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.

What am I talking about? The asshole rapist (now thankfully dead) posted to his Facebook account just a short time before getting killed, with the status update saying "Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace"

Is that the stupid behaviour? No, that's not it. In this day of social media, these perpetrators always do something like that. It may be stupid, but it's expected.

No, I'm talking about his friends.

Seriously, folkes...sorry, folks. If you ever have the bad luck to know somebody who has gone off the deep end, or who is just plain evil and you didn't realize it, and they post something like this? DON'T COMMENT ON IT!

There were 25 comments at the time of the Daily Mail screen grab, and four of them were displayed. One guy says "I don't know what I feel." Excuse me?

Another one is somehow looking for the cause of this behaviour, saying that the guy is a "sweet person" and something must have set him off. Funny, but this kind of gets in the way of the "sweet guy" impression:

"Ramsey had been on parole since last summer after serving the minimum five-year prison sentence for assault with intent to do great bodily harm, according to Corrections Department online records."

Yeah, sounds like a really sweet guy.

Another one wonders what happened to the guy he grew up with.

And the last one just made me laugh (in a seriously "WTF???" way). "Very unfortunate." And then she tags him! Like he's going to see it.

I'm not saying any of these feelings aren't legitimate. Who knows what we would be feeling if we suddenly discover that one of our friends did something like this. The guy who doesn't know what he feels? That's perfectly legitimate and logical. Sometimes we don't know how we feel. We thought we knew this person. And it turns out we don't.

So, feelings = legitimate.

But posting that on Facebook? Especially in response to a post like this?

Do you really want to take the chance that your name will be plastered all over the world in an article like this? When you're still trying to work out your feelings about a traumatic event?

Take a deep breath and realize that maybe Facebook isn't the proper place to work through turbulent emotions like that.

At least it doesn't appear anybody "liked" the post.

That would have been cringeworthy.

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.

A basic question asked in Cookie's unusual way

Even the straight trivia questions are asked in a rather unique way, which occasionally (though not too often) masks what exactly Cookie was asking. For example, one of today's questions was asking how you could text your friend that you're at a KISS concert, and the answer was the emoticon for a kiss. For some reason, I wasn't making the connection.

Most of the time, it makes sense with a little thought. But that doesn't mean you'll know the answer.

One strike against the game for some people (at least one of my friends for example) is that the game insults you when you get a question wrong. If you find humour in that sort of thing, you'll love the game. If you find it condescending and annoying, then you should probably stay far away from the game. Personally, I can take it and I find it hilarious, especially the play on words that's often involved. In the "Elephant, Mustard, Teddy Roosevelt or Dracula" questions (where one of the answers is always one of those things), if you choose Dracula and it's wrong, Cookie will say "That answer sucks!" Get it? Dracula sucks your blood?

Ah, never mind.

Anyway, the Facebook game (and I assume the mobile device ones too, when they come out)gives a nice feeling of playing opponents online even though you're really not. The game will randomly assign you five "opponents" who have already played the round you're playing. They're scores and answers are recorded, so you're playing against them. You don't get to see their answers (except in the Jack Attack and Gibberish questions), but you do see their scores.

No matter where you place (1st through 6th), you will always receive a certain number of tokens. You can play the game once a day for free, and then each play after that is 200 tokens. You can buy more tokens to play more often, or you can earn tokens doing various things that the game will tell you about. I play when I can, at least once a day, and earn tokens to play more games. I have never purchased anything.

Thus, if you're against having to pay for your games, you certainly don't have to. But you can if you wish to play more often. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

You have to have a certain sense of humour, but if you do, You Don't Know Jack is an awesome trivia game. It's funny, and I for one have never had so much fun feeling stupid at times.

Really, who knows the three "official" types of hail descriptions anyway?

(not meatball, just so you know)

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!)

Anyway, Amy Vernon, an accomplished social media expert that I've been following on Twitter for a while now, was live-tweeting from a social media conference she was at. She mentioned a Google Chrome extension called "Unfriend Finder" that had been mentioned in one of the panels. I decided to take a look, since I mostly use Chrome now, and it got annoying having to open Firefox to check my friends list whenever I noticed it dropped.

The reviews were not good. (I don't know if you have to be on Chrome to access that page)

I tweeted that back to Amy and we had a short, 2-tweet conversation about it. Then Mei Qing chimed in suggesting Better Facebook.

I checked it out, and all I have to say is "Wow."

It has greatly enhanced my Facebook experience, and I highly recommend it for those of you who use Facebook a lot. It's available on all browsers except Internet Explorer.

Here are some of my favourite features:

1) Unfriend Tracker

The main reason I got it, of course.

2) Tabbed News Feeds

Do you find your News Feed cluttered with all of the game announcements, Astrology announcements, stuff posted from Twitter, feeds from pages you follow, etc? Better Facebook puts tabs on your News Feed so that you can separate all of that out. So far on my News page, I have a "Home" tab that has status updates, videos, photos, etc posted by my friends. Then it has RSS feeds, which has page updates. And finally a Twitter tab, where status updates that were forwarded by Twitter show up. It really cleans it up.

