I wasn't aware we were upvoting forwarded emails these days... Must have missed that memo. Here's what snopes has to say (very much false).

http://www.snopes.com/science/microwave/plants.asp

I believe this is true, and I have a theory that these public spectacles are fuelled and perpetuated primarily by the simple fact that anyone with well reasoned, rational responses tend to keep quiet in fear of being drawn into an ugly discourse - leaving the metaphorical inmates to run the prison.

Much in the same way that most reasonable people don't go into the circus that is politics?

YOLO.

That's an easy one to fix as adults. We just start using it badly.

"Don't text and drive. YOLO."

YOLO is Carpe Diem for stupid people.

Thanks ig1. We're located in Vancouver BC. Unfortunately, neither of us are particularly schmoozy and generally don't have a lot of time on our hands. VCs and similar don't tend to visit the conferences here anyway, and we're quite a ways past being in an incubator (600k seed, imagn.com, 2 cofounders - 1 technical, 1 business).

9gag was doing a billion pageviews/month before they joined YC.

You should think of joining an incubator in terms of: if we joined this incubator would they increase the value of our business by substantially more than 6% that they'll take (or whatever stake). And if so you should consider joining one.

Vancouver does have significant conferences, for example the GROW conference in August had a pretty high-profile list of speakers and attendees. There have been at least a dozen or so companies in Vancouver who've raised VC rounds this year.

Almost all successful startups and tech companies will have connections to VCs (regardless if they were venture funded or not), so one good route would be to network with the founders of the successful startups in Vancouver and get introductions to VCs from them.

Declaring that "Websites are over" is likely to make most people immediately stop reading.

If you were right then our traffic wouldn't have increased five-fold in one hour, and you probably wouldn't have expended the effort to comment.

To be fair to John Hammond, I'm not sure creating a (albeit massive) social networking service is in the same league as reverse engineering 65+ million year old, fragmented DNA strands, then bringing the dinosaurs not only to term, but healthy adulthood, and finally housing them in a multi-billion dollar facility on a leased island.

Facebook has roughly 4x as much source code as Jurassic Park did, and probably can't be run from a single room for up to three days with minimal staff.

Also, if say, Facebook Profiles breaks down, the profiles don't eat the users.

Keep in mind, it was a movie and the metaphor was constructed around chaos/complexity. If you read the books, Hammond actually needed an entire other island, Isla Sorna, to produce batches of dinosaurs and allow them to mature. Most of the embryos did not reach maturity. He also had a much larger control room on that island to oversee the main island.

If your Facebook data gets exploited, it could affect you in big ways.

Yes. Yes it is.

I'm willing to believe that. Actually, I'm happy to believe that, because it just always nags on me. You would be doing me a big favor by pointing out how it is more complicated than that.

This seems like a very cynical article. On the behalf of everyone in Canada, the UK, and Australia, it's very common for people to reciprocate this sort of courtesy and genuinely mean it. In fact, I'd go as far to say that most people would be downright offended if you didn't reciprocate.

Similarly, most people go out of their way to thank transit drivers, and everyone holds doors. Perhaps an American could share some insight.

Seems pretty cynical to me too, but I've lived in either North Dakota or Minnesota for a couple of decades. It takes so little effort to be nice and have a conversation with people. Who knows, you might make the teller laugh and get through their day easier.

[from the article] Does anyone who has ever said “have a good one” actually mean it?

Yep, I do mean it. I'm that sap. I wish you well and still sign all my e-mail "keep safe". I mean that too. The world can be an unforgiving place, no need for me to not help you along.

I am rather dismayed by the lack of interaction between people in my country (Greece). We don't talk to strangers at all, not even to say hi or hold a door open or anything. It's a cultural thing, people just don't think to talk to other people.

That's all I wanted to say, have a good day!

It's like that in southern California. Most people out here act cold and just want to keep to their own. People rarely say hello to anyone they pass on the streets. Just keep your eyes pointed forward and maybe you won't have to interact with another person. The mean streets of Orange County.

That was the biggest difference I noticed when I moved from the Bay Area to Texas. Everyone says hello, everyone asks how you're doing. I grew up thinking no one was ever nice to a stranger. It was unnerving at first but frankly it's more pleasant this way.

And it's not just the south, been this way everywhere else I go in the middle of the country.

(Except on Houston's roads, of course. That's a different world entirely)

Strange. A common complaint among Swedes is that we don't talk to strangers... like they (supposedly) do in Greece (or Spain or France).

I live in Georgia. Everyone here is really friendly and means it.

I'd find that extremely tiring.

I do not. I live in a VERY small town in Northern Coastal California, US (area population 948). I like the fact that I have time to talk to Jessica, Connie, Crystal, Bonnie, or Shaina, all possible cashiers at the only local small store.

I like the fact that when a lady looked lost in the local hardware store, I asked if I might help her, and I felt that I had the time to explain that she needed a certain tool due to the materials she was working with and help her find it.

I have plenty of time to run my service business, write code for fun, and yet also make sure my chickens are fed on time, the cherries got picked, etc.

Instead of tiring, I find it energizing, and I am more towards introvert than center on the introvert/extrovert scale.

We absolutely have this at checkout in Australia, I go for self checkout whenever possible because of it. Most people working at checkout just don't care at all and just give out the minimum fake courtesies that their employer forces upon them.

I can't tell if this is satire or not.