With MySpace dying a slow painful death, Facebook has a social networking monopoly. I look forward to the next social platform which usurps Facebook’s hold on our lives.

Most people listen to crappy music. Why these people feel the need to subject me to it while I am calling them is beyond me. I already hate talking on the phone, and having to listen to the crappy song of the week while calling someone only makes the experience worse. All I need to verify that my call is being successfully received by the other person is the standard 440 Hz + 480 Hz tone.

I am now instituting a new policy. If you feel the need to subject me to a personalized ringback tone when I call you, I no longer feel the need to call you.

MySpace is a cesspool of degenerates, shoddy html, poor design, and oh yes…music. I believe this is the direction Facebook is heading. Facebook users are now facing an onslaught of friend requests from people whom they causally know (at best),  shady applications, pointless quizzes, and let us not forget status updates which you MUST repost if you support the cause of the hour. Not to mention that you have to read every couples love fest back and forth to each other. This is one problem I really do not understand. There are several options for communicating PRIVATELY to your partner how you feel. Email, text message, instant message, or even a private Facebook message are all excellent choices. If you and your partner feel the need to constantly inundate your Facebook friends with lovey-dovey public messages to each other, perhaps you should re-evaluate your relationship. Are you trying to convince each other you are in love or the public at large? Ether answer is cause for concern. The friend requests. Oh, the friend requests. These come from people you casually meet in the journey of life, friend’s parents, or people whom you have not talked to in a decade. The problem here is that EVERYONE is on Facebook these days. That being said, Facebook does not make it easy enough to share what I want to with only the people I want to.  I wistfully remember the days when Facebook membership was limited to college students.

Another problem is that Facebook is becoming too large for itself. Facebook is attempting to do everything. The problem with doing everything is that it does nothing well and everything mediocre. Take Twitter and Foursquare for example. These two companies offer a core service which they excel at. So far they only offer their respective core services and I hope they stick to them. Facebook is stepping on everyone else’s toes by trying to integrate other companies’ offerings into their product portfolio. Facebook is on a path to follow Microsoft in their footsteps. Becoming a company so large and unmanageable that it cannot offer a quality product customers can believe in and rely upon. The current similarity between these two companies is that their product is so widely used that people use them simply because everyone else does. Note: While I am a user of Microsoft products, they do have their issues.

Perhaps I just have a different idea of what Facebook should be used for. I would like to use it to communicate with my friends without all of the fluffy nonsense. I would like a simple and straightforward service to share my random thoughts, useful things I find while browsing the net, or  other things I believe my friends would be interested in. I do not need or want requests to join stupid causes, take some pointless quiz, or become “friends” with someone I have not talked to in over a decade. Especially those people that send me a friend request, but after becoming “friends” never actually communicate with me. I do not want to read your pointless status update about how you support some random cause or how much you love your partner. I simply do not care. I will stick with Twitter.

All of you have several other ways of contacting me: by phone, SMS, email, Google Talk, Twitter (http://twitter.com/neuor), or this site.

I do not consider leaving Facebook a loss, but rather liberation from a self-serving company.

Facebook needs to restore trust in their company. To do this Facebook needs to make a couple of changes. First, change the default privacy settings for user data from public to private. ALL of my information on Facebook should be private until I expressly change it to become public. Not the other way around. When I delete my Facebook account ALL of my information and data should be COMPLETELY and PERMANENTLY deleted. Rather, Facebook holds onto your data for 14 days in case you change your mind. I can see this as useful for people who are unsure they want to separate from Facebook, but there should also be an option to delete my data instantly. Making the situation even worse is the fact that if you delete your account not all of your data is removed. Facebook Help states “Copies of some material (photos, notes, etc.) may remain in our servers for technical reasons…” (link). What is SO hard about deleting my data? Please, just remove it from your servers!

The one thing we all need to remember is that Facebook’s goal is to make money. To make money Facebook sells advertising space. Facebook uses your information to show you advertisements you might be interested in. While Facebook states that no information which can identify you is used for this purpose, there is nothing stopping them from using identifiable information. Combine that with Facebook’s demonstrated disregard for user privacy and I believe it is only a matter of time.

Do I trust my information with other companies, to some degree I do. Can I actually trust any of them? Maybe, maybe not. The emphasis here is that Facebook and Zuckerberg have repeatedly demonstrated a blatant disrespect and disregard for their users’ privacy. This we cannot ignore.

