Category: facebook

things that belong on facebook

Equality is coming. Are you on the right side of it?

From George Takei’s facebook:

Friends, on Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court hears the case that might finally bring marriage equality to all 50 states. I’m changing my profile for 48 hours (using the special tool at http://equality.georgetakei.com) to show my support. I address this not to my LGBT fans, but rather to our straight allies: We cannot do this without you. Stand with us, ?#?makeitcount?, and together we will achieve equality for all.

NOTE- Your overwhelming support has Takei’d the site. Please be patient with it and it will be up in no time.

makeitcount32804

Wow, facebook. You really, really suck.

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.

Want to celebrate “Quit Facebook Day” without quitting facebook?

As I just saw:

Viral clickjacking ‘Like’ worm hits Facebook users | Graham Cluley’s blog

And recently:

Facebook sez, “Don’t mind us, we’re just whoring out your photos”

Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook – Facebook – Gizmodo

Some quitting Facebook as privacy concerns escalate – CNN.com

Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won’t Help Facebook’s Privacy Problems

Facebook Privacy: Secrets Unveiled – PCWorld

ReclaimPrivacy.org | Facebook Privacy Scanner

A sneak peek at Facebook’s dra…

It’s Quit Facebook Day, Are You Leaving? – PC World

How to Return Facebook’s Privacy Settings to What You Signed Up For [Privacy]

Not that it’s much better, but I’m tied into Google pretty well, even using reader to aggregate all my RSS feeds. You can use that, or any other RSS aggregator you choose — just follow the guide that jwz provided many, many months ago. You’re halfway there, as now you can read all your friend’s updates without ever logging in to facebook directly.

Best bonus so far?  You’ll never, ever see another app update (think farmville, mafia wars, fishville, voleville, crapopolis…)

Now, you know that twitter account you signed up for but never use?  Tie that in to facebook.  There are many ways to do this. Myself, I’m using my wordpress blog as the base of everything, with the “Twitter Tools” plugin syncing my blog with my twitter account, and twitter pointing everything on to everything else. My photo uploads to picasa point to friendfeed (which is still actually facebook, but I’m logging out of that one as well…)

Before you log out for what may very well be the last time, you’ll want to fix your privacy settings as strictly as possible. Salt to taste how much email facebook will send you alerting you to comments people make to your posts (though you will not be able to obviously “like” or comment on their posts within facebook itself).

Since I’m doing this myself, I’m going to log in one last time, pointing people to this post.

Be sure you log out; otherwise you’ll still see that cnn (among many other sites) still tell facebook about your visits.

Catchup blogging…

These are all things that are either too specific or too small to deserve a post of their own.

15 books in 15 minutes

The rules:
Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me.

  1. The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon
  2. The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut
  3. Protector, Niven
  4. Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Lindsay
  5. The Disposessed, LeGuin
  6. Ender’s Game, Card
  7. The Fourth Hand, Irving
  8. Pattern Recognition, Gibson
  9. Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf
  10. Cryptonomicon, Stephenson
  11. Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, Lem
  12. The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
  13. Pale Blue Dot, Sagan
  14. Nine Short Stories, Salinger
  15. Foundation, Asimov

25 things

  1. Despite being thought of as least likely to be a father (for an abundance of reasons), I became a father before almost all of my friends.
  2. I have worked at many jobs, starting when I was 14. All of my jobs have been computer-related, no fast-food mcjob ever.
  3. I took 3 years off from working to raise my daughter.
  4. She was born in a minivan in front of the gynecologists’ office on the way back to the hospital after the hospital kicked us out for not progressing enough.
  5. We were the first gay couple to have a child at the hospital where she was scheduled for delivery.
  6. She is biologically related to one of us. We may know which one, we may not.
  7. I am amazed and grateful that her birth did not make the papers or TV news.
  8. Aside from the vaguely buddhist concepts of balance and cycles, I have a very low tolerance for supernatural concepts.
  9. I have yet to watch a full episode of any “reality” show. (This is not intended as a challenge) Daytime TV bugs me almost as much as “reality” shows.
  10. I find it very difficult to go to sleep if there is any light or sound in the room. Once asleep, I usually am down for the count.
  11. Once in 1987 we tried to go see a movie, but didn’t because we had already seen every film that was showing in Austin at the time.
  12. My daughter learned the word “sarcastic” before she was 4.
  13. I accidentally taught her the word “ass” when she was 2.? I consider it a minor accomplishment that she only learned one syllable.
  14. My best moment of parenting ever was at her first visit to the coast; we were all laden with beach accoutrements, and she went running ahead. A wave knocked her over, and I dropped what I was carrying to go rescue her.? Before I could get there, another wave had spun her around. As I reached her, she was getting ready to (deservedly) start wailing. I said, “Ocean, you are getting a TIME OUT!” just as the undertow went back, so instead of crying, I got giggles. Saved the day and every beach trip since.
  15. Since she was born, I have taken about 3000 photos and videos each year, and saved all of them.
  16. The best camera is the one you have when you need it. My phone preference is for a camera with a phone attached, not a phone with a camera attached.
  17. As Dell Computer’s first webmaster, I taught Michael Dell to surf the web back in 1994. The very first webserver at Dell ran on stolen and borrowed hardware (ESDI drives, anyone?) and ran linux 0.93; the first production webserver ran BSDI. I only physically saw that box once, after I had run it for over a year.
  18. I have been on the internet since 1987.
  19. I hate driving in traffic more than you.
  20. I’ve been reading ebooks since 1994, and rarely purchase paper copies anymore. We still have the largest library of any household I know.
  21. We get the local paper daily, and the New York Times on weekends.? About once a fortnight, one of them passes the trash and gets into the house.? Sometimes the survivors get read.? Every time I try to stop the delivery, there is a minor argument, so now I just laugh at it.
  22. I have had glancing blows with fame.? People knowing who I am (without me knowing who they) are creeps me out; I would rather stay behind the scenes.
  23. I have the signatures of Phillip Glass, Charles Fleishman, and Ryan Stiles on my palm pilot. None of them have touched my current one.
  24. I will work very hard in order to not have to work hard.
  25. The only redeeming features of southern California are warm weather and? sunsets over the Pacific.? New York City is superior in every other way.

