I’m thinking about quitting Facebook and you should consider leaving too. My reason is simple: I do not trust Facebook with my information. More importantly I do not trust Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have repeatedly demonstrated their disrespect for their users and their privacy. Facebook touts the granular control of their privacy controls. Sure, they are there, but for the average person are almost impossible to use or understand. Furthermore, Facebook on multiple occasions has experienced privacy leaks. For example, earlier this year a glitch caused private messages to go to the wrong users (link). Zuckerberg himself has demonstrated disrespect for Facebook users’ privacy and his own lack of moral standards. For example: when Zuckerberg was building The Facebook, he was also allegedly working on a competing project, HarvardConnection, with other students. Instead of building HarvardConnection Zuckerberg stole their ideas and built his own social network (link). Another example is his instant messaging conversation (link) where he labels Facebook users as “dumb fucks” for trusting him with their private data. More recently a New York Times blogger shared that Zuckerberg does not believe in privacy (link). Clearly Zuckerberg’s interests, company, and money come first. The safety and privacy of Facebook users are of little concern to him.
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.
In some circles it is the holy grail of the BlackBerry. Countless hours have been wasted in bathrooms, airports, buses, subways, etc. by people all over the world playing the game of BrickBreaker. I myself, have fallen victim to all that is BlackBerry BrickBreaker. That being said, I am here to tell you that BrickBreaker is not all that it is cracked up to be.
I find the game more frustrating than anything. My largest compliant is that if a data transfer occurs while playing, it seems to bog the game down. Now that in it of itself is bad enough. To further compound the problem, when this happens the ball jumps randomly around the screen! I’ve even seen the ball go directly through bricks without breaking them. WTF? Also, there appears to be a magic space where the corners of two bricks meet. I can’t tell you how many times the ball has “slipped” through this little hole. Fuck you ball!
Lastly, the paddle. Oh, how I hate you paddle. I depend on the WHOLE paddle to play the game. Apparently the programmers did not intend for this. You see, sometimes the ball goes right thorough those curved corners. To make matters worse, sometimes the ball goes through the whole damn paddle. The paddle can go to hell! Now should the paddle be still when the ball hits it, the ball may just decide to speed up after bouncing off the paddle for no apparent reason. Who the fuck programmed this piece of shit?
Couple all of this with the fact that sometimes when I try to feather the paddle, it goes the complete opposite direction of the trackball! Now, I do attribute this more to sketchiness in the trackball than I do to the programming of BrickBreaker. Nonetheless, it is infuriating!
BrickBreaker is useful for one thing: instilling within me the strong desire to throw my beloved BlackBerry at the wall. You won’t win BrickBreaker! I’ll thwort you yet!
Published on
November 26, 2008 in
Rants.
<rant>While this great nation grants you the choice to purchase a domestic or foreign made automobile, make the right choice, purchase American made. This is particularly true in the Detroit area. If I hear one more person who drives a foreign vehicle that lives in the state of Michigan complaining about our current economic situation, I’m going to explode. Michigan’s economy is driven by the auto industry. Whether or not you directly work for one of the big 3 or a supplier of the big 3, your job likely depends on the strength of the domestic auto industry. Pull your heads out of your asses people: buy American made.
When you purchase a foreign made automobile, you forfeit your right to bitch about Michigan’s poor economic status. When you lose your job, when the value of your home decreases, when the quality of your child’s education suffers because the automobile industry is tanking: don’t complain to me about it. I won’t have sympathy for you. When you can’t find a job, I’ll be there watching and laughing.
When I lose my job because the domestic auto industry implodes, I’m going to kick your foreign automobile loving ass.</rant>
Published on
November 5, 2008 in
Rants.
I’m SO glad the election is over. The American political regime is such a sham; has been for quite a long time. Frankly I’m not sure it matters who wins anymore. We all know that special interest groups run the country. The person/group with the most money to throw around, gets what they want. So much for Democracy. At least I won’t have to endure all of the bullshit advertising campaigns for a few years.
I suppose it really boils down to this fact: I’ve lost all faith in the American government to do anything useful or productive. The only two things the government excels at is hemorrhaging money and meddling in the affairs of the rest of the world. The American economic engine is severely broken. The government’s solution? Throw $700 billion of tax payer money at the financial institutions in this country. How about a fix, instead of a band-aid?
Next presidential election, I’m voting for Jack Bauer.
Published on
September 28, 2008 in
Rants.
From the reviews I’ve read, Spore appears to be an excellent game. One of these days, I’ll actually get around to downloading the demo. That being said, I REFUSE to drop 50 of my hard earned dollars on a game that requires activation. For the uninformed: Spore comes with a three activation limit. After that you have to call EA to obtain each additional activation. EA may or may not choose to grant you an additional activation. They are under no obligation to do so. For a person like myself that re-installs Windows on a semi-annual basis just to keep it fresh, I could easily burn through 3 activations. Also, most avid gamers are continually upgrading their computer hardware. The upgrade may require a re-installation of Windows. Furthermore, what happens if EA shuts down the activation server? This would reduce your copy of Spore to a mere $50 coaster.
I cannot tell you how strongly I disagree with software activiation. While I realize piracy is an issue, all software activation accomplishes is punshing those who pay for it.
EDIT: It appears as though EA does not offer a demo of Spore. I found a demo for the Spore Creature Creator, but not the game itself. If anyone knows where to find a demo of Spore, please let me know.
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