I tell you it will shake the earth beneath your feet
The light that shines will redefine your old beliefs
What you reap is what you sow and so it goes
Where you plant your needs is where your garden grows
Before you think about yourself
Think of someone else, it will make you feel

Each day ain’t wine and roses
I doubt it’s meant to be
Always a cross to bear salvation don’t come free
A heart that beats is a heart that bleeds
And you know that’s true
So don’t deny yourself of something good for you
Before you do it for yourself, do it for someone else
That makes it real

‘Cause when you love someone
It don’t matter what you say
When you love someone
You will dance the night away
When you love someone
There ain’t nothing you can’t do
Ain’t that right
Yeah I want to love someone tonight

Will you believe in love or just sit around and judge?
Can you forgive someone or will u hold a grudge?
Cuz above selfishness there lies a bright blue sky
And wealth and happiness can be a long and lonesome ride
Yes it’s hard to steer yourself
Without that someone else to take the wheel
Take the wheel

Do you believe in the art of growing old
Do you believe that rock n roll can save your soul
Do you believe in everything you do
Cuz when you do that’s when it all comes back to you
Before you think about yourself
Think of someone else
Do it for yourself
And do it for someone else

In this farewell
There’s no blood
There’s no alibi
‘Cause I’ve drawn regret
From the truth
Of a thousand lies

So let mercy come
And wash away
What I’ve done

I’ll face myself
To cross out what I’ve become
Erase myself
And let go of what I’ve done

Put to rest
What you thought of me
While I clean this slate
With the hands of uncertainty

For what I’ve done
I start again
And whatever pain may come
Today this ends
I’m forgiving what I’ve done!

What I’ve done
Forgiving what I’ve done

It Came Out of Nowhere

As a student of all sciences, I have dedicated the better part of my life and my family fortune to science. Today that dedication is recognized. Ya know, the funny thing is, I almost destroyed the very discovery I am being recognized for: the flux capacitor – which, as you all know, is what makes time travel possible. The concept for the flux capacitor originally came to me on November 5th, 1955. I remember the day well. I was standing on the edge of my toilet hanging a clock, the porcelain was wet, I slipped, and hit my head on the edge of the sink. When I came to I had a revelation, a vision, a picture in my head, a picture of the flux capacitor.

30 years later, in 1985, I realized the vision of that day. The way I saw it, if I was going to build a time machine into a car I was going to do it with some style. Besides, the stainless steel construction of the DeLorean was the perfect conductor for flux dispersal. On October 26^th, 1985 I saw the success of temporal experiment number one. During which I was able to send my dog Einstein, exactly one minute into the future. Once I caught up with Einstein and the time machine a minute later I was able to verify that the molecular structure of Einstein and the car were completely intact. It was at this point I knew that the flux capacitor worked.

After a few more trials I recognized there was a significant downside to my initial design. The original flux capacitor required an immense amount of electricity – 1.21 gigawatts to be exact. The only natural source of that amount of electricity is a bolt of lightning. Unfortunately, no one knows when and where one will strike. My work on the Manhattan Project provided me with the knowledge necessary to construct a small nuclear reactor to facilitate the generation of electricity required by the flux capacitor. Unfortunately, you can’t just walk into a store and purchase plutonium. I ended up using plutonium which was ripped off from a group of Libyan Nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn gave them a shiny bomb case full of used pinball machine parts.

Today I feel proud that I am able to share this technology with the world. The responsibility of time travel cannot be taken lightly. The slightest change in history can have a catastrophic effect on future events. For this reason, I propose the creation of the Institute of Future Technology. This worldwide organization will govern all time travel activities and technologies.

To conclude, I would like to thank the science community for recognizing my lifetime commitment to the world of science by honoring me with this Nobel Prize in Physics. I would also like to extend a very special thank you to my friend Marty. Good day.

Last Friday the renovation work on my Mom’s kitchen began. Which means I have been assisting with that project. I went shopping with Mom on Saturday for a new over the range microwave and dishwasher. Several hours and 4 stores later we settled on a Kenmore dishwasher and GE microwave from Sears. Overall, it is a pretty large project. The kitchen is being gutted with the wall between the kitchen and dining room being removed. The sink and dishwasher will now be in an island. New cabinets along with a pantry and broom closet will be installed. The carpet in the dining room is going and the hardwood floor beneath will be resurfaced. All in all it should be an excellent change for her.

My latest project has been the configuration of an AsteriskNOW server. I’m hosting the Asterisk server inside a VMware Server virtual machine. The server is configured to use SIP and I currently have 5 extensions configured for myself and a few friends. I’m using a Cisco 7970, my roommate a Cisco 7960, and another friend is using the X-Lite soft phone. The project has presented a couple of challenges. One is configuring phones outside of my local network to work properly with NAT. Secondly, the configuration for a 7970 is different than that of a 7960. The 7970s now use XML files for all of its configuration. Nonetheless the 5 extensions work and can call each other. The next phase of this project is to integrate the Asterisk box with my VoicePulse account. This will allow us to make calls on the PSTN and also receive calls from the PSTN. I’ll provide another update as to how that goes.

Sorry for the long post, I needed to bring you all up to speed on what I’ve been up to.

I’d like to thank all veterans of the US Armed Forces for their service to this great nation. It is their sacrifice which allows the rest of us to enjoy the freedoms we take for granted on a daily basis. Again, thank you.

I’ve officially decided to give up all forms of booze for an indefinite period of time. By indefinite, I mean until the Halloween party.