That's because politicians and famous people act as supernodes.

So whichever of you sons of biatches can put me in contact with Emily Blunt, I'd appreciate it if you emailed me her info. Thanks.

A few of my friends from high school and college are friends with other TFers they met throughout their respective lives.

Weirded me out when I first thought about it.

Unpossible!
It must be an integer!

/hates meaningless statistics

Walker: I was shocked to see on Facebook that someone I worked with 20 years ago is friends with a relative of mine by marriage, who is friends with a current co-worker of mine. It's like all my world's collided. People from my family life, work life, and former work life were all connected and I didn't even know it.

I saw a 22 year old med student here in San Antonio I've met, and an 35 year old fraternity brother five states away were friends. They knew each other through some random exes I think. But that is one of the more amusing aspects of Facebook, seeing people you would never imagine knowing each other actually do.

downstairs: And if I "friend" Barack Obama via Facebook... does that mean I'm 1 degree of separation from the Leader of the Free World?

Yes. Yes it does.

Yeah, but for farkers, "6 degrees of separation" really emphasizes the separation aspect.

I'm often surprised by how few degrees of separations there are between me, a grad student who has never been to Asia, and high-ranking members of the Pakistani government.

downstairs: Bull shiat if they're taking this just from people's "friend" lists. Most people on Facebook collect friends like they're beanie babies.

My sister has 800 "friends" on Facebook. My sister, though she's a very cool person, does not really have 800 friends.

And if I "friend" Barack Obama via Facebook... does that mean I'm 1 degree of separation from the Leader of the Free World?

I don't know, I have quite a few, and I know every single one of them. And many more people I know are on there, I just don't like them. If it had been around since I was in high school and college, I can't imagine how many I'd have. Then again, I've lived in five states and had groups of friends in each, so maybe that skews my numbers.

downstairs: My sister has 800 "friends" on Facebook.

One girl I barely knew in high school friended me, and I checked her friend list. I'm pretty sure she went though the entire yearbook from all 4 years and friended everybody, years after she graduated. I had no desire to accept her request, but was curious about her friend list. She had over 2000 friends. No clue where somebody would even MEET 2000 people, even at a college with 25,000+ people.

Foxxinnia: I'm often surprised by how few degrees of separations there are between me, a grad student who has never been to Asia, and high-ranking members of the Pakistani government.

Perhaps I'm being snide here, but being surprised by something twice is a character flaw; being surprised by the same thing "often" speaks of a neurological dysfunction.

/ As does being a grammar nazi.

I feel dirty

Psychohazard: Foxxinnia: I'm often surprised by how few degrees of separations there are between me, a grad student who has never been to Asia, and high-ranking members of the Pakistani government.

Perhaps I'm being snide here, but being surprised by something twice is a character flaw; being surprised by the same thing "often" speaks of a neurological dysfunction.

/ As does being a grammar nazi.

But that's exactly why I hired this guy.

To be fair, six degrees of separation was based on people you knew well enough to send a letter and have them send it on for you, that's a little stricter value of "acquaintance" than facebook uses. You probably wouldn't remember the names of most people you "know" on facebook, much less enough about them to look up their address. I have something like 600 contacts, and only 4-500 of them are actually people I'd recognize if they saw me at the grocery store or something and said hello.

picodenico: No clue where somebody would even MEET 2000 people, even at a college with 25,000+ people.

Again, the threshold of acquaintance for FB is fairly low, you're only trusting them with, what, your phone number on average (at least that's what I use it for) or, if you're really paranoid, an ignorable way to contact you without giving them any real contact information. It's entirely appropriate to friend basically everyone you get formally introduced to, people you see frequently but don't really interact with like shopkeepers, people you spent a single night out drinking with, and so on. The service has been around nearly a decade now, that can easily have hit a couple thousand even if you're not specifically AWing to get your numbers up. You're going to gain, what, probably a couple hundred total a semester just from listing people in your classes to share notes, right?

