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http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703
There is a feature for this already. Thank you.

I find the field really exciting right now. I've built a hexapod driven by open source code and I hope to develop it into either a rapid prototyper or a 6-axis CNC (depending on how stable I can get it)

More info here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKpIoI0G7CE , here: http://visual-hexapod.sourceforge.net/ , and here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SPIDEE-1/113425788691280?v=wall

I'd love some help improving the design & firmware. With the low entry cost for arduino and sensors, the biggest expense is servos. There's no reason you can't build your own 3-axis miller for

http://www.facebook.com/votejudyjennings

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?src=fftb#!/pages/Boycott-any-publisher-that-changes-its-content-to-suit-Texas/107361885959456?ref=ts

Now let's calculate how much potential productivity is lost to Facebook. So, let's see: from Facebook's own statistics it's users spend over 500 billion minutes per month. Assuming a very conservative 5% of that time could/should be spent being productive (the other 95% we'll assume is a reasonable quantity of recreation), that's 25 billion minutes a month. Divide by 60 for hours, divide my 40 for work week, divide by 51 for year, divide by 45 for a lifetime of work and...

Over 4,500 entire lifetimes of potential productivity are wasted every month on Facebook (assuming, of course, that the other 95% of the time spent is a reasonable amount of recreation/socialization). Virtual socialization? Simulated productivity (Farmville, et al)? Lives spent plugged in? The Matrix, thy name is Facebook. Now imagine the not-too-distant day when there are products/services that can combine the appeal(s) of WoW, Facebook and T.V./movies/music into one gigantic escapist experience.
 

While I've "closed" my Facebook (seriously, why there isn't a true close account option?)

https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

While I've "closed" my Facebook (seriously, why there isn't a true close account option?) for privacy reasons, lets look at it on technical terms. It's a problem with the referrer field being sent by browsers, nothing intentional on Facebook's part. If you have referrer sending disabled you aren't affected by this.

It's a bad combination of browsers sending referrer, Facebook using real names for everything and Facebook not providing enough privacy options to hide your profile, and Facebook not using https or iframing the ad box (in that case referrer would just show something like http://www.facebook.com/ads/ ).

I guess those ad networks don't actually have something that gets the personal info for clicks, but it's a possibility and I bet the referrer is saved, at least in logs and statistics.

Of course, majority of people don't care so business will continue as usual.

You're looking at this from the point of "those Muslims are trying to tell us what we can say".

Are you telling me that's not what's happening?

If you seek to understand the average Muslim perspective though, conduct the following though experiment: that you are black and some is chanting "nigger nigger nigger nigger" in your face...

What about this concept is so hard for you to get?

Yes, people have the right to do that in the free world. Freedom of speech is worthless unless it also means freedom to say things you disagree with.

Except, of course, they don't have the right to do it right in your face. Which this isn't. No one is forcing you to go to that particular Facebook page out of thousands -- but you are drawing far more attention to it than it deserves by blocking all of Facebook because of this one bit that's offensive.

In fact, someone did exactly that on Facebook, and the US hasn't blocked Facebook.

Don't get mad, you don't have to right to tell people what they can say.

Those are two separate issues.

First, it's entirely up to you whether or not you take offense. Take the "nigger" situation -- you could get angry, or you could feel sorry for the poor troll who has nothing better to do than harass you, or you could ignore them altogether.

Second, there's nothing wrong with taking offense, or telling people what you think they should say. Where it crosses the line is when you start actually preventing them from saying it at all (by censoring an entire network because of a few offensive posts), or when you respond to someone's mere expression with violence, or threats of violence.

I don't see why that is such a hard concept to get. Hate speech is legal, and the best way to deal with it is to counter with calm, rational discourse, or to ignore it altogether and thus deny its power. Death threats are not legal, nor should they be tolerated, and actions like censorship are in an entirely different category.

