Facebook N^2 problems
The CARMEN project came to a grinding halt this afternoon. We decided to try
facebook as a social networking site for the project. It turns out that
everyone has to register everyone else as a friend; nice though it is to think
that you have lots of friends, Facebook actually requires n
squared number of
clicks. Poor old Frank, being a young whippersnapper with lots of friends on
Facebook, saw his laptop turn into the machine that goes ping as all his mates
added him and sent him zombie requests; how does anyone get any work done in
these days of social networking.
Originally published on my old blog site.