Facebook Stupidity and a Heroic Kid

Two things to talk about in today's post, both from the same story.

A teenage Michigan boy was a hero recently, when he let a desperate woman into his house and then helped fend off her attacker.

The unidentified woman was apparently kidnapped, raped, and then the perpetrator was transporting her somewhere in her car when she jumped out and escaped. She saw the light on at the boy's house (his father had left to pick up his fiance and so the boy was taking care of his two younger siblings) and pounded on the door, calling for help. The man was chasing her.

With quick thinking, the boy let her in, made sure all the doors were locked, and didn't let the man's shouted threats intimidate him. He called his dad and the woman called 9-11. After an aborted attempt to set fire to the house, the man ran away, and was later killed by police.

It's an inspiring story, and I encourage you to go to the link above and read the details. The kid is a hero.

The story also prompted something else to pop into my mind, though, and it's the real reason for this post.

Stupid Facebook behaviour.

You Don't Know Jack

A "Dis or Dat" answer

No, I'm not insulting you.

Instead, I'm introducing you to a really fun trivia game that's currently on Facebook and is on its way to Android and iOS devices.

You Don't Know Jack is a long and storied trivia franchise on the PC, but I never played it until the last version came out on consoles. It was really nicely-priced at $30, but I guess it didn't do very well.

Then Jellyvision Games hit the mother lode: Facebook!!!

Now You Don't Know Jack is one of the few Facebook games I play every day.

The game is hosted by a character named Cookie Masterson, and his jokes are usually pretty funny. Or at least amusing if nothing else. He welcomes you to the show with things like this one that I heard on the game I played today (paraphrased from memory):

"Hi, this is Cookie, and I'll be with you after I file a complaint about this truck driver. Let's see, 1-800.....E....A....T...S...H...Hey!!!!"

Each game consists of five questions, which can either be straight trivia questions, a Dis or Dat (where he gives you seven things and you tell him which of two choices each thing is a member of), a gibberish question (where you are given a gibberish phrase and you say what TV show, saying, or something else that it rhymes with), or several other ideas. The fifth question is the Jack Attack, where you have to make the best match possible.

Better Facebook - changing your Facebook experience for the better

Are you frustrated with the new Facebook user interface? Are there things you would like to do on Facebook that the interface just doesn't allow you to do?

There's an app for that.

Ok, an "extension," but that doesn't sound nearly as trendy.

It's an extension called "Better Facebook," and I find it works like a dream.

One of the most popular posts on this blog is my "Somebody Unfriended You on Facebook?" post, detailing a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that allows you to see who has dropped you from their Friends list.

(Incidentally, the family member referred to in that post is now on my Facebook friends list, so I hope she doesn't go back to read that!)

Facebook Fan Page

I've been doing this blog since July 2009 (wow, almost a year and a half now!) and one thing I hadn't done yet was to set up a Facebook fan page.

There really wasn't any reason for not doing it. All of my blogging friends were doing it. But for some reason, I just never did.

Until now.

Yes, I am now part of the Facebook community. Now I just have to figure out a way to tap into Zuckerberg's millions (we all get a cut, right?).

Anyway, I would love it if my regular readers (or even my irregular readers, though there are products to fix that) would become a fan! Throw me a bone, show some support. Let me know that I'm not all alone out there.

There are two ways you can do that.

First, you can go to the Facebook page itself (you have to be logged in to do anything, though).

Or, much more easily, just scroll down until you see the "Facebook Fans" listing on the right side of the page. There's a handy little "like" button right there!

And please do me a favour.

If I don't already know you, leave a post on my Wall letting me know how you found the blog! And let me know what you think, too. I love feedback.

Well, not this kind.

But constructive feedback is always appreciated!

And to those of you who are already fans, thanks!

15 Authors - a different take

This is another one of those Facebook memes that's going around (they seemed to take a powder for a little while, or at least nobody deigned to include me). When I was tagged in this meme, I said to myself "Self," (because I always address myself), "why not post this to your blog instead of Facebook? She reads the blog anyway, thus fulfilling the contractual Facebook obligations of responding to these memes" (it's signed in blood...didn't you realize that's what they were doing when you felt that prick on your finger the first time you logged in?)

The Rules - Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors, poets included, who've influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I am interested in seeing what authors my friends choose.

Ok, I won't be tagging anybody specifically, but any of you who are reading this must respond!!! You....cannot.....resist.....

Mine are after the break. Not only will I name the author, but also their finest work, or at least what affected me the most.

New Facebook game addiction (or "I apologize for being a hypocrite")

Many moons ago, I did a post complaining about all of the Facebook games that would constantly show up on my newsfeed because my friends were playing them: Farmville, ThemeParkVille, PointlessWasteofTimeville, you know the ones.

Thankfully, I think I've hidden most of the really annoying ones. I haven't seen a quiz in I don't know how long, so I don't know whether people just aren't doing them anymore or if I've successfully blocked them all.

But here's where I kneel before you and ask you to dub me "Chief Hypocrite".