It's not an analogy. I'm saying this is what it *feels* like for the average Muslim. Note I say average Muslim, not extremist.

And here's how one Muslim chose to respond.

Moreover, I'm not sure whether it should feel that way at all, if you understand your own religion. Think about it: Why did Mohammed forbid depictions of himself? To prevent just what happens every time you follow his name with "Peace Be Upon Him" -- to prevent himself (or any other prophet) from being deified, from being worshiped over Allah. Merely drawing the prophet should be no more blasphemous to you than it would be to draw Jesus Christ, who, as I understand, is also held to be a prophet.

This issue has the potential to radicalize more people than Al-Qaeda ever dreamed of.

No, they do that themselves. Mere expression cannot make you hate unless you allow it to.

I'm not asking you to care, I'm asking you to understand.

Well, I am asking you to care. Watch the DawahFilms video I linked to. Don't just shrug this off, use this as an opportunity to prove us embarrassingly wrong, and to set an example to your brothers and sisters about how Islam truly can be a religion of peace.

Or you can be silent, allowing your louder extremists to speak for you. Or you can actually defend censorship and barbarism. Your choice.

http://twitter.com/google
http://www.facebook.com/Google

Nope, only 11 people liked this as of the time I checked.

Because don't forget, even with all the whining about Facebook on Slashdot, Slashdot is on Facebook.

Although, strangely enough, this story didn't appear in my Facebook news feed, I had to go to the Slashdot page to see it. Hmmmm...

Nope, only 11 people liked this as of the time I checked.

Because don't forget, even with all the whining about Facebook on Slashdot, Slashdot is on Facebook.

Although, strangely enough, this story didn't appear in my Facebook news feed, I had to go to the Slashdot page to see it. Hmmmm...

I wonder if the creator of Geek-Girl comics had a fight with this lady first over the trademark? http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/geekgirlcomic?ref=search&sid=1060724388.1755563054..1

Here

Also, a little background, courtesy of Wikipedia

Deleting your account isn't as easy as you may think, but here are the instructions: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

There's a facebook group about that add - http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-wouldnt-steal-a-car-But-id-download-one-if-i-could/183252739422'>"I wouldn't steal a car, but I'd download one if I could."

Would this help Paul Chambers, the man who was found guilty of sending a menacing messages for his sarcastic Twitter bomb threat? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=265300406002

Actually, it kind of does. If you have a null hypothesis "there is no link between cellphone use and brain cancer" then an inconclusive result would fail to disprove the null hypothesis and therefore affirm it. This is based on choosing a null hypothesis that is based on the sensible default position, which in this study is fine as long as you're the kind of person who is willing/capable of understanding that we are constantly bathed in all sorts of EM radiation of which cellphones only play a small part and that the default position from a conventional understanding of physics is that they're likely to be harmless.

It's also based on the idea that, for a risk factor for cancer(s) significant enough to be worth worrying about, we would expect to see an obvious and conclusive result. For instance, when testing the null hypothesis "there is no like between smoking and lung cancer", the observed data would overwhelmingly reject the null hypothesis. The reality is that there's all sorts of things that people think cause cancer, and many of them may do (e.g. drinking hot drinks regularly is linked with oral cancer) but most of the risk factors aren't significant to be worth worrying about.

There is an option beyond deactivating: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account. That is what I've done, but I haven't confirmed whether or not they have erased all my data. And yes, that link was rather difficult to find. I was first tricked into deactivating my account when I attempted to delete it. In addition, you are completely right about exporting. It took me around an hour to download and save each individual photo I had.

The "$100 Walmart Gift Cards" have been around as long as I can remember. They fall under the same category as the "Free iPods" thing that went around the internet in 2003-2005.*

Facebook is now a popular website, so of course advertisers are going to target them. If you really want to see how targeted they can make ads, go create your own on facebook. I'm using it to recruit for our Rugby team. I can target gender, age, interests, geographical area (and radius), etc.

