Brandon Moon

There’s a common misconception out there: More memory and a faster CPU will make your computer run faster. While I don’t want to discount the advantages that these upgrades provide, I do want to point out that there’s a missing part of the equation: the hard drive.

Computers work by a system of caching, which is a bit difficult to understand. I thought up a clever metaphor for this: compare your computer to a kitchen, where you (as a chef) are the CPU. When you are preparing a meal, you have a certain list of ingredients you need to use, right? If they are in your refrigerator or pantry, you can get to them pretty quick. Typically you will pull these out and put them on the counter for quick and easy use. However, if you need an ingredient not in your refrigerator or pantry, you have to go to the store. This takes significantly more time. This is why you try to plan your meals and do all your shopping once a week or so.

Alright, now for the explanation. The counter is like the specialized memory caches inside your CPU. They are used for what the CPU is immediately acting upon. The refrigerator or pantry is like your system memory; it’s used to store whats running on the computer. It takes a computer a lot longer to get to the memory compared to what is already in the CPU’s caches. Now, the store is like your hard drive. It has all your programs stored on it, but it takes a lot longer to access. Yet it’s the only permanent storage option. Your CPU caches and your memory are all cleared when the computer is off.

So, if we think about this, it takes time for your computer to load your programs because it has to read them off the disk first. This is the main cause for programs loading slowly. Especially if you don’t have any other programs running. And if you know anything about swap memory (basically another level of memory caching resident on the hard drive), you’ll realize that it’s even worse than that. Not to mention that hard drive speeds just aren’t increasing as much as CPU or memory speeds.

Just upgrading your CPU or memory will not always make your computer faster. You also need to consider the hard drive.

Recently I had a friend decide to deactivate her Facebook account in favor of Twitter. This kinda interested me, as its a fairly unusual thing for people to do (hmmm, that’s a whole other interesting topic right there). I asked her why she had decided to do this, and she told me that a social network is a two way thing. You have to put energy into it in order to get something out of it. She felt like she wasn’t getting that much out of Facebook, and consequently was putting less and less into it. Finally she decided to just give up on it altogether. Twitter, for her, was a more interactive social network.

As I thought about it, it kinda sunk in. A social network is a two way thing. I don’t always feel like this is true with my networks. I feel like I put a lot into sharing things that I find interesting, and few people let me know that they appreciate it. Conversely, I spend a lot of time reading other peoples stuff, but rarely show appreciation, even for the things I really like. This isn’t really socializing, its more like shouting loudly at a group while they’re all shouting back at me. Nobody is really listening, and there’s no real interaction going on.

As ironic as it may seem, one of the best examples I have of actually interacting on social networks is my mother-in-law. Her interaction on Facebook is way more personal. I know that her reason for using Facebook is to keep in touch with her daughters, who are both married and far from home. They swap stories, share pictures and fun links, and generally catch up with each other on Facebook. It’s a subtle but effective way of saying “I love you” without being embarrassing. And since I’m now a member of the family, I get to be included too! I appreciate that she takes the time to click on and check out my weird and ridiculous links, and even comments on several. It makes me feel like my efforts to share on Facebook are validated. And that’s just cool.

And so, ironically, the big problem with social networks is that they often aren’t social enough. I guess it’s no surprise, but as it turns out: socialising takes effort, whether online or offline. Guess its time to go comment on more of my friends posts…

This sorta cracks me up. Microsoft has patented a software that monitors and ranks your behavior. In short, it monitors things like whether you are getting into a monologue in a meeting, or if you use too many hand gestures, or other forms of interaction. It even monitors communication patterns, such as cutting people off in a conversation and recognizing negative phrases and words. All of these combine to give you a score on your behavior at work.

Ummm… Big brother anyone?

Why does Microsoft think we need this? It seems to me that if you trust your workers and keep them happy (i.e. reward them for success), they will work harder. If you crack down on them and monitor behavior, it will only discourage them, and you’ll end up with mindless drones that will probably avoid any interaction at all.

I sincerely hope this software isn’t put into practice.

(Click the link above for context)

Have you noticed how in real life, “friendship” is sort of a vague term, but it’s an extremely solid one online? Either you are friends with someone on Facebook, or you are not, right? And somehow this entitles you to knowing all sorts of things about this person, whereas in real life it’s much easier to pick and choose what you share with whom? And then what happens when you don’t care to be that person’s friend anymore? In real life, you simply fall out of contact (and this can happen for any number of reasons; it’s rarely an explicit action), but online you have to explicitly say “I don’t want to be your friend anymore.” Or perhaps you just hide them. But maybe there’s too many to do that to. Or maybe you just don’t like an empty news feed.

At it’s core, that’s what this article is about. It’s comparing fundamental similarities and differences in social interaction, both online and in real life. The similarities are usually pretty obvious and intuitive. In real life, we all have a little bit of vanity or ego. We do count friends, just not with numbers. When we are bored, we call up our friends. There’s always a bit of awkwardness with establishing and avoiding friendships. And everyone likes and dislikes different things about everyone else. It stands to reason that social networks—both offline and offline—essentially accomplish the same thing. It also makes sense that both are susceptible to the same follies.

Because both are so similar, I think we probably tend to focus too much on the differences. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it does cause us to develop a negative attitude towards social networks. The truth is, those differences probably aren’t so bad. As human beings, we have an express need to communicate, and we always find a way. Maybe it means adapting how we use social networks to communicate, but we still do it. We create our own “social norms” around our social networks that makes them more useable for all. Pretty neat huh?

And for some reason, I find this all so fascinating.