 3-Dimensional friends who can’t “friend” me because I hit the limit.

I don’t have that problem, not just because I’m not as popular and well-known (and debonair) as Jonah, but because I take Facebook friending almost (but not quite) as seriously as meatspace friending. I don’t Facebook friend people that I don’t know and have not interacted with (at least on line, if not in flesh and blood)– to do so would seem to make the term “friend” meaningless. The only exceptions are if we have a high number of mutual friends, or if someone takes the trouble to write a note with the friend request explaining who they are and why they want to be friends, which doesn’t happen very much (about three times, in my experience).

That said, it wouldn’t have to be rude if you explained why. I would think that most would understand. It might be nice to have a script that would be autogenerated when you did it to provide the explanation. It would be a pain to have to cut and paste it for each unfriending. And never having unfriended someone, I’m not even sure that such an explanation is an option, short of actually sending them a Facebook message, which would be a royal PITA. I don’t think you’re automatically alerted if you’re unfriended (it’s happened to me once, and I didn’t receive any notice of it — I just noticed one day that they were no longer my Facebook friend, or rather, I wasn’t theirs). So I guess if you unfriend a lot of people, some of them will notice, and some of those will ask for an explanation. I guess something else to do would be to put up a notice on your wall warning the general Facebook friendom that some of them were about to become unfriended, with an explanation why and a request not to take it personally.

Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Peak Everything?

21 Comments

Thoughts from Ron Bailey, on running out of stuff. I found this interesting:

The folks at the GPRI point out that the phosphorus in just one person’s urine would be close to the amount needed to fertilize the food supply for one person. So why not recycle urine? In fact, NoMix toilets have been invented which allow for the collection of urine separate from solid wastes, allowing phosphorus and nitrogen to be recovered and used as fertilizer. In addition, crop biotechnologists are exploring ways to produce plants that dramatically increase the efficiency with which they use phosphorus, which would reduce the amount fertilizer needed to grow a given amount of food.

Urine recycling would be not just handy, but perhaps crucial, for space settlements.

On the broader point, as long as we have affordable energy and knowledge there’s no reason to run out of anything. The biggest problem is the overabundance of stupidity on the part of those who would rule our lives.

Space, Technology and Society

Congratulations

3 Comments

…to Pete Worden:

“I am truly honored to receive the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Foundation’s Innovator’s Award,” Worden said. “This prestigious award recognizes technology trailblazers whom I personally admire, and I am proud to be considered among them.”

I’m surprised, but pleased that Pete, probably the most politically incorrect center director ever, has survived the transition. But fortunately, he has friends in high places, if not all the way up in the White House.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Heating The Planet

8 Comments

…with biodiesel.

Maybe politicos should do more research before imposing half-baked energy mandates?

It wouldn’t do any good. They’re mostly too stupid to understand the results of the research, or too much on the take from the benefitting industry to care. But they get to pretend to be saving the planet.

Speaking of biodiesel, will the same be true of biokerosene? Is the “green aviation” initiative another unintended consequence on the way?