*My first 'nice' camera was a Canon SD 550 that I got for free, I got one for my girlfriend at the time. I got 8 iPods for free (used one and sold off the rest). My parents have a MacMini I got for free. My main TV is a 37" 720p Samsung I got for free. I've gotten the $100 Walmart gift cards before.

You just have to read ALL the fine print and make sure you follow the rules/directions to the letter. Cancel any offers you set up (or use a disposable credit card number like I did).

I didn't "quit"[*] because I was afraid my data was being leaked to my phone. I "quit" because it was being leaked across the whole goddamn Internet. This move is beyond worthless, and shows just how Zuck doesn't get it.

  [*] No one really quits. They just "deactivate," while facebook keeps all your data. Remember when Facebook said that users owned their own data, yet never provided a way to completely delete it, nor export it? Talk is cheap. Platitudes even cheaper. Code is law.

They choose who will survive every month, which seems a bit pointless. You can easily weed out a rhino without needing a million people to tell you she's ugly. Having every individual user converge on what he finds attractive would be a far faster way of getting results and would also preserve individual tastes better.

I'd suggest generations of 10-20 individuals and picking one of two choices to be in the next generation. It would converge very fast, I'd assume halving the parameter space every five clicks. According to this they have eight measurements down to the millimeter with maybe 300-500mm average possible range. 400^8 is about 10^21 is about 2^60, giving 300 clicks to get down to the millimeter accuracy. Assuming no one cares whether a woman is 1681 or 1682mm tall and only full centimeters matter, around 200 clicks or 40 generations should be enough.

You could rate the hawtness of other individual's final generation on a scale of 1 to 10 as a separate task.

The problem is not targeted ads. I don't mind having targeted ads at all. What I do mind is that stuff that I wanted to keep private being suddenly open to Everyone and to my friends and networks. Yes.. it's naked greed indeed. I disabled my account earlier today and don't see myself going back. Too much of a time sink anyway.

Agreed. The targeted ads themselves don't give the advertiser any of your data.

I actually ran an ad on Facebook for a couple of months to advertise the Fan Page for a charity that I volunteer for (shameless plug... it's the National Wild Turkey Federation). All the ad targeting does is select parameters to match when deciding whether to show your ad to people. You can select things like gender, age, location, interests, etc. It tells you roughly how many people will match your criteria. As an advertiser, this is REALLY useful. I was able to target my ad and say "I only want to show this thing to people over 18 within 50 miles of my city that are interested in X, Y, and Z". That is the kind of direct targetability that everyone in the advertising industry wants. If someone doesn't match your criteria, they just plain won't be shown your ad, and you won't have to pay.

It does NOT give you a list of their names and/or profiles, or anything else of their information. You get a number that says your criteria matches X number of profiles. That is it. And it does this without those profiles needing the information your criteria tries to match being public. I really fail to see how it's any invasion of privacy in and of itself.

I'm not claiming that Facebook doesn't have some shitty privacy policies of late, but as the parent states, the targeted ads are not the problem here.

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

Where do I find the option that hides your likes, your profile photo, and all that gear?

This guy appears to have found it hidden in the settings somewhere:
http://www.facebook.com/markzuckerberg

Click here to delete your Facebook account. This is the less-publicized "real deletion" link, not just the "deactivate" link. However, if you log into your Facebook account for 14 days after clicking that link, your Facebook account will be re-activated.

My answer? They've got a track record of disrespecting privacy, and now that they've demonstrated that, I'm going to leave Facebook by July 4 if they don't fix everything, and I'm trying to get a million people to do the same.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=117283144970446

Last year, which seems like the last time this bubbled up, Facebook took input from its members and eventually came up with a statement of Facebook Principles, which its members voted in favor of adopting by about a 3:1 margin. So what happened to that?

Well, as Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out today, Facebook's management didn't even pay lip service to those principles when it came up with the latest evolution of its privacy policy and things like Instant Personalization.

