today is the third anniversary of the death of my best friend. i still visit his myspace page and write things on it on his birthday and the anniversary of his death. it's one of the only reasons i still have a myspace account. trust me, this is a really great, important idea. people who use facebook (or myspace) use it to keep in contact with people from distant places, and having a memorial page for a friend can be a very cathartic thing for a group of people spread out all over the world. i wish my friend had hopped on the facebook bandwagon back in 2006, because i would give anything to have another opportunity to look at his face and see what he used to think. #facebookdeath
@Katherine M Cox: I still send IMs to someone 2 years after their death. Its actually a great source of comfort to me. Somehow, I think he gets them even in heaven.
God must have awesome Wifi. #facebookdeath
@collectiveego: It may be denial, but, its what I can bear. Who says denial is a bad thing anyway? Most people operate under at least some form of selective denial. Acceptance isnt always a good thing. If I accepted it, I would simply fall to pieces. #facebookdeath
@Coolmodo: Considering the brouhaha that happened when Facebook users tried to delete their own pages, I assume that page deletion is a hassle that FB would like to avoid as much as humanly possible. #facebookdeath
@Coolmodo: It's merely the modern equivalent of allowing friends and loved ones to memorialize and pay respects to their deceased. I choose to see it as a way for spiritual beliefs and practices to "catch up" to modern social practices.
A cousin of mine, who passed away several years ago in sudden tragic circumstances, has a memorial myspace page. The thousands of family, friends, California firefighters, and emergency services personnel who knew him contributed to it. It has become a loving tribute to a young man who was deeply loved, and many stll visit it to "tell him" things he would have liked. It is, to me, the next step from visiting a grave to commune with the deceased spiritually. #facebookdeath
Personally, I would love to get rid of the www. Three of the hardest letters to say. Probably Al Gore's idea. And sorry but saying "dub-dub-dub" does not make you cool.
@RogueWarrior: The myth is that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet (according to snopes.com it's just that, a myth). That's not the same as the World-Wide Web.
It's like the internet is the hardware and the World-Wide Web is the software (not a perfect analogy).
The Internet was a US invention. The WWW was invented by a Brit working at Cern, the European particle physics lab.
@matt_mcmhn: The browser usually tries resolving the DNS name by appending and prepending a variety of common starts and endings. Even the websites don't need that, its just a convention for signifying servers that are global accessible as opposed to internally or locally only (which might not make sense to you unless you've worked in a big company that does internal IT management).
@matt_mcmhn: Right, but the point of the article is that he is apologizing about the paper he has wasted. You might not have to type it in when you are directing your browser there, but you still need to include [www.anysite.com] when you are including it in a paper, or any type of formal business setting.
@tacomstng:
Yeah, well, if you eliminate one or both backslashes, how likely do you think it would be that any printed material you're working with would see an actual reduction in paper use? Newspapers wouldn't see a reduction, and most sane people would make a quick edit, or tweak some fonts/spacing if they ended up with a single word that would print out on its own page. Mostly, I'd say the only time his double-slash really caused any problems was back in the days when you had to type in every single character.
@monkeyesq: root in *nix systems is simply / not /.
nutbastard is correct. From the Slashdot FAQ: [slashdot.org]
What does the name "Slashdot" mean?
"Slashdot" is a sort of obnoxious parody of a URL. When I originally registered the domain, I wanted to make the URL silly, and unpronounceable. Try reading out the full URL to [slashdot.org] and you'll see what I mean. Of course my cocky little joke has turned around and bit me in the butt because now I am called upon constantly to tell people my URL or email address. I can't tell you how many people respond confused "So do I spell out the 'dot' or is that just a period?"
also, most modern browsers don't demand that the prefix be put in at all - and lets not forget how many seconds of our life have been wasted by listening to someone uselessly saying ''double-u double-u double-u''
most sites don't even use www any more, and thank god. furthermore, .com isn't necessary most of the time any more. go ahead, try it - go to the address bar and just type 'google' or 'gizmodo'. if your browser isn't total shit, it'll get you there.
it's especially wierd since, for instance, network drive addresses use \\ and most anything the uses slashes preceding an address of some sort uses \, not /.
strangely enough, when the internet was fresh and new, people would always erroneously call them backslashes, probably out of habit from the tradition of using them for addresses of many sorts.
heyyyyy now, while the vast majority of my experience with computers is likely windows, i did learn python on ubuntu ( and noticed the slash diff when doing it on windows later) AND i'm on record for demanding more linux news on giz.
i tried really hard to abandon windows for linux, and while i enjoy the power, i abhor the responsibility. getting compiz running was worth it. nvidia drivers are a bitch, though.
@MikeHerbst: Actually... the backslash is a remnant of DOS. In the early days of DOS, there were no subdirectories. Slash (/) was used for command-line parameters (as in "dir /w"). When subdirectories were added later, they decided to use backslash instead of changing the way command-line parameters work.
When Microsoft bought/stole/developed MS-DOS, they just kept things status-quo. And we've been stuck with it ever since.
@nutbastard: "i tried really hard to abandon windows for linux, and while i enjoy the power, i abhor the responsibility. getting compiz running was worth it. nvidia drivers are a bitch, though."
Ah-ha! You my friend, need a Mac. You get all of the power of Unix without any of the requirements for technical expertise.
nutbastard promoted this comment
Edited by DreamTheEndless: Death's little brother at 10/13/09 7:07 AM
DreamTheEndless: Death's little brother was starred
DreamTheEndless: Death's little brother was unstarred
@nutbastard: Yeah, but it doesn't need to be YOUR (my) technical expertise. Like at the bank where I was just working... I had an account on several of our Unix boxes, but I didn't have enough access to "bork" anything up. For normal stuff, we had to have faith that the Unix admins had set things up correctly and would help us make any changes that we needed.
