day of dan :: memoirs of an invisible dan

Sometimes I really dislike a portion of the British public, we’ll call them OATs (and I’ll get what that stands for later on).

What’s got the OATs up in arms today? Why of course, it’s anti-terrorism measures, for their safety.

This story from the BBC news website, and it’s comments are a fine example of why you could give an OAT a twenty pound note and they’d probably complain it wasn’t crisp.

The crux of the story is that Manchester Airport is trialling a brand new “naked” body scanner (that doesn’t mean you have to be naked, it just means the results make you look a little bare). Check out the article, does the guy look naked? You can barely make out the subject’s nuts, let alone anything more important. The most shocking part of that photo is that he’s a) clenching his arse and b) he appears to be grow taller/shorter when turning around, like a screw.

This is disgusting, a real invasion of our last privacies.

It’s neither is it. For a start there’s guidelines they will probably have to follow, much like pat-downs. It’s likely to be some poor female security guard looking at the ladies, and an even more unfortunate security bloke looking at the men.

If snooping into every other part of our lives is not enough now they have to snoop on our bodies too!

What the hell did you think pat-downs were for, a leisurely grope to relax you before a flight? These are measures to prevent your death. Much like what your doctor does. They won’t be stored, shared, available on Flickr, posted on a Facebook group or sadly, available for printout for a small fee, just like Alton Towers.

“I’m no. 315 – look! You can see my arse!” – £2.50, uploaded to Facebook, everyone’s a winner.

The point is this Mr and Mrs OAT, you don’t want to die on the way to your once-in-a-lifetime holiday to Magaluf, do you? Times change, terrorists become more extreme, security measures must follow. We can already see the outline of your enormous frame through your ill-fitting holiday clothes, some poor quality grey image is doing you no harm.

Old, Annoying Twats.

dan Rants airport, daily fail, facebook, porn

You know what really grinds my gears? Those that seem to lump Facebook and Twitter in the same bracket. Yes, they’re both forms of social networking. Yes, they’re both pushing boundaries in the way we communicate and share information. What they aren’t, is the same bag of kittens.

First off, I’ll admit that I’m not Facebook’s biggest fan. It used to be the clean and simple alternative to MySpace, social networking for those that dribble. Then it made itself more open, then a bit more, and now one zillion applications later it’s no longer the sweet little monkey it once was. It might have more technology behind it, but it’s like buying a Pagani Zonda to run the kids to school and back.

So no, I don’t want to be a bloody pirate, I don’t want to start a Mob War, and I don’t want to play Scrabble. Well, not often. Not so much social networking anymore, it’s just one site to sit at and waste time.  But, I digress.

The fact is, Facebook is what it is, it’s a site to sit on and waste a bit of time. Play some games, chat to someone you never really liked at school but happened to turn out incredibly attractive, the list goes on and you can pretty much do it on Facebook.

Twitter however, is highly portable social networking. It’s the equivalent of Facebook statuses, without the guff surrounding it. If you just want to tell the world about the lack of Frijj milkshakes at the petrol station, then you can, without being told how Joe Bloggs, the person you added out of pity just scored 100,000,000 on Super Mega Mega Blocks.

What they do share in common is the likelihood they’ll both be replaced by the next big thing, whenever that should be. They’re also both not MySpace and that’s got to be a good thing. I also use both, I just find one more irritating than the other.

I like Twitter, so I am biased. This is my blog, so I also don’t care. For the “too long, didn’t read” brigade, my point is simple. They’re not, and never will be the same thing. Saying, “Oh, I hate Twitter because it doesn’t do what Facebook does!” is no different from saying, “Oh, I really hate Ham because it doesn’t melt like Cheese!”

If you’re reading this when it’s published on Facebook (and god damn I hate that it makes it so hard to see it came from this blog) then hello.

Tweet me @danfiveoh.

dan Jibber Jabber, Rants facebook, twitter, web site