Flattened

[altivo]

I need to make an icon out of the flat pony plush. As I expected, going back to work after essentially working all weekend was not restful.

This week is not much better. On Wednesday, the farrier comes for hoof trims in the morning, I have to lead a meeting in the afternoon, and work until 8 as usual. Thursday, which is usually a recovery day with only 4 hours at work, we have to take the dogs and cats to the vet. The weekend looks to be nearly as busy as the last one, too.

Meteor shower! The annual Perseid meteor shower is in progress and according to reports is more spectacular than usual, with some large exploding objects. It is supposed to peak tonight between midnight and about 3 am for North Americans, with observable rates of one or more meteor per minute. Unfortunately, we have dense cloud cover right now, and have had since Sunday afternoon pretty much.

I got sucked into facebook by friends who keep posting their photos there, so you can find me there as well if you're interested, though I haven't done much of anything active.

I really need to schedule some time off work to prevent an implosion, I think.

Comments

[megadog.livejournal.com]

Will be playing Spot-the-Perseids tonight if the sky's clear. The forecast does not sound good though.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The peak times are getting into dawn and daylight hours for you folks on that side of the water, too. There are already some spectacular photos on spaceweather.com though, so you might see some good stuff any time you have a clear sky. Some forecasters are predicting meteors that "skip" across the sky like stones across a pond.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

*hugs* After some 6 weeks here in Miami working overtime and flying every two weeks I think I can relate to feeling like a flat pony plush.

Facebook huh? Kevin got pulled into that one by his family but I am still holding out. I don't think the family and the mundane world need to know I am a gay pagan unicorn..and a couple of other unmentionable things too. ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

At least I don't need to worry about family stuff. No one left to make a fuss.

Interestingly, though, even though I'm on FB as Altivo, people from outside the furry and LJ world have found me. Fortunately, I'm not closeted about anything any more, so I don't much care. A friend in Michigan invited me into a game there where you manage a simulated farm, planting crops and raising animals, selling your produce, etc. It seems fairly simplistic but still takes some thought. Games with no violence in them do interest me, so for the moment I'm making regular visits.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* It is not my family I am concerned about. I suspect my mother would be quite fine with my witchy unicorn ways but I am willing to bet my horn that the mates family would have a different reaction. To be honest though I doubt they would care much but one never knows.

I'm curious. How is that people outside of LJ and the furry world have found you? Surely there must be something on FB that clues them in to the real you.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, my mate was already on there with his musical activities. He friended me immediately, and I had a user pic that shows me holding two horses, one on each side of me. If you look close enough and know me well, you can probably recognize me.

FB has this thing where it "recommends" people for you to follow, and part of the algorithm is picking up friends of your friends. So it was showing that user pic to people and a couple of them picked up on it. That's how the network spreads. When I added interests (similar to LJ) and general location, people from my spinning group started popping up. As soon as I friended one of them, more appeared.

If you supply your schools attended and dates, you start getting matched with people who presumably attended school with you.

One I haven't yet figured out is a fellow from a mailing list in which I participate. The topic of the mailing list is old 8-bit computers from the 80s, particularly the early laptops. I had not listed that as an interest even, but he started popping up on my "recommended." I know we have similar political views but I haven't said anything about my politics or my technology interests on FB. Anyway, after seeing him staring at me from the screen for a week, I friended him. Probably means others from that realm will be showing up soon.

Unlike LJ's passive networking model, FB actively strives to connect you with your network of friends, coworkers, and relations from real life. It seems to work, too.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I suspected as much considering how some of Kevin's friends and family reconnected with him via Facebook. Of course this is another reason why I am not too high on joining. There are not too many people from my past that I really care to be reacquainted with. It would also ruin my reclusive unicorn persona. ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You do have the option of ignoring or rejecting friend requests if you prefer to set it up that way. By using a pseudonym, and a user picture that doesn't show your face, you can be completely anonymous. Like LJ, you can set up a closed account that is viewable only after you give permission to a particular person to see it. Otherwise all they can see is your name or pseudonym and your user picture.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

The persid showers are named after Perseus are they not? He seemed like a decent guy. Anyone who has a thing for winged horses cannot be all bad. ;)

I will try and catch a few tonight, but clouds look more likely than meteor showers.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Check out the photos and videos at spaceweather.com for some interesting ones already. Double explosions and skippers. The peak is predicted for just before dawn on Wednesday my time, and it may be clear here by then. Unfortunately, that's daylight for you. And the moon is bright too if there are no clouds.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

My cousins play that farm game on Facebook. They're always either losing or finding cows, which gets announced on my news page (or whatever they call it now). Maybe the point is to just watch the cows move around... :)

The one downside about FB is all the quizzes and memes that some people seem to do. They're probably harmless, but when Facebook asks "You're about to run an app that might need information from you, is this ok?" I get suspicious, so I don't play any of them. After awhile it does seem like a lot of clutter, but you can block them through settings, though I haven't done that much.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The main problem with FB as I see it is the horrendous amount of Flash and graphics that appear unsolicited. Over dialup, it's almost unusable because it eats so much bandwidth.

Cows must be kept fenced. If you turn them loose they will wander. I've been given a cow and a sheep, but I haven't yet accepted them because I can't afford to build the necessary fences. Have to sell more crops first. ;p

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

Crops? I never hear about the crops. Guess they're not as sexy as cows.

Yeah, there is an awful lot of Flash and such on Facebook. It's better than MySpace... or maybe it's just better programmed than MySpace in that regard.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Might be a different game. This one is called "Farm Town" and there's another one called "Animal Ranch." I was invited to both, but haven't looked at Animal Ranch at all.

At the moment I have peaches, apples, pears, tomatoes, potatoes, and grapes growing. I've harvested and sold some potatoes and grapes. You have to spend money in order to prepare the fields, plant the seeds, and put up fences. You get money back when you harvest and sell.

Prices fluctuate according to supply, so if everyone grows the same thing, the price of that item will go down. ;p

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Is it possible to use AdBlocker or NoScript to kill those things?

I find it really clears up most of the similar sites I frequent. Although sometimes they have to be shut off completely because the sites got wise and made sure the good content would be filtered out by these tools as well.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That last is the problem. I do use a flashblocker, but so much of the facebook content is flash-based that you can't deal with it unless you activate the blocked stuff. There are a lot of inefficient graphics too. I'm not seeing a lot of ads, actually less than on LJ pages, and that may be because I'm using Adblock Plus already.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Thanks for new about the meteor shower. Somehow I missed all that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Take a look at spaceweather.com for more details and some amazing photos.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

Gotta keep an eye on those sneaky falling rocks tonight, since I'm working, driving around the countryside. Hopefully weather's clear...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It seems to be clearing up here this afternoon, and the current forecast is for a clear night. Hope I can manage to be awake after midnight.

The predicted peak period is probably going to be well past daybreak for you tomorrow. But even right now the meteor rate is up over one per minute, so if you have clear skies, you should see stuff. The moon is the big troublemaker. It would be much better at a new moon.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

Nights over here aren't awfully dark yet anyways, so I might miss even what little there is to see. But well, good reason to take a little break for stargazing. =)

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Facebook? Poor pony *gives you some A1 grade clover to eats* Uh do horses eat clover?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep. Clover is sweet as it smells. Too much of it isn't good, though.