I’m very pleased to see that someone else is attempting to solve my Script Challenge. Check the most recent comments. I’m still surprised that it remains unsolved after three years.
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I just deleted my Facebook account. I do not wish to do business with these people.
Facebook simply doesn’t understand that their way of doing business is unacceptable. Given the repeated public statements by their founder Mark Zuckerberg, who’s on some personal mission to make the world “more open” — whatever the hell that means — that’s unlikely to change. Fuck him.
I’ve already outlined some of Facebook’s privacy problems a fortnight ago on the Patch Monday podcast, and for ABC Unleashed in Is it time to close your Facebook account?
The core problem is that the very idea of Facebook privacy is a contradiction.
As users, we want to limit the information we disclose about ourselves, to control who sees what. As Mark Pesce writes, this control goes to the heart of trust and personal safety. In theory Facebook agrees. “You should have control over what you share,” says its privacy guide.
Yet Facebook’s business model is best served by exposing your personal information as widely as possible. To advertisers, so they can target advertising more accurately and pay more for the privilege. To other users, to encourage them to share more as well. To search engines, to bring more traffic to Facebook. To anyone who wants to pay.
Throughout its six-year history, as this infographic shows, every time Facebook changes its privacy controls, the default settings always reduce your privacy.
If Facebook were serious about protecting its users privacy, it’d look very different indeed. And if they respected their users as people, they’d respect their clearly-indicated decision to delete their account — not deliberately make the deletion process hard to find and instead steer them through some half-arsed deactivation process while hitting them with emotional blackmail about how random friends will miss me.
No, Facebook, if I delete my account everyone will still be able to contact me. Any time they like. Don’t lie to me.
Jason Langenauer has posted his thoughts on leaving Facebook too. Renai LeMay documents five more reasons. They’re both good articles, but they over-think it. It’s all much simpler than that.
Facebook behaves like an arsehole, and I don’t do business with arseholes.
A quick reminder: I’m about to head to Seattle for the rest of this week, returning to Sydney on Sunday 30 May 2010. Why? I’m visiting Microsoft to talk security. I’ll be posting pictures and stuff at my new Posterous site, Stilgherrian’s Stream. Also on Sunday, we’ll be watching Eurovision on the big screen at Kelly’s on King, Newtown, gathering there from about 6pm. See you then?
Fifty days from today is my 50th birthday. Yes, Five Zero. This is the first in a series of blog posts to celebrate that milestone.
I’m not quite sure how this will unfold, except that each day I’ll find a photo or object or concept that relates to the year of my life in question — in this case that’s, erm, gulp, 1960 — and see what emerges.
Today’s photo was taken when I was just six weeks old.
That’s my father holding me. He was 35 years old. Yes, rather old for that era, but he’d been married before and had a daughter. The fact that he divorced and re-married was so scandalous in rural South Australia that the daughter was taken away to live with her grandparents and they cut off all contact with him. The first time I met anyone from my father’s side of the family was at his funeral a decade later.
And yes, dad is smoking around the baby. Different times, eh? Not the ever-present pipe I remember him for, but a black Bakelite cigarette holder.
The dog’s name was Toby.
The photo would have been taken by my mother using a Kodak Box Brownie camera in the back yard of our house at 43 Adelaide Road, Gawler. The house is still there, but with what looks like a really low-grade renovation.
I’ll also be posting photos at Flickr (there’s another 6-weeks-old image there already) and mapping locations at Google Maps (see over the jump).
Shhh! Don’t tell anyone, but my new SEKRIT podcast The 9pm Edict starts this coming Monday 22 February 2010.
Since my last post on this subject two months ago I’ve seen a substantial drop in advertising material in my letterbox. While I haven’t complained to the perpetrators who continued to ignore the “no advertising material” sign, let’s list them for posterity.
The new guilty parties are: 3 Mangoes Thai; Arthur, a builder; Australia Wide Tax Solutions; Bus Stop Espresso; Caldo Pizza; Domino’s Pizza (yet again, twice); Chadwick Plumbing; Civic Video; Essence of India restaurant; Green Ecovations: Hot’n'Spicy Thai; James Wilson Pest Management; Just Screw It (carpenters!); L J Hooker (the real estate agent, again); Lat-Dior African Eatery; Moon Koon Chinese Restaurant; Notes Live Music Restaurant and Bar; Patrick Coughlan, electrician; Pavarotti Gourmet Pizza; Ray White Real Estate; S & W Building Services; San Remo Pizza; Smiles (a dental clinic); Stanmore Natural Health; Steve’s Budget Gutter Cleaning; Thingk Baby [sic]; Urbane Inner West (another real estate agent); Yoga To Go.
I still want to know why real estate agents figure so prominently. And I still want to know why Domino’s customer service people never reply to their emails.





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