Are you on Facebook?

[mattc]

"That's rich coming from you Mum - you're always talking about pig-wanking! "

<runs>

[Phil]

I work for a social network so a facebook profile is de rigeur, but I'd have one anyway. 

I could get by without the casual gossipy bit of facebook, but I'd be lost without the events functions and the ability to stay in touch with friends who don't live locally. 

[drossall]

I joined for work also, with some falsified details (DoB in particular). Now the cycling club and church both have pages, so it's difficult not to get sucked in. Otherwise, I pretty much ignore it.

[spesh]

As a side note - it's worth logging off. If you don't, it tracks where you go and lets other people know. I once forgot to log off and, reading an article on the Indy, was surprised to see a box telling me that Friends X and Y had also read the article.

I was shocked to see that Facebook tells me which articles other people have read: on the web, not elsewhere on Facebook. That's their affair, not mine. Thanks for tip about logging off.

The latest wheeze is the "sponsored story", which is FB-speak for adverts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9071553/Facebooks-sponsored-stories-have-gone-too-far.html

Given that FB is going public, the resulting commercial implications suggest that it's downhill from here...

[Cudzoziemiec]

My ten-year-old nephew has just looked at the forum over my shoulder and said "What is that? It looks like Facebook gone wrong!"

[rogerzilla]

Brilliant.

[hellymedic]

I am pleased to see my great uncle has been to the British Museum today.
I also don't give a fig about what my friends have read.

[spesh]

I don't need to know what 2 YACFers and my niece were looking at.

And that is precisely why I'm only ever logged in to FB when I'm actually intending to go on there.

Anybody who stays permanently logged-in deserves all the auto-dobbing-in that they get from FB-affiliated websites.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

That's nothing to do with being logged in or not. That person has accessed those pages via facebook and allowed facebook to post that they have done so. If they had accessed those pages by going direct to them in their browser rather than via facebook, even if they were still logged into facebook, facebook wouldn't know they had read them and would not post about it.

[simonp]

I don't need to know what 2 YACFers and my niece were looking at.

And that is precisely why I'm only ever logged in to FB when I'm actually intending to go on there.

Anybody who stays permanently logged-in deserves all the auto-dobbing-in that they get from FB-affiliated websites.

These are updates from the Guardian app:


Guardian by SimonP2006, on Flickr

See what I did there? Or, read the articles outside Facebook…

[spesh]

OK, point taken... 

[sas]

That's nothing to do with being logged in or not. That person has accessed those pages via facebook and allowed facebook to post that they have done so. If they had accessed those pages by going direct to them in their browser rather than via facebook, even if they were still logged into facebook, facebook wouldn't know they had read them and would not post about it.

Getting slightly pedantic, but if you're logged onto Facebook/Twitter/Google (so there's a cookie saved on your browser) and you visit another site that's linked to e.g. Facebook, for instance by embedding a tracking image/script, then Facebook may know that you've visited that site even if they keep quiet about it.

Given the ubiquity of Facebook/Google it's possible they'll track you even if you don't have an account with them, simply by setting a cookie, though I vaguely remember an article which suggested they may have stopped doing this.

[simonp]

I can sell you a tinfoil hat if you want.

[sas]

I'll take a mu-metal hat if you've got one 

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/senate-to-hold-hearing-on-facebook-tracking-cookies/5436

[AndyK]

The best use of facebook ever?

[mattc]

The best use of facebook ever?

I quite liked the synchronised posting by Whitney and Britney.

(Is there a "quite liked" button? )

[rogerzilla]

What's HJ?  Or am I reading it wrong?

[Pancho]

What's HJ?  Or am I reading it wrong?

Even I can guess that one and I'm unsubbed from NSFW.

[spesh]

What's HJ?  Or am I reading it wrong?

(click to show/hide)

I guessing it's short for hand-job.

[rogerzilla]

Ah.  She seems to do more daring things before HJs, which confused me.  In Swindon I think a mere Bacardi Breezer gets you an HJ behind Wilko's.

[AndyK]

The best use of facebook ever?

I quite liked the synchronised posting by Whitney and Britney.

(Is there a "quite liked" button? )

The comments are the icing on the cake. Sibling rivalry at its peak. 

[Basil]

I wonder if that guy [1] still got a haircut?  Just in case, like?
 
[1]  Can't see pictures on my phone, don't recall the name.

[Valiant]

I'm on Facebook, easiest way to stay in touch with friends, organise events, share things etc.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

1909: The Machine Stops.

The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned;
neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated
in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly
well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous account of
music in the pre Mongolian epoch, and went on to describe the great
outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote and
primæval as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she
yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the musicians of today:
they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture, which lasted
ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she and many of
her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were ideas to be got
from the sea; the speaker had donned a respirator and visited it lately.
Then she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and
summoned her bed.

..

By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined
at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed.
Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to
let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life to
which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees to
climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might
measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he
not? In the dawn of the world our weakly must be exposed on Mount
Taygetus, in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the
Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine
may progress eternally.

With a bit of luck it won't be like that!

[shyumu]

Yup.  While travelling I like reading the stuff friends are posting; it's a short blog/photo/coffee shop online that's easy to access.  I also enjoy reading yacf from my phone while I travel - feels like I'm still in touch with my friends.  I like to post random stuff that makes me chuckle and I know I can be ignored if it bores people.  I only ignore game updates; not as interesting as typed thoughts.

The Toy Town Cycling Club organises group rides via fb too... so actually useful for planning stuff.  Better than loads of emails or text messages.  Plus it's always up to date.

I s'pose it's the feeling connected while traveling that is the real reason though.  Just like the hours I spend reading yacf posts and enjoying the dynamic evolution of audax rules.