I'm kind of addicted to the new Family Feud game, and you will be seeing that pop up on your newsfeed from me.

Facebook Exodus - Will you leave?

And will you take me with you?

According to Mashable, a couple of users are trying to organize a mass-deletion of Facebook accounts on May 31, due to the privacy issues that are plaguing the site since its recent privacy policy changes. They're encouraging as many people as possible to leave the site on that date, and (I would assume) never come back.

Oh no, think of the family photos that will go unexamined!

Parents, Kids, Facebook - Good Combination?

Are you a parent? Do you want to know what your kids are up to? Short of hiding in their trunk as they go up to Lookout Point for their "party", it's hard to keep track of kids sometimes. However, it's not as hard as it used to be.

Just "friend" them on Facebook! Then you've got the ins and outs of their daily lives and maybe, just maybe, you might grow to understand them a little bit better. Or, you might be even more mystified by them too. That's always possible.

An interesting article on Mashable mentions a survey that says 48% of parents "friend" their kids on Facebook. Do that many parents really want to keep that close of an eye on their kids? And, the more pertinent question, do that many kids really not care that their parents are following their every move?

Potpourri (Part 2)

Subjects: iPhone blog reader, Google taking over world, Farmville

Here's the second of possibly many installments of something I like to call "Potpourri," or "stuff too short to become blog posts." You may get some of these on days where I have a few coherent thoughts about random things, but nothing that really seems to call for a big blog post.

"Defriended" - Facebook iPhone app gone before I could blog about it

My most popular post, bar none, is "Somebody unfriended you on Facebook?"  It seems a lot of people want to know how to figure out who has dropped them as a Facebook friend.  And Facebook (by design, I assume), doesn't make that easy.  Most of the time (at least for me, when I was researching it), it wasn't because I was going to go crawling after them, begging them to take me back.  It was just for my own information so I knew not to ask them again (for example, a high school friend that dropped you, and months later you're going through your graduating class list and thinking "why didn't I send her a friend request?" and do it again).

I thought that post was going to be obsolete, though, after I heard that i-Doodz had released an app for the iPhone called "Defriended."  It was an app that did basically the same thing as the Greasemonkey script I mention in my post.  It takes a list of your friends, and then every time you log in, it takes another list and compares them.  If there are people missing, it tells you.

I guess Facebook didn't like that.

What happens if you die and you've got a Facebook account?

That's a question that Time.com addresses in this article.

This recently became an issue due to the new Facebook "reconnect" suggestions, where you are given two suggestions:  one of them is somebody who many of your friends are friends with (suggesting that you should become friends with them too), and another is one who either hasn't been on Facebook in a while, or you haven't interacted with in a while (I'm not sure on that one).  At any rate, when that was implemented, some people complained that people who had died were showing up on the list, and they were pretty perturbed.  I have had only one of my FB friends die, and sure enough, she showed up in my "suggestions" box for somebody I should reconnect with.  Since I was already aware of all of this, it didn't piss me off or anything.

Does Facebook "Poking" Count as "Communication?"

For one woman in Tennessee, it certainly did, at least according to police.

A Tennessee woman was arrested for "Poking" another woman on Facebook, essentially breaking a legal order of protection against the woman that barred her from "telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating with the petitioner, directly or indirectly."  Supposedly, this "poke" counts as communication, at least legally.

Do you agree?

Facebook Games - Fun or Annoying?

Anybody who uses Facebook for more than a few days is familiar with the message of dread, the notification of evil.  The infamous "John Smith is kicking ass in Mafia Wars and wants you to join his gang!" notices.  Or "Jill Jones has helped you out in Farmville! Click here to return the favor!" message.  Or yet another god-forsaken quiz!  Yes, these kinds of apps and games are all the rage on Facebook, and I would assume that much of the traffic that has been driven away from Facebook is driven away because of these incessant messages.  My news feed is cluttered with people taking "What kind of sex crime would you be charged with?" quizzes (or something like that; I'm sure they exist).

Facebook did a wonderful thing when they let you hide those notices from your newsfeed, but they didn't go far enough.  You can only react to them rather than cancelling them out before they're inflicted on you.  The same thing with the game notices, though they aren't quite as bad.  It would be nice if each quiz/app/whatever had a category, and you could choose to exclude anything from that category from your newsfeed.  It would be totally up to you to cancel them, because I'm all for user choice.

Somebody Unfriended you on Facebook? (Also: spurned by family)

Many Updates Below - make sure you read them all

So, you have your Facebook account which you go to regularly. You've got 250 friends now! Good for you! You're popular, or at least you have a lot of associations with different people, all wanting to know what you're doing on Facebook.

But suddenly, you notice that you only have 249 friends. Oh no!!!! Who dropped you from their hallowed list? Unfortunately, there's no way to tell on Facebook. You don't get any notice that somebody has dropped you. You just see your number of friends drop, and then keep dropping, and going down, down, down....Good heavens, what did you do??

Anyway, now there is a way you can find out who has dropped you, as long as you're using Firefox as your browser.