You can have Better Facebook automatically choose tabs, which is what I do. I'm not sure if you can customize the tabs, but it's worth exploring.

3) Remove posts you've already read

Once you've read an update, do you really need to see it again? If your answer is "no," then you can "mark all as read" on a tab and voila! They're gone. However, if somebody comments on an update you've marked read, it will reappear. So don't worry about losing out on seeing responses to it.

The cool thing is, if you don't care about responses, you can "mute" it so new comments will not make it reappear. You can also establish a comment threshold, so if the number of comments goes over, say, 20, it will stop reappearing. You're given total control!

4) Remove "Recent Activity" from your profile page

I don't use this option, but I still think it's a cool thing. You know how your recent activity shows up on your profile? Say you left a comment on your friend's status. It shows up on your profile as "recent activity," including a snippet of what you said! What if you don't want your friends to know that you're commenting on somebody's semi-nude picture?

With Better Facebook, you can make it so these activities don't show up on your profile page.

5) Hitting "Enter" on a comment doesn't actually post the comment.

Many people (Hi, Dawnie!) were extremely annoyed, just like I was, with the latest change in the user interface. It used to be, you had to actually click "send" to post a comment. You could write a couple of paragraphs if you wanted to. The latest change, though, made it so that hitting "Enter" submitted the comment.

Too many times, there are now two comments left by the same person, because they didn't realize that you could hit "Shift-Enter" and have it create a line break in the comment.

Better Facebook can return to the old style of commenting, making it safe to hit the "Enter" key again. If you want. If you are used to the new way of doing things, just leave this one disabled.

It's up to you.

There's so much other cool stuff, but I don't want this post to go on forever. Check out the Better Facebook page for all of the juicy details (see how nice I am? I linked to it down here, too)

The best thing about it, though, is that it lets you turn each option off and on. You don't have to take the whole package if you don't want to. Like I said about the Recent Activity removal, you can implement a feature or leave it turned off. There are a few things I've left off because they aren't important to me.

I love how customizable it is. And you can turn the entire thing off with a click of the mouse if you want to.

My experience with it has been wonderful. I highly recommend it for heavy Facebook users. Explore it! I haven't even scratched the surface of what you can do with the app in this post.

Not only that, but I haven't even explored the filtering options for myself yet. Something I may never do because that amount of filtering may not be important to me.

But it might be to you, and it's there for you to use.

Which is the coolest thing of all.

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.

1) Steve Jayward: Washington Myths

Did Washington really cross the Mississippi during the Vietnam War to surprise the Nazis? Jayward presents some compelling evidence.

This book taught me just how valuable true scholarship and academic rigor really is when writing a History book.

2) Bob Leinhein: Friend in a Strange Land

Leinhein's protagonist wows his friends, and the reader, with his 2000 snapshots of his holiday in Nebraska.

Compelling prose, and it includes pictures!

3) George Butz: Man-Pac Fever

The biography of a man before his time, this is a story of a man in the 1970s who invents a video game where a yellow triangle runs around a maze collecting muffins while being chased by screaming banshees, which somehow didn't catch on.

The tale is made all the more tragic as we see what his life comes down to after being rejected: working at the DMV

4) Timmy Kotick: Video Relations

Kotick makes an interesting case for how Donkey Kong has inspired United States foreign policy through the years. With diagrams and pictures, including Quadaffi as Princess Peach!

5) J.R. Cowling: Abe Ewing and the Magical Oil

The story of the son of a Texas oil baron, whose parents are killed by an ancient Evil that must not be named: the EPA

6) J.C.C. Polking: The Lord that Sings

Lord Hatchclyde of Strudwick discovers a magic ring that forces him to constantly try out for American Idol.

This work is most known for its race of little people, called Habits, four of whom have a weekly sojourn to take the ring to Mount Rushmore to try and destroy it.

7) P.D. Jugular: The Catcher of the Sty

The riveting tale of the great Pink Eye epidemic of 1953

8) Shawn Borrower: Martha Stewart: The Man, the Myth, the Legend

Is Martha Stewart really a drag queen? Borrower offers some compelling evidence, including pictures of "her" at an Iron John rally!

9) Steven Meyer: Midnight

The overly emotional story of a bunch of gothic teenagers who have a vampire fetish, and feed that need by staying up past their bedtime reading bad books.

10) Sue Chatterton: O is for Ornery

The first mystery on the list, detective and sex psychologist Kinsey Alfreda taxes her brain to figure out just why Old Man Withers refuses to die.

Some readers wonder why Chatterton has Alfreda spend the entire novel in the little white dress (even the very exciting chase scenes), but I found it an interesting metaphor for society.

11) Stu Bradley: The Mario Duty Effect

Bradley presents an interesting study that clearly shows the harmful effect of playing too many video games: mobs of kids jumping from platform to platform, yelling "TANGO DOWN!" at the top of their lungs.

12) Susan Toil: Youtube Phenomenon

The incredible autobiography of a woman who is brought onto a reality audition show in order to be the butt of the scathing comments from the British judge.

