I love how every time I turn around, there’s a new “1,000,000 for/against [some random cause].” The latest I’ve seen is “1,000,000 against the new Facebook layout1.” Why is one million always the magic number for these groups? In just about every case I’ve seen, one million isn’t even a majority number. For instance, in the case of the aforementioned group, one million users is, at best, only seven percent of the Facebook population2. If only 7% of a population dislike the layout, then that group is just going to have to suck it up and deal.
The same is true for just about every other group out there trying to rally for one million members. It’s rare that gathering that many people under one banner is going to be a majority. That being the case, why stop at one million? If you really want to sway the PTB3, go big. Go for 50 million or 1 billion.
I think people go for one million because it’s a familiar number and it’s much easier for us to conceptualize than one billion or even 10 million. Few of us have ever seen one million of anything but we know what a millionaire is. Anything larger than that is usually outside our ability to imagine.
Maybe I just harbor a grudge against most bandwagons, since so many of them seem pointless and unnecessary, but for crying out loud, if you’re going to rally a group out of a population that’s over 75 million souls, one million just isn’t going to cut it. It’s in the numbers, people.
1 Really? I mean, really?! I love the new layout, by and large. I just wish they’d finish the tweaking. Weeks on end of roaming bugs gets old after awhile – but then again, I did opt in to beta-testing the new layout. And for that matter, folks who don’t like the new layout can always choose to switch back.
2 Based on a listing of 14 million people who used applications on Facebook last year. This source suggests that the number may be well over 75 million by now, and so that percentage will be much smaller.
3 Powers That Be.
Tags: facebook, social norms
I was one of those chess geeks in high school that people like to make jokes about. We would meet once a week as a team for a little instruction and to scrimmage for an hour or two, and we went to half a dozen tournaments a year to compare brains with other chess enthusiasts. Those were some of the best times from my junior high and high school years.
My highest rating was only ever in the mid-900s, though there may have been a point (I can’t quite remember) where I broke 1000 for a single game. For the sake of reference, the first place player usually ran in the range or 1400-1500, so I had a ways to go in order to really compete with those guys.
Now, I’m thrilled that I’m running a range of 1300-1450 on the chess.com application on Facebook. I’ve squared off with players from all over the world, and there isn’t a game played where I don’t learn something new, either a new move or formation I’ve never seen before or about a flaw in my own style of play. I’d like to think I’m becoming a stronger player, but I also have weeks like the last one where I just can’t seem to get my head in the game and play like a strategist.
Below are a handful of things I’ve learned or been reminded of as I’ve played chess over the last few weeks:
- Chess really is less about knowing formations and openings than it is about recognizing patterns. Openings and formations are valuable, certainly, but know what each one looks like will only get you so far. Every game is different and every player responds to threats differently, so you always have to be on your toes looking for the ways in which they respond that will be a threat to you. It requires the ability to see patterns in the other player’s movements, to see what his objectives are well before he achieves them and to respond in time to cut those objectives off before they can become threats. Some people are naturally able to recognize patterns from the get-go (see Bobby Fischer, for example), but most of us have to learn the skill. Pattern recognition was something that I was able to do only on a very small scale during my high school days. I could only really visualize one or two fronts of attack, and only two or three moves maximum on either of those fronts. As a result I got drawn into a lot of traps and into making serious blunders in my games. Now, though, I see patterns much more readily – three, four, or sometimes even five fronts and several moves along each. I wouldn’t say that I’m so comfortable with pattern recognition that I don’t still get drawn into serious errors, but I’ve improved in this skill well enough to have acquired and maintain a higher rating than I was able to in high school.
- In addition to pattern recognition, a player has to know when to sacrifice or trade a piece and when not to. This is not necessarily easy to learn, as not all trades or sacrifices are created equal. Again, this ties into pattern recognition, knowing when sacrificing a piece might lure your opponent into a strategically weaker position or open a powerful avenue of attack for another of your pieces. If you’re not careful, though, such a sacrifice or trade could just as easily open you up to the same sort of weakness and expose your ranks to attack.
- One of the first lessons I was taught when learning to play chess was to always have a good reason for every move you make. Don’t just push a pawn or move a knight without having a strategic purpose in mind for doing so. It is especially important to make every move count in your opening, as board control in the beginning of the game has a strong determining factor in the game’s outcome. It should be noted, however, that making every move in the middle and end games should also be developing moves, where possible. Make a point of trying to control key areas of the board and keep your opponent on the defensive as much as you can. Get your key pieces – bishops, knights, and rooks, especially – out into play and make them work together to lock down the board. This is sometimes easier said than done, of course, but it should be your goal to focus these six pieces into a continually developing pattern.
