Apathy Sketchpad

I can’t help shake the feeling this would make a great T-shirt. (Or at least my hi-res version would.)

I looked up the lyrics on a website just to be sure. And it had Google ads, which offered to sell me almost all the items I’d lost. How lovely, in a misguided kind of a way.

A while ago I was bullied into joining Facebook. And I’m glad I did, because it’s fantastic.

Facebook, for those who aren’t members, is a “social networking” site. You make a page for yourself, then you add friends to your list. In that sense, it’s just like MySpace, but the difference is that MySpace is shit and Facebook is fantastic. MySpace gives you a little page to write on and a way to send messages, and a contact list, and that really is it. That’s just called “the Internet”. Google give me all that, with nicer layouts, and don’t try to play Slipknot at me every time I visit a page.

Facebook is more for Real Life Friends. If you tell Facebook you’ve got a new girlfriend then it’ll tell all your friends for you. And you can put your address and phone number on it and be sure only your friends can see them. It’s very useful, and it’s been great for my social life because I get invited to more things through Facebook. Mostly I think this is because it gives you a list of all your friends when you make an event and lets you choose who to invite. My last party I invited people I’d never have thought (or been able) to invite without it, and consequently had a fantastic time.

Some people say Facebook is a privacy concern. Some people are idiots. They’re mostly the same people who say Google are a privacy concern. (Not really sure why I’m hyperlinking Google, but it seems polite since I did MySpace and I hate them.)

I can see why people might be concerned about Google. They have all my emails, via Google Mail. Doubtless these contain my address, bank details and so forth somewhere. (They know my bank details anyway because I use AdWords, but let’s pretend I don’t.) They also know what things I’ve been searching for, my favourite websites (via Google Reader), my web history (if not by Google Web History then by AdWords tracking cookies), and so forth. And that concerns people.

I’ve never understood the problem with tracking cookies. They don’t know who you are; they just know that this particular computer has visited website A and website B, and if that lets them know that the person sat in front of it is more likely to want product A than product X then that’s good, surely? It means I’m more likely to see adverts for things I want, which is good for me as it lets me know about awesome things I might want to buy, and it’s good for the advertisers as it means they get more clicks, and it’s good for me as it means I have to see fewer adverts to keep my favourite sites in profit. Everyone wins, and nobody has any significant privacy concerns.

And sure, Google index all my emails, but all email providers do that. And sure, a computer scans them for advert-inspiring words, but it’s a computer. It can’t read; it just executes its little programme. The only valid concerns with any of Google’s services are what happens if they get hacked, and that they have the capability, just like all search engines, browser plugins, ISPs and email providers, to monitor your Internet use. But really, don’t you think they have better things to do than spy on strangers?

Much the same is true of Facebook. People say it’s creepy having all that information about yourself on the Internet, but it’s not really “on the Internet”, is it? It’s on one server, which nobody can access without your express permission. And Facebook only knows what you tell it, and only shares what you let it. If you know what you’re doing with Facebook then it’s of no concern, and if you don’t know what you’re doing with something, learn before you use it.

As some of you will know, I recently completed four years learning physics at university. As well as an MPhys, this has left me with three big boxfiles and several more big leverarch files full of a combination of notes and doodles. Some of those doodles are quite funny. Others were rubbish. Some of them you’ll understand. Some of them only I understand.

These are the ones everyone will get, or at least, everyone except the very stupid.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a scanner anymore. (That’s not true, last time I saw it, it was sat in the same cupboard as the boxfiles, but it’s not compatible with Windows XP, and that’s that.) So here is a selection of things I scanned at the time — mostly from the first year. The ones from later years are mostly better, but also far more dependant on you having been in most of my classes, which you weren’t.

These were the first ones I came up with, I think:

I like to think I’ve improved since I drew this.

TV22 is a play on TV21, who filmed Techno Games 2000.

Of course, they’re still mostly themed around whatever lecture I was in when I drew them.

This is based on Annie who sat next to me, and is four foot eleven. A few weeks ago she married Alex, another friend of mine who is five foot one. They make a great couple and they saved a few quid on little plastic people for the cake by standing on the top tier themselves.

Your guess s as good as mine on this chap.

Hamsters are funny.

I think there might be a Far Side cartoon along a very similar theme to this.

A lot of people don’t get this one. Nuts to those people.

When I drew the first frame of this I didn’t think it would ever have a second. Funny how these things work out sometimes.

Asking to phone a friend is never funny. Never.