Tag Archives: Facebook

LinkedIn is worse than Facebook

LinkedIn is supposed to be a “professional network”. However, as you can see below, it is anything but. I have posted about it before, but now I will go into more details

People posting personal news/updates instead of Facebook/Instagram.

Twerps posting sob stories for sympathy.

People posting inspirational quotes or unasked wisdom

1-click AI generated messages wishing people on their work anniversary.

Peddling Religious shit

The worst kind, as per me. People who have taken a contract (theka) to share breaking news with the rest of the world.

I am not currently looking for a job, so I don’t need LinkedIn as such. However, deleting the account makes me feel insecure. As if that perfect job I always wanted will somehow evade me.

It is pathetic, however, to see that people don’t understand the difference between networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Why are people so insufferable on Facebook?

Ok, so I know I promised I will never be on Facebook again. But I have a good excuse. I ended up with a lot of things I didn’t want and the only way to sell second-hand stuff in Thailand is on the Facebook marketplace.

I thought I will use Facebook only for the marketplace, not for social networking, but I received a few friend requests, ended up sending a few. One thing led to another and I ended up just like last time.

Basically even the most decent people in real-life become insufferable on Facebook.

Some start thinking that they are celebrities

Facebook sucks
Public Figure! Hah!

Why does this guy have his headset inside his mouth?

Facebook sucks
Reminds me of Zomato delivery guys

Some people cannot step out of their homes without letting the entire world know.

What about those 1-tap fake AI generated birthday greetings designed to make you feel special?

Facebook sucks
The guy spent less than a second sending you a birthday greeting

Some people think they look cooler than they actually are.

Public displays of affection by wife and husband to force the world to see how much in love they are

Facebook sucks
No one cares

Finally, the worst kind. People who think they have taken a contract (Theka) to be the first to update everyone with the latest news.


Anyways, the purpose of this post is to remind me why I shouldn’t create an account the next time I am tempted.

Die Intel!

My first PC came with an Intel Celeron 400 processor. Back then, I had no idea what I was getting; I was not aware of various PC parts & technologies. All I knew was that a friend of mine had a Pentium III computer and it was better than mine.

Dominance/Monopoly of Intel

Slowly, as I started to explore the world of PCs (with help from Chip and Digit magazines), I became aware of various components inside PCs and different technologies & brands. The market leader for computer processors even back then was Intel. AMD, Via and Cyrix were alternative brands. Over time, I began to hate Intel. I started looking at Intel as a company which made technically good but overpriced processors & indulged in false/misleading advertising.

Intel is Evil
Evil Inside, PC: LogoDix

AMD processors always fascinated me. When the Athlon series launched, I read about its performance with awe. However, AMD, VIA or Cyrix processors were very rarely seen in the real world, outside reviews. Cyrix & Via soon died completely and AMD remained elusive, plagued by overheating issues and solely in the realm of gamers & enthusiasts. When I did my first major PC upgrade, I had to get a Pentium IV because no one would assemble an AMD for me.

In the laptop space, AMD was even rarer. In fact, the first time I saw an AMD laptop was during my college days when Nihit (technically his girlfriend) bought a laptop with an AMD Turion processor.

I remember inheriting a Compaq laptop (which I still have today) from my father and it had an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. When Windows Vista came out, Intel released a beta WDDM driver for the GPU on this laptop, but later discontinued it. Consequently, the laptop couldn’t use Vista’s Aero Glass effect for themes even though the hardware was compatible. My hatred intensified and I swore never to use Intel again.

In 2000, Intel was forced to abandon its IA-64 platform for 64-bit computing and forced to license AMD’s AMD64 technology. They called it x86-64 and had to pay licensing fee to AMD for every processor sold.

My First AMD

In 2006, briefly, for the first time, Intel and AMD both had nearly equal market shares for Desktop CPU shipments. AMD would maintain the neck-neck competition till date, Intel was no more a monopoly. In fact, in 2021, AMD is arguably ahead of Intel.

When I moved to Gurgaon, I decided to assemble a new gaming PC myself, from scratch. I got the AMD FX 6300 and a Radeon GPU, shunning Intel completely. It cost me half of what an equivalent Intel platform would have cost and performed better. There were no heat issues to speak of.

Eventually I bought an Xbox and sold my gaming PC, never to buy a PC again.

Last Tryst with Intel – Surface Pro 3

I was re-introduced to the world of Intel, when my fiend gifted me a Surface Pro 3. To me, the Surface Pro 3 showcased the very worst of Intel. The external hardware, touch screen, keyboard and OS were all amazing. It was the Intel innards which sucked balls.

The Core i7 processor always ran hot, no matter how light the workload. Consequently the fan was always whirring loudly. It was so loud, you couldn’t sleep in the same room with the Surface if it was doing something. Still, the fan was not enough to efficiently cool the Surface and the CPU was throttled <50% most of the time. I had to install an external USB fan to keep it cool; which was ridiculous.

