Seems that Facebook is the up-and-coming internet and social "it" thing. You can interact or just throw yourself out there all by yourself. Perfect for the modern world, eh?

Recently, many people I know put up their own pages and even more are talking about it. Some like it for professional contact and some for social interaction. After hearing an astonishing variety of people talking about it, I've concluded that it's taking over blogging as the keyboard thing to do. One highly placed tech friend was even asked to put up a Facebook page by his manager, with the idea that the company would thereby have a Facebook presence, something the manager considered important. It seems many people get ideas about companies by evaluating Facebook groups. Fascinating. I'd worry somewhat, though, because posting is so easy and feels so personal that you risk having put something up that you won't want out there, way in the future. Old things have a way of coming back to blow people's chances for public respect out of the water especially in this global village that's getting more global and more village-y. I mean, imagine today you post a wild and crazy photo or write something wild and crazy on your wall and twenty years from now you run for a seat on your town council and someone says wait you said . . . . It's hard to be restrained and careful when something is so relaxed and easygoing. On the other hand, maybe the world is changing enough that it won't matter.

My own problem is silly. I like to play Twirl and Pathwords - word games - but it's baffling to figure out what are "acceptable" words. One of my friends and I have been comparing words Twirl takes and/or doesn't take. At first we thought it was the same as the Outlook dictionary but it's stranger than that. It accepts typical crossword words like nee ("formerly known as"), for example, but rejects equally typical ones like oder (a person who writes odes). It takes sic ("as written") but doesn't take turbo (not even necessary to define it). It takes nth (as in to the nth degree) and meg (nickname for margaret? for megabyte?) and ump (nickname for umpire?) but rejects parer (a paring knife) and grump (hardly obscure). It takes some proper nouns but not others: bali but not rome. I could go on and on. On the other what-it-takes side, Pathwords allows millions of combos that don't seem like words at all although I suppose they must just be very obscure. And Pathwords doesn't let you do anything from the keyboard which cuts down on speed something fierce. Also, letters are all the same point value so you don't' get more points for cleverly grabbing "lox" rather than for "lot" or "quiz" instead of "suit".

Too much time on my hands, you say? Nah.

Labels: facebook, games