So, for the first time in MONTHS, I log in, because of a walkthrough showing how to take care of the latest facebook privacy settings.

It’s truly shocking how many things I had to change since a year ago (fine, 9 months for you pedanticists), when I last set everything to “as private as it can be” and logged out. Facebook is apparently run by a bunch of sociopathic spamming markettroids who will take full advantage of any human trait as an exploitable weakness for them to profit from. This makes them both “something to invest in” AND “something to protect yourself from.”

I saw that there were a slew of messages — please, please PLEASE use my email instead. I read all of your facebook updates and links in google reader, using the RSS feeds that facebook provides, but it does not alert me to private messages, and I don’t want to log into facebook long enough to deal with those… no matter how much I might love you individually (hint, hint, Aunt Georgi!), I am determined to keep all my updates on my blog which feeds into both facebook and twitter, and where I own the original. Plus, the “like” button tracking me across websites gives me the heebie-jeebies (and it should do the same to you), so I refuse to even log in to facebook using my primary browser.

Now, I let my android phone sync my facebook contacts to my phone (but who knows how much longer that will last?), but rarely do more than click on a widget update that grabs my interest.

Long story short: do not message me on facebook, send me an email instead!

Thanks, folks.