I haven't decided if this is a separate reason to dislike Facebook or part of the same reason for disliking Facebook. One thing I have decided: I'm glad I blew up my Facebook account.

The difference is that Diaspora is to be released under the aGPL license. Making it free software

...and its whole architecture is distributed (as is the case of other opens-source social networks systems cited elsewhere).
Just like Jabber, and other nice standard which emerged from opensource projects.

Thus you could run one instance ("seed" in Diaspora parlance) on your own server.
Or if you don't have the knowledge and/or resources to do it, create a profile on some Dispora-provider.
As it's distributed and open, it will still let you communicate with other users from other seeds running elsewhere on the web.

If the provider goes "Zuckerberg" on its privacy ? Just move to another seeds and continue from there. As the system is open and distributed all seeds can communicate.
Whereas, with Facebook, well, if you don't like the privacy and decide to move to Buzz, well good luck. You can't bring all your friends with you, unless you encourage everyone to switch along with you.

With any luck, if such a distributed system becomes popular enough, the current big players might get forced to interoperate with the main system (be it OneSocialWeb, Dispora, or whatever else). Just like what's hapenning with Jabber and GoogleTalk versus FaceBook and StudiVZ, who are slowly moving to XMPP/Jabber for their chat systems.

Although the current situation is subpar :
- Facebook is using a non-encrypted XMPP/Jabber interface which lacks compared to (for example) Pidgin's Plugin (the list-to-group mapping is really bad).
- and StudiVZ has outsourced part chat capabilities to Nimbuzz (namely to make a newer web-app and mobile support) which in turn operates as a Jabber gateway (a rather circumvented way to support it).

But still its a move in the right direction. So if they feel threatened enough by newer "Social" standard, they might follow again.

On Facebook the norm is to use your real name.

Actually it's in the T&Cs, one reason I held out so long was that I didn't want to use my real name. now I have an account, in breach of those T&Cs.

# Registration and Account Security Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:

1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.

2. You will not create more than one personal profile.

3. If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission.

4. You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).

5. You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.

6. You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender.

7. You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.

8. You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.

9. You will not transfer your account (including any page or application you administer) to anyone without first getting our written permission.

10. If you select a username for your account we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username that does not closely relate to a user's actual name).

Actually many companies are connecting with customers through facebook, twitter, etc. It may just be a fad or it may last. I don't know. But I do know there are a lot of company pages appearing on facebook - http://www.facebook.com/Chevron is an example. The employees who have access to these type of accounts certainly need to be able to logon and post their updates and connect with their customers. Similarly, I understand some companies are giving support through twitter as well. So, although I would certainly be the first to admit that only a small number of folks at these companies need this access, they do indeed need it to perform the role they have been asked to perform.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is hard. What is the whole truth?

The UK recently had a telling case. A BNP politician (racist party) was canvasing and a fight broke out. On Have I Got News For You (British political comedy show) they showed the footage. The guy punched a dark skinned (probably Muslim immigrant but that would from that footage have been a presumption) in the face. Oooh bad. What they didn't show is the few seconds before that, when that guy spitted in his face.

Careful editing to show the BNP in a bad light? The BBC is famously anti-racist and no, this is NOT a good thing. The BBC is supposed, especially in election times, to be impartial and give equal time to ALL parties, including those they disagree with. This is important, after all the BBC which controls the state TV, is the state TV, could ruin any party that has in its agenda say the end of the BBC.

What makes it clear the Hignfy cast has an agenda other then fair and equal treatment of all parties is that when Prescott (labour) punched a guy who threw an egg at him, the cast pretty much applauded it. So it is okay to punch a white protester who attacks you, but not a Muslim? Talk about bias. You might agree with the bias, but it is still bias.

