How kind of you to say so!

Beer-wise: I am more of an ale fan than lagers, with particular fondness for IPAs and porters. But my attention is on good craft brews rather than a specific type. Or good craft anything; I appreciate good made-by-hand workmanship in any endeavor.

I have several responses to this comment.

• Robert Plant wasn't that pretty to start with. Fortunately, he made good music, instead of trying to have a career as a model.
• "When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good, you will not." --Yoda
• My self-worth is not bound to my looks. Nor should it be (even though I was kinda cute when I was young). I judge my value by my skill in my chosen field (whatever that is at the time, whether it's optimizing compilers, explaining how OS/2 system internals work, or sharing advice on using Twitter), in whether I treat others with kindness, and, of course, by how much chocolate I get to eat. So if you were trying to put me down, it didn't work.
• Oh how sad. With all the wonders that the Internet brings to you, the first and only thing you consider is how someone looks?! Young padawan, the joy, the utter joy of living online, in IP packets, is that we connect to one another based on who we are and not what we are. My gender doesn't matter. My color is irrelevant. What matters is that we can find people who share our interests -- science fiction, programming, baseball, whatever -- and we can be honest with each other (because we don't have to edit ourselves, saying "I have to live with these people" when a family member utters a deplorable statement such as "I like the Dodgers.").

  Thus we get to learn from each other, and our bodies matter least of all the things we bring to the conversation. Thus I could be friends with someone online for years before learning he was in a wheelchair, when in-person it would have been the first -- but least important -- thing I learned about him.

  And you think first about how attractive I am? I'm so sorry. You're missing so much of what online communities can bring.

Filter it out? Just don't follow them...?

There are companies/"brands" I follow because I find their info cool or useful or they make me say, "How 'bout that!" Sometimes that's the case even when I have no interest in their product... in the same way that I can admire the Budweiser Clydesdales even if I'd never drink their beer. (I am a beer snob.) And there are companies whose stuff I like even though their Twitter feeds are lame. For example, I'm thinking of one quilting fabric company whose Twitter feed is nothing but dumb self-serving ads, and comparing it in my head to another quilting fabric company that regularly shares groovy quilt designs (made with their fabric of course), and asks Facebook fans which fabric they ought to feature in a print magazine ad, and so on.

But if you discover that what they say/publish is not-so-cleverly-concealed propaganda, nothing says you have to follow them.

Actually, the book tells people to have human conversations. Not to create the kind of awful "branded" Twitter streams we both abhor. I advise people to do the same thing I do on slashdot: Tell other people about things they'll find useful and cool.

Which does not make me a marketing expert. It makes me a communication expert.

I don't think so much about what interests me. I consider what might interest you.

I looked through a few of your submissions. With a few, you have the germ of something that might work. But you just blurt out the "fact" of the link, like "CNN says bigfoot was found," and that fits into my "weather report" description. Oh, yeah? How nice for them. Instead, tell me what you found and why it matters to me. Why should I care? Why is this amusing or relevant or useful to know?

::glowing smile:: You're welcome.

I lost count somewhere around 700 but that was just the paperbacks, and doesn't count the hardbacks. Fortunately for my book budget I am also a frequent visitor to my local library, and every so often I do cull the herd... which is how I keep some of the collections under control. (I also have 400+ cookbooks. And I review a lot on Amazon.)