Especially mesmerizing is the scene where she gets up on stage and proceeds to prove the producers right.

13) Gaston Le Pew: The Opera of the Phantom

Caspar does show tunes!!!! Guest appearance by Richie Rich, who sings the ballad "All This Money and 60 Years, and I Still Can't Shave"

14) Stanley Buckchop: Blogging Wars

The story of two bloggers in an ongoing attempt to kill each other because they keep writing the same thing.

Hilarity ensues when they finally realize that the reason for this is that they share the same brain.

I especially loved it when *SPOILER* the brain kills them both and moves on to more fertile pastures where it might be more needed.

15) Lee Harper: To Kill a Hummingbird

The intense tale of a man who's just trying to get some f-ing sleep.

And there you have my 15 Authors. Let me know who the 15 authors who have most affected you are!

Maybe we can kill this meme quickly.

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.

Yes, I have succumbed to the tantalizing lures of "Fast Money" and all that entails. I first started seeing these pop up on my newsfeed from a bunch of friends. "Lolita needs help to win Fast Money!!" (Names have been changed, as I don't know any Lolita, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn't answer the door when she rang the bell)

I clicked on it to see just what this was, as I was kind of a Family Feud fan back in the day (during the Richard Dawson era when I wouldn't have been surprised if he pulled one of the hot contestants down on the floor and had sex with her, not these annoying new people). Basically, what happens is you are the second person in the Fast Money round, trying to get over 200 total points to help your friend win points/prizes/whatever.

I have to admit, trying to guess the most popular answers was kind of fun. Don't worry, though. Unless you're friends with both people, the "Dave won Fast Money for Paris!" announcements don't show up on the Newsfeed (what? Yeah, Paris Hilton and I are like *that*).

So why am I apologizing for being a hypocrite if my attempts to win my friends Fast Money don't show up on the Newsfeed?

Because I made the mistake of trying my own game once, just to see what would happen. You play all four rounds of a normal Family Feud type game, trying to guess the most popular answers to a question or getting three strikes for wrong answers before the round ends. If you get enough points, you qualify for a Fast Money round, and you are the first person in it. Once you've done your round, you can post the request for a second person on your Wall (and thus, on your Newsfeed) and you can also send individual invitations to friends as well.

I'm just loving this game! It has all the fun of Family Feud without having to listen to anybody try and banter with you. It's a win-win!

I may become wracked with guilt and start just doing invitations, but right now, it's interesting to see who will show up and try to help you win.

I know I'm a hypocrite, but what was it Walt Whitman said?

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes." (Hey, don't call me large!)

I'm sure he was talking about Facebook Family Feud when he said that.

So, I apologize in advance if this showing up in your Newsfeed annoys you. Just do what I do with all the other ones and hide all references to it. It's just one click away.

Or, you know...you could help me win Fast Money.

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!

"The purpose of the site is to encourage those 'sick of Facebook’s lack of respect for your data' to quit the social networking site. Users can 'commit to quit' with their Twitter handle or name and join the others publicly pledging to do so in unison."

This is interesting given the fact that deleting Facebook accounts is a very popular Google search right now. Are people getting truly fed up with Facebook's antics? Is this the final straw?

It is for a lot of people. Danny Sullivan noticed that Facebook's growth rate seems to be slipping, which may be at least partially due to these privacy issues. Some people might not be signing up, but also enough people may be canceling their accounts to make up for any other growth that Facebook has.

What will I do? I'm definitely not canceling my account. My feelings are more along the lines of Laurent Courtines:

"Privacy issues are touchy because of humans natural self-centeredness. Folks thing "they have MY information". Yes. Yes they do but they also have many billions of peoples information! You simply aren't that important. Your INDIVIDUAL information is 1. Not that interesting, 2. Not that useful and 3. Not that relevant."

Obviously this doesn't apply to things like credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc. But the daily ins and outs of what you post on the Web? It doesn't really matter that much. I am concerned enough to adjust my Privacy settings in Facebook, but not enough that I'm going to worry about everything getting out there in the great big world.

In other words, I'm not like Robert Scobie, opening the floodgates totally.

So what do you think? I'd be interested in knowing whether you're going to join the mass exodus on the 31st.





(Thanks to Sheamus for links to the above articles, except the Mashable one)

*Edit*: If you say "Yes," I'd love to hear why in the comments.

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?

I think the perception of that percentage is a little skewed, though. How many people surveyed are older adults who "friend" their older children? "Friending" your kids, for some people, is just a way to keep in touch with them because they've moved away. It's not always about teens and their parents. Does the survey include both teenagers and grown-ups?

They also surveyed what age was an appropriate one to start using Facebook or Myspace, and a full 30% (2nd highest) said 13-15 years old. I know some people who fit into that category. I guess it's just a matter of how closely you keep tabs on them, and how much you ensure that they know what they are doing.

So what do you think? Parents and kids on Facebook. Good combination? Do they mix like a good martini, or like oil and water? Or like Jon & Kate?

And most importantly, am I cornering the market on quotation marks?

Let me know!