And that really is the problem with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The have shown the whole incident you would have had to basically spend 5 or more minutes in a comedy show to explain the full setting. Why did the argument start? Democracy calls on parties you don't like being allowed to take part in the protest. On the other hand, demonstrating against points of view you don't like is also part of it. Spitting on people is aggresive and you should expect to be punched, but if you are calling a person a waste because of his race you can hardly expect him not to react.

The problem is that how many people saw the incident only in the comedy show and not the full clip? Their point of view has now been altered by people with an agenda even if that agenda was only to get a laugh. And this is what we know about, how much else has ended up on the cutting floor of the news room? Maybe all the footage that showed the exact same ambulance in the middle east? Or the same childs body killed in different locations? How odd that was only found out later, not by the camera crew who after all had a close up look. Agenda or lousy reporting standards? And of course, I am now convinced these cases were wrong, and therefor all news from certain points of view is suspect so I now rather believe less official resources as well.

I am not suprised Obama is getting upset with all the crap "news" out there. Come on US, when you hear people claim about nazi death camps if healthcare reform is enabled, why don't you shoot the people claiming it for insulting your intelligence. Most countries in the world have social health care and no dead squads yet killing little timmy. In fact the most recent case of extreme medical behavior came from the US, where children in orphanages are forced to take part in medical experiments. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34817839637

Capitalists doing exactly what the nazi's did. Gosh, how could that be! This is what the Tea Party wants to be done to children, rather then allow anyone regardless of income to have medical care.

Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And if you read any of this, how do you know any of which I tell you is the truth. I linked to facebook for a reason. If you want to check it, it will take you some effort. In fact to check all the claims in this post and the parent, you will have to do some digging. They are "true", but how do you know?

The press is the gatekeeper of democracy. If it starts to fail, democracy will soon follow. That boring paper with no page three girl that has boring headlines is the bastion of freedom. If all news becomes fox news or the daily mail, then the end of democracy isn't far away. And if twitter becomes the source of news we might as well kiss our asses goodbye.

Just write http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account on your browser to completely eliminate it.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=16929680703 Be warned, you need to delete all your content too. P.

I want to add myself to the list of fans of this admirable place....

Here's a set of photos of the St. Louis Museum I took earlier this year.

The experience of climbing the spiral staircase, while listening to live music from the massive pipe organ was almost surreal...

It was definitely an app "suggestion" that had two buttons on the dialog box: "install" or "cancel".

I have just gone back to see what it does now, and it is taking me right to the java applet, so what has happened to the advanced shiny app they were pushing, I do not know.

Aha! This page has the actual dialog box:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=206178097130

Now, that box strongly implies that the new plug in (no, let me rephrase: it states categorically) is required to be able to upload photos.

If you click "cancel" it takes you to another page that says "are you sure? this plugin is the best way to upload photos!" and you click cancel again, and then it drops you to a page with the link to the simple uploader.

I did not imagine it, trust me.

Use the Facebook delete your account form. You have to sign in to use this.

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

Facebook does not make this easy. Somebody should sue them for making people go trough this long way to delete your account.

Did you unfriend everyone, delete all messages, pictures, etc?

If no, log back in (your account will likely reactivate automatically) and delete everything out of it, and then DELETE the account.

Note that "deactivation" (the acct will persist indefinitely; reactivate automatically) is different than "deletion"; prime example of an "evil interface".

If delete is truly want you seek, use the delete account link shown below.

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

After "Deleting", do not attempt to log in for at least 2 weeks to test it's gone (I'd suggest waiting even longer, such as a month), because otherwise FB may think you're changing your mind and reactivate the account even despite choosing to delete it.

Ron

Try the contact: delete account page. I did this a year ago and my account is as permanently gone as it can be. Although, I read that

Who is going to destroy their career to drag Palin into court on some petty charge of abusing procedure when they know they are going to be opposed by every Republican and vilified in the press?