Snarfangel: That's because politicians and famous people act as supernodes.

Yeah pretty much worthless. I'm not friends with Barrack Obama, but I'm pretty damn sure someone I'm friends with is. And you may not be friends with Barrack Obama, but I'm pretty sure someone on your friend'ss list is.

Thus the maximum seperation should be around 4. The only way it could be as high as 5 is if one of us has one of those profiles that only has 10 friends.

Now if you're friends with Barrack Obama, you're only 3 degrees with pretty much everyone in the U.S.

This has little to nothing to do with Billy knowing sally knowing jill who blew the whole football team in highschool.

ChuDogg: Snarfangel: That's because politicians and famous people act as supernodes.

Yeah pretty much worthless. I'm not friends with Barrack Obama, but I'm pretty damn sure someone I'm friends with is. And you may not be friends with Barrack Obama, but I'm pretty sure someone on your friend'ss list is.

Thus the maximum seperation should be around 4. The only way it could be as high as 5 is if one of us has one of those profiles that only has 10 friends.

Now if you're friends with Barrack Obama, you're only 3 degrees with pretty much everyone in the U.S.

This has little to nothing to do with Billy knowing sally knowing jill who blew the whole football team in highschool.

You'd think if she blew the whole team she'd a least get capital J. geeez people

RexTalionis: It terrifies me that you freaks and weirdos are only a few degrees of separation away.


WINNAR

KrustyKitten: ChuDogg: Snarfangel: That's because politicians and famous people act as supernodes.

Yeah pretty much worthless. I'm not friends with Barrack Obama, but I'm pretty damn sure someone I'm friends with is. And you may not be friends with Barrack Obama, but I'm pretty sure someone on your friend'ss list is.

Thus the maximum seperation should be around 4. The only way it could be as high as 5 is if one of us has one of those profiles that only has 10 friends.

Now if you're friends with Barrack Obama, you're only 3 degrees with pretty much everyone in the U.S.

This has little to nothing to do with Billy knowing sally knowing jill who blew the whole football team in highschool.

You'd think if she blew the whole team she'd a least get capital J. geeez people

Sure, IF you were on the team.

Psychohazard: Foxxinnia: I'm often surprised by how few degrees of separations there are between me, a grad student who has never been to Asia, and high-ranking members of the Pakistani government.

Perhaps I'm being snide here, but being surprised by something twice is a character flaw; being surprised by the same thing "often" speaks of a neurological dysfunction.

/ As does being a grammar nazi.

I was using it as sort of a cliche, but I completely understand your negative reaction to it.

Jim_Callahan: It's entirely appropriate to friend basically everyone you get formally introduced to, people you see frequently but don't really interact with like shopkeepers, people you spent a single night out drinking with, and so on

Uhh....I'm not going to send a FB friend request to the cashier at the local grocery store. And I'm sure as f*ck not going to friend a random girl I saw at a bar.

jaylectricity: The degrees of separation between any one of Facebook's 800 million users is an astonishing 4.74-much less than the "six degrees of separation" notion people throw around.

Ah, but 4.74 is the average. Six degrees of separations states that it's 6 or less.

Cheer up Kevin.

No, 6 was the median in Milgram's experiment (I think the avg was 5.5 or so). The discrepancy likely comes from Milgram's original subjects being unable to see the full graph (they could only see their friends).

Link [PDF] - Page 14

So Fark parties are basically family reunions?

And by no strange coincidence, I am only 4.74 inches away from your mom, subby!!!

/high five!!
//jk
///loves me some slashies!!!

As someone who has a KB score of 3 (relative worked with actor who worked with KB) I'm getting a kick ...

remember that it's a self selected group of people who use facebook. The world as a whole is probably higher, as some of those are bound to be not-the-attention-whore-y type and keep to themselves.

