"Fake Following" per Kotke

Jason Kotke hit it right.
"One of the new features of FriendFeed (a Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following". That means you can friend someone but you don't see their updates. That way, it appears that you're paying attention to them when you're really not. Just like everyone does all the time in real life to maintain their sanity. Rex calls it "most important feature in the history of social networks" and I'm inclined to agree. It's one of the few new social features I've seen that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn't just make being social a game or competition."

Right.

via MR

Text Messaging: Economy of Speech Non Plus?

Textual activity is a necessity to many. Now consider the following:

SMS 1) "Uhm, did u get my email this morning re: that SMS I got last night from ___ after I let a VM for them when I was at that event in SF?'

SMS 2) "ja, ja, & ja."

SMS 1) "Oh my, s/o's chatty this AM!"

SMS 2) "k. N1"

Tip of the hat to the second texter. 'Economy of speech' par excellence.

What's Your Blog About?

Ok, this, this entertained me. It might also be one of those pictures that's worth, well, a bunch of words.
One of the HetPer readers did this with the content of this blog and this is what the picture yielded.

Music and Maturity

"For most of us, our love of music isn't getting in the way of work, family and relationships. At least I hope not. I'm not a therapist. I don't know what to tell you if you keep breaking up with people because they've never heard of Os Mutantes or Scott Walker. Nor do I have advice for you if your marriage is on the rocks because you'd rather see The Hold Steady than have dinner with the in-laws."

Music, as Nietzsche's music-loving, dying Socrates maintained, is the ultimate language and, as such, it is bound to evoke stark feelings. And maybe Socrates would have also skipped a dinner with the in-laws if The Hold Steady were performing on the Forum. One can only guess at this point.

(post scriptum: I found it interesting that Socratic references were also used in two previous posts on music: one on Bob Dylan and the other on Stereophonics.)

Good post. Read it all here.