Well according to Sarah Palin's attorney there are at least 26 people doing so. Or perhaps it is a lesser number trying repeatedly. It sort of looks like people playing a game of ethics Battleship with Sarah starring in the role of battleship, and they're failing miserably. In other words they're not "Nailin' Paylin".

As a Canadian, I've got to say, this Republican vs Democrat stuff is really really getting out of hand. Are you people children or adults, FFS.

Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper?

Stephen Harper is a doo-doo head.

I wonder if this decision was related to the protest that had been organised?

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100265633350951

Seems like a bit of a co-incidence.. especially because this is the second time it has happened. Last time there was a protest organised about shutting down the Tote due to insane liquor licensing - but the protest was a waste of time as a decision had already been made.

I guess politically it's a lot less damaging if they stop the protest from happening.

But maybe they've started doing next years budget and realised just how expensive this filtering nonsense will be.. and that they can safely cut it because no-one wants it. They can save face by saying "it's just been delayed".

When you have warranty the service is great

No, it's not. I had a single broken keycap on my warranteed HP Mini 110. Once we established that they couldn't possibly do something as easy as drop a keycap in an envelope and mail it to me, the case manager (yes, I escalated!) said that the only option was for me to ship it in for repairs. Oh, and they they wouldn't pay the $20 shipping cost.

Me: I thought it was under warranty.
CM: It is.
Me: So you're paying for shipping?
CM: No. You have to pay shipping.
Me: So I have to pay, out of pocket, to fix a part covered under warranty?
CM: No! The repair is free! You only have to pay shipping!
Me: Then it's not free.
CM: But it is! We're not charging you to fix it.
Me: When I get my bank statement, will I have $20 less my account than if I hadn't had this problem fixed?
CM: Yes.
Me: Then I have to pay out of pocket to have it fixed.
CM: No, blah, lather/rinse/repeat.

They "compromised" and allowed me to pay a carrier directly instead of buying HP's own shipping label. I ended up paying more than $20, but I was perfectly happy to.

Oh, and for the punch line: when I got it back a week and a half later, the packing sheet stated that they'd replaced the keycap. And the hard drive. And the motherboard. Oh, and they generously fixed it for free, even though they'd determined that a user-installed part had caused the problem. I don't know whether the part that broke my keyboard was the sticker I put on the outside of the case, or if it was the 2GB DIMM I installed and that they moved over to the new motherboard before returning it. I swear to God I'm not exaggerating a word of that. I still have the packing slip at home as a souvenir.

Just make sure you know not to vote for the other pirate party that's standing (ok, in Westminster, not Gorton) with the aptly named Mad Cap'n Tom

Just be glad there's no Ninja or Monkey parties standing in the same constituency! (and yes, you may be surprised to hear there's a facebook page you can join)

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

If Arizona is just enforcing the fed law, tell me how they can enforce it EQUALLY and I mean non-racially. Would they ever stop this girl and ask for her papers? Would they ever stop me and ask me for mine?

If either one of you was stopped for any of the reasons allowed in the bill, they would be asking for your driver's license no matter what color your skin is.

It is amazing watching the democratic complain about republicans talking about "death panels" and then watching them yell that every Mexican is going to be attacked on the the streets.

Look at the comments here against the bill" compared to for the bill

If Arizona is just enforcing the fed law, tell me how they can enforce it EQUALLY and I mean non-racially. Would they ever stop this girl and ask for her papers? Would they ever stop me and ask me for mine?

If either one of you was stopped for any of the reasons allowed in the bill, they would be asking for your driver's license no matter what color your skin is.

It is amazing watching the democratic complain about republicans talking about "death panels" and then watching them yell that every Mexican is going to be attacked on the the streets.

Look at the comments here against the bill" compared to for the bill

you can close and have your data deleted from facebook? do you have a list of detailed steps to go about that?

Go here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703

http://www.facebook.com/fbsitegovernance

Ask Michael Yon.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/
http://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage
http://twitter.com/michael_yon