CELEBRITY!!

Lets just hope that your experimental fiddling hasn't started a chain reaction that will ultimately break the interweb thingy.....can you imagine......1996 all over again?!  I think that was probably one of my very best years - young enough not to care too much and old enough to get stuff done well with endless energy.

On inspection this morning the badge has now re-appeared!

(unlike my D/L!)

And that HAS to be the conclusion to this experiment!

Oh, those sorts of things make me happy.

ON further inspection I find it has notified me of the achievement but NOT rewarded it!!

SCORE!! 

(this is the sort of thing that keeps one "off grid".. My driving licence in the real world has a similar schrodingian reality as a result of a similar thing I did twenty years ago.)  

But this time I don't appear on the roll of honour like I did before!!

I thought it would break something! Although it might refresh periodically, and thus update the roll of honour later.

 *TESTED*

It's an appropriate answer really, to such an appalling statement.

Oo! -- I just got my badge back..

If it's a "smart" tv most versions of windows will let you stream the screen from a laptop to the widescreen TV over your wi-fi.

If you are lucky, it'll even work well! 

I'd suggest people practice and make sure the tech works, but I do seem to be able to stream a dvd up to zoom better than anyone else who has tried so far with me. and that's the crucial bit for a streaming service. 

GFY.

[Disambiguation - My flavour of autistic humour is a bit like my friendship - dubious!]

Aimed for and hit!

Well done everybody! ;c)

I salute your endeavour and thank you for answering a question that did need to be answered.

The experiment is now complete. 

The badge does indeed go away if your friends level dips below the level required to obtain it.

Thanks for all who helped me, I know it was a bit of a pointless endeavour, but I had to know* and it had to be done now fro numerical & logistical reasons. 

The badge needs to be both OBTAINED and SUSTAINED!

*Or at least wanted to know, and what's the point in having a friends list if you don't do anything with them?

Making and maintaining friendships is an active process like gardening, and if you stop doing the neccesary work yourself to obtain and sustain in the real world with friendships. just like gardening, it all goes awry inexorably.

Even cats know & practice this, but an awful lot of humans (Including some I love dearly) do not.

If I did mythbusters, they'd never let it go to air...

And my real friends give me their money! ;c)

It is not complete yet, I have the badge, but due to a rounding error I am stuck at 50 and now have to lose ONE more friend to see if it goes away..

Was your experiment a success? ^^

I Sperg said:

doo-hickey.

Anyone who says things like doo-hickey, is a friend of mine - badge or no badge, "listed" or "unlisted" in your not-so-little book of friends.

Congratulations on your notable achievement, but even more warmly for your decision to seize the moment to conduct an experiment with it ...... like a true spergian Mythbuster.  I can't decide if you are the orange Savage one, or the one who has facial hair that looks like a Walrus.

Your friend,

Number.

Only FOUR in that group inc 1 deleted user... 

Now lets make it three if we can!

I can understand your misgivings about how the internet (particularly social media) uses our affections and need for friendship. For example, if one considers a social media platform like Facebook, it is fairly obvious that someone with hundreds of 'friends' isn't friends with all those people. In the early days of my frequenting Facebook, I would occasionally receive Friend Requests from people I had been at school with... People that had never even spoken to me at school. There were some requests I accepted, mainly out of curiosity. Sometimes I would send these 'friends' a message, but receive no response. Same thing if I commented on their status updates. As these 'friends' and I weren't benefitting in any way from our non-communicative 'friendships', I decided they had to go and promptly unfriended them.

It may sound corny, but I have always considered my friends to be the family that I choose. Whilst I have had friendships that have drifted apart, I have also been blessed with friendships that have gone from strength to strength, with people who have known me for decades.

One thing that saddens me is when I see young members on these forums who are desperate for friends and appear to think that a couple of brief conversations with someone here will automatically result in being best friends for life. Whilst it can be possible to form meaningful lasting friendships with people we encounter online, I think it is rare. I feel it can be agreed upon that both online and offline friendships take time to establish, and therefore don't happen overnight based on one or two brief exchanges.

Your film night was a brilliant idea, and I'm sorry that it wasn't the success you hoped it would be. Were it not for the fact that I prefer to watch films on my widescreen TV from the comfort of my sofa (as opposed to my small desktop monitor in my kitchen), then I may well have 'participated' if the film screening appealed.

Will we be seeing you in The Jungle next year? You might be a little too famous for that program!

Sporadic Sparkly said:

Considering that many of us here can struggle to make friends, it had somewhat amused me that you were pleading with your existing friends to un-friend you for the sake of your experiment.

I have deep misgivings about how the internet uses our affections and need for friendship, particularly in the media that I personally won't go near with a barge pole. 

For me, a friendship is an intimate sort of relationship, where I "allow people in" and a non trivial thing indeed. In the real world I have more good friends than a lot of my peer group do, because in my youth like many autists I had none, so I learned how to make, and more importantly, sustain friendships. The guy I was just talking to on the phone I have been a friend of, for fifty years, although there was about thirty years when we didn't see much of each other for the usual reasons.

 So my lack of understanding of how I've got to this position on this forum is very real, and something of a mystery to me. 

But being a geek, I've got this technical curiosity going about the badges, but it simply wasn't right I felt, to ask people who'd signed up for my friends list in good faith, to unsubscribe.

After all they might not be so cynical about the "friends" thing as I am, and might find it hurtful, but as I saw the next badge seemingly inexorably approaching it seemed fair game to ask for some "false friends" to show up and then de-friend me at the appropriate time. 

There's nothing special about me, that isn't special about most people, except that I've had a lot of luck that has pushed my life in some oddly interesting directions, which gives me stories to tell. 

I don't like the feeling of being "abnormal", and if I have an "abnormal" amount of friends, then perhaps after doing this little experiment, with the badges, I'll turn my attention to trying to figure out how we can bring everyone's numbers up a bit, (those who want more friends, of course) 

"Film Night" seemed like a no-brainer when it came to helping people find friends, and indeed since I now know I can provide the service over 90% reliably, and have an increased stock of "films so god I'm happy to watch them again next year" I can market it a bit more confidently to you lot.

If that doesn't work, I'll just do what I did last year (because it was unexpectantly enjoyable) and see if I can figure out a better way to share whatever else it is I seem to have ..    

For the avoidance of doubt, I also own 1 Gold Sovereign coin which apparently if was all shared out equally, as well as my own share it incorporates 13 other peoples half gram shares as well.

I feel no guilt at all about that particular inequality, nor wish to address it in any way whatsoever. Indeed if I ever earn more than I need I'll be seeking to increase that inequality  and leave it to my kid.. 

Thanks for that guys, thanks to your help I am only ONE new "Friend" away from the (not so) covetted "Celebrity" status!

So oooo Cloose!

It's a useless experiment, granted, but surely someone else wants to know if they coded this feature well enough to take the badge back off me, when I lose the new "friends" again...