Bucket list

Things you have done during your lifetime:

() Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
() Watched someone die
(X) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
() Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
() Been on a helicopter
(X) Been lost
(X) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
() Cried yourself to sleep
() Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
( ) Sang Karaoke
() Paid for a meal with coins only (man that waitress was PISSED)
(X) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t
() Made prank phone calls
(X) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
() Danced in the rain-naked
() Written a letter to Santa Claus
() Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched a sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
(X) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
(X ) Been sky diving
(X) Gone snowmobiling
(X) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(X) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
() Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
(X) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horseback riding
(X) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(X) Been to Disneyland
(X) Been to Disney World
( ) Truly believe in the power of prayer
() Been in a rain forest
(X) Seen whales in the ocean
(X) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
() Swam with dolphins
() Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
() Been spinnaker flying
(X) Been water-skiing
(X) Been snow-skiing
() Been to Westminster Abbey
(X) Been to the Louvre
(X ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to a Major League Baseball game
(X) Been to a National Football League game
(X) Been to an NHL Game

Alternative names

1. YOUR REAL NAME:
Singletary Harold Snyder, Jr.

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother and fathers middle names)
Harold Tonne

3. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad)
Singletary forgotten

4. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Snyja

5. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Gnu

6. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, town where you were born)
Harold Manhattan

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add “THE” to the beginning)
The Green Diet Coke (actually, the nadir)

8. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Sisn

9. STREET NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
Mint Chocolate Chip Chocolate Chip

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet’s name, street you grew up on)
Tuffy Von Hugecock.  (Sorry, Larry David.  I’m not grown up yet.)

11. YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Nivet

12. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy
Stetson Junior Mint (Wow, that didn’t work out well!)

Another survey

Am I the only one who realized that 12, 20, 25 and 36 were missing from the list?

  1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My father and his father before him
  2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Been a while…
  3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Not even.? There is a reason I type…
  4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Turkey
  5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? One
  6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Maybe. Would I be more or less of an asshole?
  7. DO YOU USE SARCASM? Do I use anything else?
  8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes
  9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Never.? Skydive, but no bungee nor scuba.
  10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Eggs.
  11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Never.
  12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? melted Chocolate Chip Mint
  13. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Hair
  14. RED OR PINK? Purple
  15. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? My temper.
  16. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
  17. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST? Eh.
  18. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Tan shorts and white golf shoes.
  19. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Kids running and playing.
  20. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? I would be a red dry-erase marker.
  21. FAVORITE SMELLS? Johnson’s baby soap
  22. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Cy
  23. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Golf
  24. HAIR COLOR? Black.? And grey.? Hints of brown and red.
  25. EYE COLOR? Blue with green flecks.
  26. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Yes
  27. FAVORITE FOOD? Sushi
  28. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Dramatic endings
  29. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? 1984
  30. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Light blue golf shirt
  31. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer
  32. HUGS OR KISSES? Depends on the other person involved…
  33. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Not sure
  34. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Not sure
  35. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW? Footfall
  36. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Ummmm… a mouse?? Actually, a touchpad.
  37. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?Colbert
  38. FAVORITE SOUND(S)? Grace’s giggle
  39. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? The Beatles
  40. WHAT’S THE FARTHEST YOU’VE BEEN FROM HOME? San Francisco
  41. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I have a superpower.? I am The Nadir.? Give me any scenario, and I can make it worse.
  42. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Manhattan
  43. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Not sure
  44. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER? Through my mom.
  45. COFFEE OR TEA? Diet coke.
  46. BEER OR WINE? Old fashioneds.
  47. SUDOKU OR SCRABBLE? Both.