Is Twitter dead?

Twitter, the online phenomenon which was once growing at the fabulous rate of 900% per year, has seemingly reached a peak of popularity and hasn’t surpassed its July 2009 highs. What happened? Is it already old technology, obsolete and destined to become junk in a landfill somewhere? Don't jump to that conclusion just yet. I personally still have never used Twitter, but I can see why it would be useful. I don’t care about bits of “cool,” but useless, information (like what Miley Cyrus had for breakfast). If, however, I were investing and wanted to subscribe to Warren Buffet’s latest tweets on the stock market, I would be happy to use Twitter. It won’t have the social impact the printing press had, but it has its place. Twitter has experienced what is often described as the “Peak of Popularity,” (when we were tempted to use it just because it was “cool”) and is now in its “Slough of Disillusionment,” (we're realizing it won’t bring world peace) and will soon reach the “Plateau of Productivity” (we'll keep using it because it's useful). So no, I don’t think Twitter has actually died. It just got stuck in a grocery store and is flapping around in circles crazily, but will eventually be shooed out the doors by staff, and all will be well.

Is this the face of a nerd?

Computer Science is not just for nerds! Why do we all have that impression? Just look at my photo on the top of the screen —am I a nerd? (I hope you’re not hesitating, wondering how to respond.) Obviously not! During my first year at university, I was surprised to find a girl I knew from high school in my computer science class. She wasn’t a “Dungeon Master," Ladder-Match Starcraft player, or even a ”techy,” but she did fine in the class. She often explained junk to me. Contrasting this, I did have some friends who had “Half-Life 2” t-shirts, PDAs (while they were still new and cool) and lived and breathed computers but couldn’t get their programming assignments done on time. They were the stereotypical nerds, yet showed that nerds really are no better at Computer Science than normal people. So why does this stereotype persist? For the same reason people think “frenchies” don’t bathe, blondes are air-headed, and college students are always brewing anarchy: ignorance and television.

France vs. Microsoft

January 15, 2010, the French government officially advised its citizens to not use Microsoft Internet Explorer. The reason the government stepped outside of its usual bounds is Internet Explorer 6 has a bug which allows remote execution of malicious code. Despite this reasoning, the government is probably not solely looking out for its citizens' protection, or else it would have only discouraged using version 6, which has the bug, instead of all versions. It's like the Canadian government discouraging its citizens from buying Fords, or wearing Levi's. It just seems weird, but not entirely out of character for the French government. My mom, who is French, says they banned peanut butter 20 years ago because of "high cholesterol content." So the Fifth Republic has angered the peanut butter guys, the Microsoft guys, most Americans since 2001, and actually most of its own citizens (as shown by their annual strikes on most public services). So I'm pretty sure we have another French Revolution in the oven.

Dishwashers? Where we're going we don't need dishwashers

Clearly, using a dishwasher and putting dishes away is too difficult for most college students. The best technologies, like good friends, accept you for who you are and work with that. I don’t want to get up and put dishes into the dishwasher, don’t have enough dishes to merit another wash-cycle, and don’t want to then arrange dishes in my cupboard. When was the last breakthrough in dishwashing technology? Since the dishwasher, there have been none. Are you ready for the next generation of dishwashing technology? Take a breath. Here it is: self-washing dishes that you don’t want to put away (SWDTYDWTPA, or Swda for short). Each dish: cleans itself by emitting soapy-steam through microscopic pores when it detects disuse; is a piece of artwork, like a painting, you want to display instead of hiding in a cupboard; and is magnetized for easy placement on your corresponding magnetized wall and furniture. So imagine it: you’re watching Die Hard 4, and eating a microwave dinner on your Swda. Unfortunately, your meal and the movie don’t end at the same time. So instead of being unnecessarily inconvenienced by putting your Swda away, you simply throw the Swda against the wall, it magnetizes and sticks, cleans itself by emitting the soapy vapor through its pores, and then your buddies come over, see it, and say “No way! You got the Kobe Bryant Swda! That’s the coolest one!” A new age of dishwashing is upon us.

first blog entry

Here's my first blog entry. I was tempted to try Wordpress, but I don't want to have to install anything (I bet it has more functionality, but this is so much simpler to just do it from the web-browser. Once again, the product that encourages laziness wins.)