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So I logged into GMail yesterday only to find something strange, something out of the ordinary. No, it wasn’t a crazy electronic mail message. It was… Buzz.

Change, yuck! I don’t like change.

But Buzz wanted my attention and was not going to leave me alone until I let it have its way.

First off, the name. What is it these days? First the iPad, now Buzz? Is there so much stuff in the world that all the good names have been taken by other products or has the product naming teams been fired due to the recession? In either case, Buzz does not seem like the greatest name. When I think of buzz, I think of bees. Bees sting. Ouch. When I think of buzz, I think of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, yeah you know, that space ranger with the really cool utility belt who shouts “To infinity, and beyond!” When I think of buzz, I think of buzzers. Yeah the bad kind that tell you it’s time to wake up. Great name Google.

Once I had gotten over the name, something else struck me. There were people following me and apparently I was also following other people! Sounds like stalking if you ask me. Maybe if you are a twitter user, you are used to having people follow you wherever you go. Call be a Luddite, but I never got into the whole Twitter revolution. I don’t have anything against social networking, it’s just that for me it becomes too much of a time waster.

So onwards I plow. Like Facebook, Buzz has a Like button. Like Facebook, Buzz has no DisLike Button. Why? A DisLike button would be really nice.

Oh wait, was this post supposed to be 140 characters or less? Oops.

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Buzz Legal Disclaimer: This Buzz, and any files transmitted with it, may contain confidential and proprietary information of Tim Swyka, some or all of which may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the attention and use of the named recipient. If an addressing or transmission error has misdirected this Buzz, please notify the sender and delete it from your buzzer or any other storage mechanism. Any views expressed in this message may or may not be those of the sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be views of the sender.

I like what C.S. Lewis has to say about noise in The Screwtape Letters:

Music and silence–how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell [...] no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominal forces, but all has been occupied by Noise–Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile–Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. -C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Ch. 22, (1942)