I have root disabled on my MacBook Pro, but I can enable it at any time if I need to. Also, the account that I use for most things is not an administrator. If I need to do anything unixy (something where there isn't already a GUI interface written,) I bust out some Google, log in as an admin, and do it... For day to day stuff I have faith that the engineers at Apple have set things up correctly and that they (or teh internets) will help me with any one-off things that I need.
Even without a couple of decades of *nix experience under my belt, my computer (or my unix server at work,) is stable and secure with a powerful OS. #timbernerslee
10/26/09
10/26/09
God must have awesome Wifi. #facebookdeath
10/27/09
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10/26/09
[thegravebook.com] #facebookdeath
10/26/09
Adam Frucci likes this
10/26/09
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They then take that page created by the newly deceased and kinda "bronze" it for the friends of the fallen.
Does it make a little more sense to you? #facebookdeath
10/26/09
j/k
I understand the idea, but I don't understand why the pages can't just be deleted? #facebookdeath
10/26/09
10/26/09
A cousin of mine, who passed away several years ago in sudden tragic circumstances, has a memorial myspace page. The thousands of family, friends, California firefighters, and emergency services personnel who knew him contributed to it. It has become a loving tribute to a young man who was deeply loved, and many stll visit it to "tell him" things he would have liked. It is, to me, the next step from visiting a grave to commune with the deceased spiritually. #facebookdeath
10/26/09
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10/26/09
10/26/09
If you were offended by that Twilight comment, then I apologize. #facebookdeath
10/13/09
10/12/09
10/12/09
10/12/09
10/13/09
It's like the internet is the hardware and the World-Wide Web is the software (not a perfect analogy).
The Internet was a US invention. The WWW was invented by a Brit working at Cern, the European particle physics lab.
10/13/09
10/13/09
10/13/09
Yeah, well, if you eliminate one or both backslashes, how likely do you think it would be that any printed material you're working with would see an actual reduction in paper use? Newspapers wouldn't see a reduction, and most sane people would make a quick edit, or tweak some fonts/spacing if they ended up with a single word that would print out on its own page. Mostly, I'd say the only time his double-slash really caused any problems was back in the days when you had to type in every single character.
10/12/09
10/12/09
10/12/09
*blew your mind*
10/12/09
10/12/09
are you serious? because i've always thought of it as the most clever URL ever.
URLs are bookended on one side by a slash, and on the other side by a dot.
so, when spoken: h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-com
am i the only one who thought it was simply clever?
maybe i'm not cut out for this whole nerd thing.
10/12/09
10/12/09
nutbastard is correct. From the Slashdot FAQ:
[slashdot.org]
What does the name "Slashdot" mean?
"Slashdot" is a sort of obnoxious parody of a URL. When I originally registered the domain, I wanted to make the URL silly, and unpronounceable. Try reading out the full URL to [slashdot.org] and you'll see what I mean. Of course my cocky little joke has turned around and bit me in the butt because now I am called upon constantly to tell people my URL or email address. I can't tell you how many people respond confused "So do I spell out the 'dot' or is that just a period?"
10/12/09
most sites don't even use www any more, and thank god. furthermore, .com isn't necessary most of the time any more. go ahead, try it - go to the address bar and just type 'google' or 'gizmodo'. if your browser isn't total shit, it'll get you there.
10/12/09
I replaced my linksys router with a d-link one, and now safari 4 and firefox can't figure something out without the .com
It could be worse, I could be using IE, which demands the http;//, the www, and the .com
10/12/09
10/12/09
@Bully: "Paper" Bills are made from cotton, not actual paper. So no trees are killed in the process.
10/12/09
strangely enough, when the internet was fresh and new, people would always erroneously call them backslashes, probably out of habit from the tradition of using them for addresses of many sorts.
10/12/09
Forward slashes (/) are a *nix artifact. Backslashes (\) are a Windows-trying-to-be-slightly-different-...*nix-artifact.
10/12/09
heyyyyy now, while the vast majority of my experience with computers is likely windows, i did learn python on ubuntu ( and noticed the slash diff when doing it on windows later) AND i'm on record for demanding more linux news on giz.
[gizmodo.com]
i tried really hard to abandon windows for linux, and while i enjoy the power, i abhor the responsibility. getting compiz running was worth it. nvidia drivers are a bitch, though.
10/12/09
When Microsoft bought/stole/developed MS-DOS, they just kept things status-quo. And we've been stuck with it ever since.
10/13/09
10/13/09
Ah-ha! You my friend, need a Mac. You get all of the power of Unix without any of the requirements for technical expertise.
10/13/09
that's not really true - the power of unix comes from having technical expertise. without out it all one has is the power to bork their system.
i've no need nor want for a mac. dont really care for them these days.
10/22/09
I have root disabled on my MacBook Pro, but I can enable it at any time if I need to. Also, the account that I use for most things is not an administrator. If I need to do anything unixy (something where there isn't already a GUI interface written,) I bust out some Google, log in as an admin, and do it... For day to day stuff I have faith that the engineers at Apple have set things up correctly and that they (or teh internets) will help me with any one-off things that I need.
Even without a couple of decades of *nix experience under my belt, my computer (or my unix server at work,) is stable and secure with a powerful OS. #timbernerslee