[ale] facebook hacked?

[Tom Freeman]

Ok. Actually I do see irony in this whole conversation. All four of
my adult children use Facebook, as well as my daughter-in-law. Well,
actually they used to use it more than lately, but that is a whole 'nother
can of worms. If the grandchildren's parents would post more pictures,
I might get more out of them, although I'm not a picture fan - just some
local friends are picture fans (of my grandchildren - go figure). Pictures 
are no substitute (for me at least) for going for a walk with the child, 
holding hands on the sidewalk, working on teaching a three year old to 
cross four lanes of traffic (she gets it, just not completely) and pushing 
children on swings until grumpy is exhausted.

What I wind up with on Facebook is lots and lots of announcements about
sports (boring and pointless despite being a major economic engine), 
anouncements of some family member with yet another friend (that one is a 
social butterfly - and needs all the friends he can get) and OMG a 
butterfly type stuff which leaves me utterly cold.

I do have one friend on Facebook who will post neat links to security 
stuff, which I appreciate and follow, but his posts have a _long_ half 
life for validity. (And he forgot to post that his wife was pregnant - for 
which I should beat him. But again, long half life stuff)

So much for Facebook. Some good stuff, certainly. And a _lot_ of pointless 
(for my uses) cruft. Makes me narcissistic I guess to be interested in 
lesser stuff and value my own time.

Texting? Didn't like the cost, or the tiny screen for my eyes, so never 
picked up a habit. Plus, trying to teach at a community college, and 
failing to compete with student's texting (and cell phones). I've got 
single parents (and have been a single parent), so I'm not against the 
cell phone so child care can summon the parent. But when I'm working with 
somebody trying to figure out their calculator and taking logs, and 
they interupt to check a  text - I'm not cool with that. And don't get me 
started on cell phones/texting while driving... (Hint: I'm agin' it)

Yes I have a land line - because the cell phone dies in the house. But the 
cell phone has an answering machine on it also, although it is called 
"voice mail". And in either case, my caller is going to be recorded if I'm 
already talking to somebody. I'm funny that way.

There is a time and a place for all of this, and I am probably not the 
correct person to figure out the best social balance. I deeply _value_ 
face time with important (to me) people, and I'll travel significant 
distance to achieve it. You found good food? Lets go! (sorry, beer 
interfers with some pharmacueticals I'm required to take). I'll have 
troubles getting excited about most movies/theater - sorry about being 
defective. But I can be tempted anyways by the company. (OTOH - a good 
chemical or physics demonstration, especially the kind with loud noises - 
I'll go just about any time)

Sorry about ranting, and to the innocent bystanders, thank you for your 
patience.

On Sat, 18 Dec 2010, Richard Bronosky wrote:

> 
> I don't know if anyone else is seeing the irony in this discussion.
> Insisting that people send you personal emails, dedicated phone calls, and
> visits to your home is narcissistic. The reason facebook is so popular is
> that people can make the events of their lives available to their friends
> and loved ones even when the event is not significant enough to warrant a
> phone call or email. I would feel like a narcissist if I emailed my contact
> list every time my daughter did some thing cute or I had a great new beer.
> But, with facebook (via twitter in my case) I just put it out there and the
> interested people can choose to get caught up with me when they please.
> 
> If you are refusing to use facebook and you have adult children that want
> you to use it, you are missing out if you don't. They will have dozens of
> times over the year where they wanted to share something with you but didn't
> because they couldn't take the time right then to craft the right words to
> make right how long it's been since they last spoke to you. I know that's
> not what you intend, but that is the position you are putting them in. The
> holidays are a great time to get over yourself. You'll have a better 2011 if
> you do.
>
>       On Dec 18, 2010 11:55 AM, "Tom Freeman"
>       <tfreeman at intel.digichem.net> wrote:
>
>       Ok. I'm the "old fart" (58). I've seen too much in the past
>       10-15 years of
>       the next "greatest thing" to be much impressed one way or the
>       other. And I will stand by my snide remark that I have yet to
>       see material on facebook that I _really_ need to know about
>       _NOW_. There are one or two things that
>       have been worth finding out, but they have generally had a
>       half-life on order of weeks. Other people have different
>       experiences. If you need to
>       push information to me, I have an answering machine on the
>       phone, and
>       my friends know that. Otherwise, drop by the house, bang on the
>       door, and
>       we can just plain gossip.
>
>       I got a Facebook account to pickup grandchildren pictures which
>       certain
>       friends keep wanting to see. Sadly, the parents keep forgetting
>       to post
>       the grandchildren pictures. That molasses in January going up
>       hill
>       is going to make its appearance before I get something I want
>       out of the
>       system.
>
>       Just as there are a few worthwhile movies being produced, there
>       are a
>       few worthwhile movies dating back to the era of the silents. I
>       rather
>       doubt that the percentage of production has changed much either,
>       but I
>       have never attempted to find that out for sure. Same concept
>       applies
>       to music, although I admit to prefering older popular music. My
>       preference doesn't make it better in any way however.
>
>       FWIW, etc.
> 
> 
>
>       On Sat, 18 Dec 2010, Jim Philips wrote:
>
>       >
>       >
>       > On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Michael Trausch <m...
> 
>
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>