Has. Happened. Before. The sudden disappearance of the mighty dinosaurs, many posit from a huge meteor strike, is now part of our common understanding, affecting our own sense of vulnerability.
In late 2012, Apophis, an asteroid the size of two football fields, was predicted by astronomers to travel fairly close to the Earth. There is a chance, however small, that it could be deflected just enough by our own gravity to come zipping back to smack straight into us, some predict in 2036. Now, that probably won’t happen, but the point is, for the first time we are keenly aware of celestial doomsday rocks and how close they will visit. Our delectable brains get fired up about it, and Morgan Freeman has to save the Earth again.
What is clear to astronomers and doomsday predictors alike is that we do have to figure a way off this planet, for one day the party will end. Happily for our species, it was never going to be 2012. We still get a very long time to figure out space travel, or come up with the antidote, or dig ourselves giant cities underground to protect against the radioactive clouds. I can’t help but postulate that there is something oddly comforting in imagining an end we share together, rather than alone, and that this feeds our mutual obsession with Doomsday. The apocalypse that wipes out 99.99% of us doesn’t discriminate by race, class, or geography. As it turns out, everyone’s brains do in fact taste the same.
Getting My Facefix
Over the past year and a half, I’ve come to develop a unique bond not only with Facebook, but with some of the folks who work there. As an avid user with a fan base populated by many nerds and geeks, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that techies who work at Facebook actually follow my page and, as a consequence, might prove responsive to my concerns. In fact, I recall reading an article that claimed my page is more heavily trafficked by Facebook employees than Mark Zuckerberg’s page (sorry, Mark, if that’s true).
I first began a direct line of communication with “Facebook Engineering” in early 2012. At the time, I had been noticing that some of my posts seemed to “disappear” after I posted them, only to reappear minutes or even half an hour later, as if emerging from a wormhole. I was never sure whether the picture was truly “back” — i.e. actually appearing on fans’ newsfeeds — or whether it was simply appearing on my wall and not anywhere else.
The same thing was happening to certain fan posts. Many fans would attempt, as I did when my own post failed to upload properly, to repost the image. And repost. And repost. This had the effect, after some time, of generating multiple copies of the same image on my wall, like so many movie posters on a construction site barrier. In my own case, images often would all upload at once but appear as an “album” rather than individual pictures. (Here’s a Facebook tip: If you want people to actually see your photos, don’t upload them all at once as an album. Upload them one by one, preferably more than two hours apart, otherwise Facebook may lump them
together, and nobody will bother to flip through the album. Think about it — don’t you brace yourself when someone sits you down on a couch to flip through their “album” of pictures?)
It was even more unfortunate when fans concluded that their posted images or links had disappeared because I had deleted them, as if I somehow was offended that they had used my wall to promote their cause. I would receive many of these types of angry wall posts after people went back to my wall to review their posts:
“GEORGE, I’M SORRY THAT YOU TOOK OFFENSE AT MY ATTEMPT TO BRING YOUR ATTENTION TO THE PLIGHT OF CHILDREN WITH MS. I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT A MAN OF YOUR STATURE WHO CLAIMS TO BE COMPASSIONATE WOULD NOT HAVE SO COLDLY DELETED MY MESSAGE OF HOPE. UNFRIEND.”
Good heavens, what a mess. I made a sincere effort to respond to each of these
In late 2012, Apophis, an asteroid the size of two football fields, was predicted by astronomers to travel fairly close to the Earth. There is a chance, however small, that it could be deflected just enough by our own gravity to come zipping back to smack straight into us, some predict in 2036. Now, that probably won’t happen, but the point is, for the first time we are keenly aware of celestial doomsday rocks and how close they will visit. Our delectable brains get fired up about it, and Morgan Freeman has to save the Earth again.
What is clear to astronomers and doomsday predictors alike is that we do have to figure a way off this planet, for one day the party will end. Happily for our species, it was never going to be 2012. We still get a very long time to figure out space travel, or come up with the antidote, or dig ourselves giant cities underground to protect against the radioactive clouds. I can’t help but postulate that there is something oddly comforting in imagining an end we share together, rather than alone, and that this feeds our mutual obsession with Doomsday. The apocalypse that wipes out 99.99% of us doesn’t discriminate by race, class, or geography. As it turns out, everyone’s brains do in fact taste the same.
Getting My Facefix
Over the past year and a half, I’ve come to develop a unique bond not only with Facebook, but with some of the folks who work there. As an avid user with a fan base populated by many nerds and geeks, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that techies who work at Facebook actually follow my page and, as a consequence, might prove responsive to my concerns. In fact, I recall reading an article that claimed my page is more heavily trafficked by Facebook employees than Mark Zuckerberg’s page (sorry, Mark, if that’s true).
I first began a direct line of communication with “Facebook Engineering” in early 2012. At the time, I had been noticing that some of my posts seemed to “disappear” after I posted them, only to reappear minutes or even half an hour later, as if emerging from a wormhole. I was never sure whether the picture was truly “back” — i.e. actually appearing on fans’ newsfeeds — or whether it was simply appearing on my wall and not anywhere else.
The same thing was happening to certain fan posts. Many fans would attempt, as I did when my own post failed to upload properly, to repost the image. And repost. And repost. This had the effect, after some time, of generating multiple copies of the same image on my wall, like so many movie posters on a construction site barrier. In my own case, images often would all upload at once but appear as an “album” rather than individual pictures. (Here’s a Facebook tip: If you want people to actually see your photos, don’t upload them all at once as an album. Upload them one by one, preferably more than two hours apart, otherwise Facebook may lump them
together, and nobody will bother to flip through the album. Think about it — don’t you brace yourself when someone sits you down on a couch to flip through their “album” of pictures?)
It was even more unfortunate when fans concluded that their posted images or links had disappeared because I had deleted them, as if I somehow was offended that they had used my wall to promote their cause. I would receive many of these types of angry wall posts after people went back to my wall to review their posts:
“GEORGE, I’M SORRY THAT YOU TOOK OFFENSE AT MY ATTEMPT TO BRING YOUR ATTENTION TO THE PLIGHT OF CHILDREN WITH MS. I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT A MAN OF YOUR STATURE WHO CLAIMS TO BE COMPASSIONATE WOULD NOT HAVE SO COLDLY DELETED MY MESSAGE OF HOPE. UNFRIEND.”
Good heavens, what a mess. I made a sincere effort to respond to each of these
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