On top of that, it had issues with Sleep which remained unresolved even after many firmware updates over many years. You closed the Surface and put it in your bag expecting it to sleep. It, however kept on running at full throttle and when you got it out to use it later, you saw that the battery was dead. Microsoft blamed Intel drivers and they twiddled their thumbs, as usual.

Eventually, I sold it and got myself an iPad.

ARM and Apple M1

For those who haven’t been keeping track, Apple transitioned their MacBooks from Intel CPUs to in-house ARM based processors in 2020. We (technically, my wife) bought a MacBook with an M1 chip. After using sluggish/hot/battery sucking laptops over the years, the MacBook blew my mind away.

It is as snappy as an iPad, the battery lasts all day (My wife uses it 8-9 hours off the charger) and there’s no fan and no heat to speak of. On top of all this, existing apps made for x86 work flawlessly and with minimum performance penalty. On the other hand, my work laptop (Intel Core i5) doesn’t last more than 2 hours off the charger and any computational effort make its fans sound like a jet plane.

I would not be wrong to say that the M1 is a generational leap ahead in computing from the old/shitty X86 laptops.

The Future

All mobile phones already used ARM processors. Same for all embedded devices and IOT devices. Apple would probably transition their Macs to ARM completely within the next few years. Many custom-made servers operated by the likes of Facebook/Amazon/Google use ARM already, too. In fact, the current world’s most powerful supercomputer also runs on ARM.

Once Microsoft get their x86-64 on ARM emulation to work properly, we should see a significant chunk of Windows ultraportables and laptops move to ARM. I hope AMD embraces the ARM architecture soon, too.

That being said, x86-64 isn’t going away anytime soon. Gaming PCs, Enterprise workstations, legacy applications requiring native x86-64 and most servers would continue to be x86-64 based for the foreseeable future and Intel would probably continue to dominate this space. I just hope they are reduced to shells of their former selves soon and then eventually die.

Social Networks & I

To say that I don’t like social networks is an understatement. I have used many social networks over the years and most have given me nothing but grief. In this post, I will lay down what exactly I hate about each social network.

WhatsApp

I will start with WhatsApp, because this is the one I hate the most. I used it because it was the most convenient way to keep in touch with people. However, I had to delete my WhatsApp account in 2019 because:

  1. Any person who had my mobile number could contact me without my permission.
  2. Everyone could see whether I was online at any point of time.
  3. There was no way to turn off read-receipts in group chats.
  4. Anyone could add me to group chats without my permission. This is something my work people exploited to the fullest. I woke up to be part of a new group every morning.
  5. Images and Videos were shamelessly compressed/resized.
  6. Archived Group chats were automatically un-archived when there were new messages in the group. There was no way to completely ignore some groups without leaving them.
  7. There was no way to get rid of the “Status” notification dot at the bottom.
  8. People sending useless & unsolicited “Good Morning” and “Good Night” forwards.
  9. People begging for things because they are too cheap to spend money

Facebook

This is my second most hated Social Network. I have used Facebook for many years but finally deleted my account in 2019. I tried again in 2021 but didn’t last more than a few weeks. The reason I cannot stand Facebook is because of the nature of posts from people, like:

  1. Attention-seeking whores post irrelevant news that people already have from other news sources. Just for likes and comments.
  2. Attention-seeking whores check-in to different airports to show-off to people that they are travelling by airplane.
  3. Keyboard activism and “social justice”.
  4. Attention-seeking whores posting photos of new things they have bought.
  5. Parents making their kids perform tricks like circus monkeys for likes and comments.
  6. Disgusting religious posts.
  7. Posts insulting people belonging to other religions.
  8. Posts cheering some sports team or sportspersons, as if they are reading these posts.
  9. “Friends” wishing each other Happy Birthday with impersonal AI generated/templated birthday wishes.
  10. People sucking up to the government/leaders.
  11. People insulting the government/leaders.

Every time I try to give Facebook a chance, I either get infuriated by any of the above posts or get drawn into arguments. Surprisingly, the only thing I liked about Facebook were the targeted ads. Normally, advertisements are irritating, but Facebook is so good at targeted ads that they are actually useful. Many times I have been looking for something specific to buy, just for Facebook to show a completely relevant ad in the app.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is supposed to be a “professional” social network, but in reality it is no different from Facebook. People post all the same bullshit things here, that they do on Facebook. And here you cannot even react negatively to posts lest some potential employers see it and get turned off.

On a related note, I have never had a job lead from LinkedIn nor have I seen anyone else get a job lead there when they needed it.

Twitter

I can tolerate Twitter as a news feed as long as I am anonymous & don’t follow people I know in real life.

Telegram

I can tolerate Telegram to chat with friends because unlike WhatsApp, I can have people not find me using my phone number. I have to give someone my User ID explicitly for them to be able to chat with me.

Keeping away from social networks as much as possible is one of the keys for me to maintain my mental peace and sanity.