And another thing...

[rsc]

...that Facebook could do that I would approve of: Get rid of that stupid "N minutes ago" crap. Put a normal time stamp on the posts. For one thing, it would mean you wouldn't have to waste packets and cycles updating the time-lapses, and it would also mean that when I go to read my Facebook page and I vaguely remember that I last looked at it at around 4:00, I wouldn't then have to figure out how many hours ago that was.

Comments

[jered]

I think those get computed client-side, so it's only wasting your cycles. Still, pretty silly, I agree.

[qnetter]

Sorry, but I don't think "It's 10:06 - this post came in at 7:47" is anywhere near as meaningful to me. I like them to do the time calculation for me.

If they would put a "last read x minutes ago" timestamp on, that would help you.

(But don't you simply recognize if you've read it or not, and stop going back when you see something familiar?)

[qnetter]

I think it's far more friendly for ordinary humans than timestamps. After all, they're there to tell you how old the post is - so why not just tell you how old the post is?!

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I don't think "It's 10:06 - this post came in at 7:47" is anywhere near as meaningful to me. I like them to do the time calculation for me.

Well, maybe they should give us a choice.

(But don't you simply recognize if you've read it or not, and stop going back when you see something familiar?)

Well, that would work if Facebook was more consistent about showing the same stuff for the same time period whenever I looked at it.

And anyway, as I said the other day, I don't need it to update constantly; I'd be just as happy if I could say "OK, now show me everything since the last time I asked".