And I hope they did not include likes or follows of celebrity fan pages. That would tremendously skew it. It should be only two way request-accepts.

jackiepaper: Ah, but 4.74 is the average. Six degrees of separations states that it's 6 or less.

Cheer up Kevin.

FEWER.



Geeze. No need to Godwin the thread so early. And you didn't even spell it properly.

So the 11% of the world's population that use a particular social network full of attention whores are on their way to creating a complete graph of their whoredom.

Normally a complete graph of whores is something I would like to traverse, but in this case I'll make an exception.

Sometimes, much less than 4.74 degrees...

...Aaaand this is the reason I don't let any of my personal info on the internet....

Spirit Hammer: As someone who has a KB score of 3 (relative worked with actor who worked with KB) I'm getting a kick ...

I think that makes it 2.

Also, that would be my score as well because I was on a program with Regis Philbin who has been on programs with Kevin Bacon.

brantgoose: The six degrees of separation estimate came from the days of telephone exchanges. It was the number of exchanges need to connect any two people in the world via telephone.

Sort of.

Here's why the whole "6 degrees of separation" thing is largely bullshiat (was written back in 2008, so don't be fooled by the now-outdated unrelated headline).

RexTalionis: It terrifies me that you freaks and weirdos are only a few degrees of separation away.

You do realize that, since you are on Facebook, there's only one degree of separation between you and the freaks and weirdos?

My mother's cousins from Australia & the UK once met up with my paternal uncle's coworker from Washington in a Moscow airport, so we're all getting a kick out of this information. Not all that surprised, though.

Facebook is collecting ALL your data. From your age, birthday, relatives etc. Screw facebook. I deleted that crap eons ago and never looked back. Feels good man!

I have friends who work in film and tv, so by association, I must be cool as fack, right?

We're talking about Al Pacino level.

I'm cool, right? Right?


/please?

I'm disturbed by the fact that I'm 3 degrees away from George W. Bush. That means I'm only 4 degrees away from Cheney.

I need to go take a shower. And scrub with brillo pads.

Facebook is collecting ALL your data. From your age, birthday, relatives etc. Screw facebook. I deleted that crap eons ago and never looked back. Feels good man!

This may be true, but so does every form you fill out truthfully. The census, hospitals, schools, etc...

/if you never "looked back" you wouldn't have mentioned that you deleted it.
//technicalities suck huh?

gregario: I'm disturbed by the fact that I'm 3 degrees away from George W. Bush. That means I'm only 4 degrees away from Cheney.

I need to go take a shower. And scrub with brillo pads.

My dad has several times met a WWII fighter pilot who now lives in Texas. So that means that either two or three people separates me from Hitler since I can't imagine that there would be more than one person separating that pilot from the fuehrer.

hangloose: Facebook is collecting ALL your data. From your age, birthday, relatives etc. Screw facebook. I deleted that crap eons ago and never looked back. Feels good man!

This may be true, but so does every form you fill out truthfully. The census, hospitals, schools, etc...

/if you never "looked back" you wouldn't have mentioned that you deleted it.
//technicalities suck huh?

Yes, but at least there are laws concerning my data with schools, hospitals and the census. With facebook, you are giving all your information to a private entity that is hell bent on making a profit with it.

dfwaviator: hangloose: Facebook is collecting ALL your data. From your age, birthday, relatives etc. Screw facebook. I deleted that crap eons ago and never looked back. Feels good man!

This may be true, but so does every form you fill out truthfully. The census, hospitals, schools, etc...

/if you never "looked back" you wouldn't have mentioned that you deleted it.
//technicalities suck huh?

Yes, but at least there are laws concerning my data with schools, hospitals and the census. With facebook, you are giving all your information to a private entity that is hell bent on making a profit with it.


I don't understand what the Facebook problem is when you don't friggin' have to put your real info on the site.

I must have missed the bit where you are forced to put in your personal details.

I live in Afghanistan and I'm over a 100 years old on Facebook, ffs.

/spazzys