... in case anyone wants to hook up.
I'll be arriving in Springfield, Missouri on the afternoon of Thursday, May 10. That gives me not quite a day and a half in town. Of course, I will be wanting to spend most of that with family, but I can probably shake an hour free to meet with a friend.
At 12:01 am on May 12, I'll be getting on a Greyhound in Springfield. There's a half-hour layover in St. Louis from 3:30 to 4am, when you should be asleep and not at a bus station, then it's on to ...
Columbus, Ohio, arriving on the afternoon of May 12 and leaving on the afternoon of May 14, with a Libertarian Party platform committee meeting on Sunday and Monday but presumably free on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
The travel is all booked -- St. Petersburg to Springfield via Allegiant air, then Greyhound to Columbus, then Allegiant back to St. Pete.
Monday, April 09, 2018
I Didn't Leave Facebook. Facebook Left Me.
That's how it feels, anyway.
A few months ago, I stopped getting most updates on e.g. most groups I belonged to, discussion threads I was participating in, etc. So far as I can tell, I didn't change any settings. Facebook notifications just suddenly dwindled from hundreds a day to near zero.
Simultaneously with that, I noticed that I wasn't getting as many likes, shares, etc. of my posts. I assumed that this was because the same thing was happening to other people as was happening to me. That is, they weren't getting SHOWN my posts, by email notifications or in their timelines.
I wondered if I was "shadow-banned" or something. Maybe, but in any case out of sight, out of mind. Other than posting my Garrison Center columns, and automated posting of Rational Review News Digest items, I hardly ever drop in there anymore.
Since all that started, a lot more people have become perturbed enough by Facebook for various reasons that there seems to be a real exodus going on. I've been getting lots of friend requests at MeWe, a social network I had joined and promptly forgot about. I just went there to accept requests and so forth. I'll give it a harder look as I can, especially if I see real activity there. I'm also on Minds.com, which has IMO been going downhill the last couple of months in terms of user experience as it tries to remake its "points" system into a cryptocurrency and stuff like that.
I have to wonder: Is it possible that "social media," as we've understood it since Twitter and Facebook took off, is just dying? And if so, what's next?
A few months ago, I stopped getting most updates on e.g. most groups I belonged to, discussion threads I was participating in, etc. So far as I can tell, I didn't change any settings. Facebook notifications just suddenly dwindled from hundreds a day to near zero.
Simultaneously with that, I noticed that I wasn't getting as many likes, shares, etc. of my posts. I assumed that this was because the same thing was happening to other people as was happening to me. That is, they weren't getting SHOWN my posts, by email notifications or in their timelines.
I wondered if I was "shadow-banned" or something. Maybe, but in any case out of sight, out of mind. Other than posting my Garrison Center columns, and automated posting of Rational Review News Digest items, I hardly ever drop in there anymore.
Since all that started, a lot more people have become perturbed enough by Facebook for various reasons that there seems to be a real exodus going on. I've been getting lots of friend requests at MeWe, a social network I had joined and promptly forgot about. I just went there to accept requests and so forth. I'll give it a harder look as I can, especially if I see real activity there. I'm also on Minds.com, which has IMO been going downhill the last couple of months in terms of user experience as it tries to remake its "points" system into a cryptocurrency and stuff like that.
I have to wonder: Is it possible that "social media," as we've understood it since Twitter and Facebook took off, is just dying? And if so, what's next?
A Long Early April
Yes, I was AWOL for the whole first week of April. It was one of those weeks.
On March 31st, Tamara's car took a sh*t and died.
There's actually a silver lining.
The car was a 2001 Subaru Forester that she paid $1500 for. She loved the car. I had been hectoring her to put some money into it if she really liked it and planned to keep it. The seller had cautioned her that it would need wheel bearings in the not too distant future, the CV joint was popping, and new tires would have been a smart buy.
She put those things off, which was fortunate because the transmission suddenly went. It hadn't been slipping or anything. Just boom, "if you put it in gear it makes a horrible noise, if you try to put it back into park it grinds for about a minute before locking in."
Replacing it would be $2100. For a $1500 car. In addition to those aforementioned things. So that was the end of the Subaru.
Which meant a week of getting around being difficult, and of car shopping, which is something I have to leave the house and participate in.
So anyway, she bought a car yesterday. Or, rather, a truck -- a 1999 Toyota 4Runner SUV. A little bigger than the Subaru, but she's comfortable driving it.
That was the big time consumer and the main reason you haven't seen much of me, but there were other things too (for example, spending 24 hours at a friend's house as "watch person" after a medical procedure).
Anyway, I'm back and will try to get with the blogging.
On March 31st, Tamara's car took a sh*t and died.
There's actually a silver lining.
The car was a 2001 Subaru Forester that she paid $1500 for. She loved the car. I had been hectoring her to put some money into it if she really liked it and planned to keep it. The seller had cautioned her that it would need wheel bearings in the not too distant future, the CV joint was popping, and new tires would have been a smart buy.
She put those things off, which was fortunate because the transmission suddenly went. It hadn't been slipping or anything. Just boom, "if you put it in gear it makes a horrible noise, if you try to put it back into park it grinds for about a minute before locking in."
Replacing it would be $2100. For a $1500 car. In addition to those aforementioned things. So that was the end of the Subaru.
Which meant a week of getting around being difficult, and of car shopping, which is something I have to leave the house and participate in.
So anyway, she bought a car yesterday. Or, rather, a truck -- a 1999 Toyota 4Runner SUV. A little bigger than the Subaru, but she's comfortable driving it.
That was the big time consumer and the main reason you haven't seen much of me, but there were other things too (for example, spending 24 hours at a friend's house as "watch person" after a medical procedure).
Anyway, I'm back and will try to get with the blogging.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