- Inevitably, your opponent will put pressure on your own pieces, introducing threats to capture a key position you’re trying to hold. Your first reaction may be to respond by reinforcing your position with another piece, possibly locking several of your major pieces into a small part of the board in order to hold that position. That is a good time, however, to take a step back, metaphorically (and possibly even physically) speaking, and examine the board again. Can you develop another of your pieces somewhere else on the board that, while not necessarily reinforcing your threatened position, will place pressure and threat on a key position your opponent is trying to hold? Basically, consider how you can place a counter-threat such that, if your opponent attacks your key position, you promise to strike back and weaken their own. This is an especially useful tactic if it means you can further develop your major pieces while weakening your opponent’s control of the board.
- Generally speaking, a move is better if you can use one piece to place pressure on multiple of your opponent’s pieces. Make them think about how they want to reinforce and defend. You may find that he will make a tactical error that you can exploit or that you can further develop your own pieces to strengthen your threat on that position.
Chess really is a great game, and I have found that playing chess helps keep my mind sharp. I’m always looking for skilled opponents to match wits with, so if you’re on Facebook, add the chess.com application and challenge me to a game!
Tags: Bobby Fischer, Chess, chess.com, facebook
The problem with the beta version of Facebook 2.0 (3.0?) is that the site’s behavior changes at least once an hour so that you think something’s broken until you realize that the coding gurus simply toggled a feature. It’s just a little bit maddening at times.
Tags: facebook
Ok, this is amusing. I just noticed on my Facebook news feed that someone joined a group called “I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head.” What’s amusing about this is that once you join a group, it shows up in your profile, where everyone can see it. HaHAH, sucka’. Not so secret now, is it?
Tags: facebook, Humor
A little Reclaimer fun I’ve had in Photoshop today:
I’ve been toying with the idea of taking advantage of the new Facebook feature of pages, and I whipped up this little screenshot with title and URL for that purpose.
A smaller version of the above, with the URL moved, for use as either linkto button or a forum signature image. I’m using it currently as my sig image on the TTL forums.
Yeah, I love playing with Photoshop, and I don’t even tap into half of that program’s power.
Tags: facebook, photoshop, Reclaimer, TTL
I’ve been running Facebook and MySpace side-by-side for a couple of weeks now. I’d created a MySpace profile primarily because it was the only method available for me to get back into contact with some of my friends from high school who I haven’t spoken to in ten years. Of course, long-time readers of this blog know how I feel about MySpace, but I was willing to deal with the evils of the social networking site if it meant being able to ‘talk’ to some people I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Then, of course, WordPress announces the fact that they’ve added a wordpress.com application to Facebook. So, being the WP fanboy that I am, I immediately set up a profile there, as well – and found three times as many of my friends already there than there were on Facebook. Lunacy. And to make things even better, I found a plugin this morning that will also allow self-hosted instances of WordPress (from the wordpress.org site) to post up a news item in both the news and mini feeds everytime you add a new entry. Better and better.
I’ve diatribed on the evils of MySpace before, and nothing has demonstrated to me just how badly designed the place is than trying to surf various profiles there on my laptop. A friend of mine gave me his old laptop a while back, and since I’ve been on my back for the last five weeks, I’ve been using it quite a lot for all my web surfing. This laptop is not what I would call a powerhouse – I usually have to reboot once or twice a day just to recover enough RAM to continue working. I don’t usually have too many problems, though, at least not until I surf over into MySpace. Suddenly, all my RAM is gone, my browser locks up for lengthy periods of time, and I can’t close the MySpace tabs I have open so that I can even reboot the laptop and attempt to rectify my mistake.
Facebook, on the other hand, has been extremely simple and light-weight to use. It has yet to cause to my laptop any issues or headaches. And the beauty of Facebook is that it seems to be infinitely more customizable than MySpace – and with less demand on your computer’s resources. Granted, most of the applications in Facebook I have no use for, but I do like the way I can make it merge so seamlessly with all of my WordPress installations. Facebook is also the thing that has gotten me using my wordpress.com account that I’d set up originally just for the API key for Akismet. Did I mention that I’m a WordPress fanboy?
So, yes, all this to say that I believe Facebook to be a far superior social networking system to MySpace. It’s built better, it runs better, and it just plain works better. I’ll likely be keeping my MySpace account, since I find it highly unlikely that everyone I have contact with there can be persuaded over to Facebook, but Facebook will continue to be my primary resource to maintaining quick and easy contact with people I know.
Of course, then again, there is always email.
Tags: Design, facebook, myspace, WordPress
