Life Online 
My love-hate relationship with the virtual world, virtual reality.
Validation(4)
Validation: 1. Finding or testing the truth of something; 2. Affirmation, support, or confirmation. Validate comes from the root word valid, which has its Latin root in validus: “strong, effective”, which in turn comes from the word valere—be strong, or valiant. So when someone says something good about you or your skill, or what you’ve… Read More ›
A Clear Silence, Or, Turning Down The Volume on Facebook
I have decided to prune and downsize the presence of Facebook. These few days, I have been diminishing it by: 1. Unsubscribing to updates of “friends” whom I don’t have conversation with, with whom I have not said hello to in the last year or so. To clarify, I *do* see these people often, it’s… Read More ›
O, How I Have Pinned!
All recipes have a sequence of events. A rock bun doesn’t appear in the oven fully conceptualized from the baker’s mind. Likewise, with a recipe for disaster. Since last week, it had been an uneventful Lent. I ignored Facebook the same as it ignores people who don’t give a hoot. I ignored shopping, which doesn’t… Read More ›
Giving Up Facebook for Lent 2012: 3 Questions To Ask Yourself (Plus 3 Myths & 3 Truths)
Lots of people want to abstain from the social networks. I’ve done it two years running, officially during the Lenten season, and declared another 40 days off Facebook late last year. Some friends are wanting to attempt giving up Facebook this year, and this has got me thinking of some pitfalls or obstacles they might… Read More ›
Repost: Living Life in Multiple Realities
20 Feb 2012: This is one of my favourite posts of 2010 because in my view, virtual reality can be true, but isn’t necessarily accurate. In other ways, the online you is not quite you. Recently, Joel Stein wrote in Time magazine that Facebook exists to make one jealous. He writes, “Why does that person… Read More ›
When You Get Onto The Computer
American blogger-author-social media marketer Seth Godin, (Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, 2010) and founder of Squidoo.com, a single-page website generator, provocatively titled his recent blog post thus: “The First Thing You Do When You Get On Your Computer.” His post was the idea that if the first thing you do when you get on the computer… Read More ›
Off the Hook
The thing about not getting easy access to the virtual world is that one discovers a shameful thing about oneself. More of that soon enough. Until I entered a mall in Port Louis, the capital town of Mauritius, getting online was a first-come-first-served basis in my five-star hotel resort, which is limited to three computers,… Read More ›
A SIRI-ass Conversation
Siri, the much-hyped personal assistant included in the iOS on the iPhone 4S, seems like a good idea. How useful to just dictate a text message to someone if you’re too busy! Say if you’re eating, or trying on clothes, or driving. Siri captures your spoken message and sends it off when you hit ‘Send’…. Read More ›
The Smiley: Love It or Loathe It
Recently, I spent a virtual day chatting with different folks online, in that illusory timeless zone called cyber, where talk is text and the smiley is the full-stop to ease (unseen) tensions.There was at least one smiley on every line of text dialogue, except when it came my turn to reply. The smiley. What a… Read More ›
When Haha No Longer Means Just Haha
When not in use face-to-face, ‘haha’ no longer is the sound of laughter. Instead, “haha” has evolved to mean many many things in instant messaging and online media. The online medium revels in ambiguity, and ‘haha’ has probably become one of the most ambiguous terms in use right now. Here are nine other meanings to… Read More ›
