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Ten days and nights unplugged

mittal.vc

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Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#21

Post by weland »

ehsanu1 wrote: post #19
k-mcgrady wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know" WHY? This is consistently one of the biggest complaints about Facebook. I can understand people who've had Facebook since it's early days having this problem but if you just opened your account why did you add people you don't know?

I was confused at first too, but I think the idea is to throw off who Facebook, or anyone looking through Facebook's data, thinks you are. Quoting: I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof) If you only add real friends, there's too much signal and not enough noise to cover it up. This is in line with using tor and using fake locations that change frequently.

Yup, you nailed it. I also don't "check Facebook" too often for that to be annoying, and my list of friends isn't all that huge. It's less than 50 people, including the people I don't know.

I only stay in touch with people I want to stay in touch with. There are no ex-colleagues-from-that-job-i-left-four-years-ago-whom-i-met-at-that-concert-an-year-ago-but-can't-quite-remember-their-name. Close friends with whom I really do have links to share and things to chat about.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#22

Post by sliverstorm »

weland wrote: post #13

I have some interesting anecdotes to share about a somewhat opposite situation. I, uh, I just got a Facebook account. I have actively refused it for a long time, and even now I am very picky about it -- my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know, my location frequently changes and I access it only through Tor because I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof). That being said, I was the last i…

The thought that someone would take the location I list on the Internet seriously didn't even cross my mind

Firstly, Facebook is supposed to provide information about you. There's little point to providing information that is patently false. Why even waste the keystrokes? If you don't want a piece of information known, just omit it. Thus, people generally expect the information you provided is true.

Secondly, I think we were all a lot more fanciful when we were kids.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#23

Post by djcrayon »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #16
weland wrote: post #13

I have some interesting anecdotes to share about a somewhat opposite situation. I, uh, I just got a Facebook account. I have actively refused it for a long time, and even now I am very picky about it -- my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know, my location frequently changes and I access it only through Tor because I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof). That being said, I was the last i…

>> "my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know" WHY? This is consistently one of the biggest complaints about Facebook. I can understand people who've had Facebook since it's early days having this problem but if you just opened your account why did you add people you don't know?

I would imagine its to fuzz up Facebook's social mapping.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#24

Post by beagle3 »

weland wrote: post #20
k-mcgrady wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know" WHY? This is consistently one of the biggest complaints about Facebook. I can understand people who've had Facebook since it's early days having this problem but if you just opened your account why did you add people you don't know?

Because Facebook gets really confused about it. Their "list of people you may know" is quite off, they can't recommend any bar or club in my hometown because I never even listed it as my location . Even the "meet singles in your areas" ads are off. This way, I can stay in touch with my friends and not be a marketing tool for Facebook. Edit: just to make sure I get my message across the way I want to: I do this becaus…

It'll likely throw off the marketers, at least for a while, but I hope you are aware that if anyone at a 3 letter agency, or even anyone at facebook, cared about you - that it will take them exactly 3 seconds to drop the noise.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#25

Post by weland »

beagle3 wrote: post #24
weland wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Facebook gets really confused about it. Their "list of people you may know" is quite off, they can't recommend any bar or club in my hometown because I never even listed it as my location . Even the "meet singles in your areas" ads are off. This way, I can stay in touch with my friends and not be a marketing tool for Facebook. Edit: just to make sure I get my message across the way I want to: I do this becaus…

It'll likely throw off the marketers, at least for a while, but I hope you are aware that if anyone at a 3 letter agency, or even anyone at facebook, cared about you - that it will take them exactly 3 seconds to drop the noise.

Of course. I'm not running from any 3-letter agency, just from overly-aggressive marketers. If I ever did anything a 3-letter agency would be interested in, it definitely wouldn't be on the Internet.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#26

Post by Wilya »

rogem002 wrote: post #7
mittal wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I used Windows I modified my hosts file to make facebook.com redirect to 127.0.0.1. That lasted for a few minutes.

I changed my password to something difficult to memorise which was stored in an online password vault. The result was it took an extra 20 seconds to login, which proved to be a very effective way to stop using facebook.

It's funny, I did the exact same thing.

I haven't logged in Facebook for months because I'm too lazy to open my password manager and copy the password.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#28

Post by aestra »

Every week my significant other and I and some of our friends go to bar trivia. Last week our friend brought a lady friend he had been dating for a few weeks and she brought her roommate. These two were quite a bit younger than us (I'm in my 30s), they were 21 or 22 at the oldest. The whole time they were glued to their phones, except when we were answering questions because you can't have your phones out while answering questions. They got all huffy when they had to put them away, and didn't even want to help with the questions because of it. Neither of them wanted to interact with the people around them at all. It was really the most rude thing I ever saw in my life. My friend and her actually broke up over it.

When people pull their phones out when talking to my or out with me, it really really stresses me out. I don't know why I find it stressful, but I do.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#29

Post by xradionut »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #17
asgard1024 wrote: post #15

Come on, 10 days without electronics? That is an amazing feat nowadays? (I personally could do it without a problem - well, if I hadn't go to my programming job, of course - take a mathematics book, pen and notebook, and learn something new.) What about a year? How could we have lived just a couple of years ago?

Have you tried it? I had to go about 2 weeks without internet when I moved apartment. The only access I had was the local café and I only used that to send files for work (so I went in spent 20-30 minutes on email/dropbox and then left). It's amazing how difficult it was and how much it changed how I lived for those two weeks. There were positives (I read more, went out more etc.) but they didn't last too long. The t…

I've had a good 6 months of minimal personal electronics a few years back. Aside from work, I didn't connect at all. I had a new apartment in a complex which was being rewired for FIOS at a snails pace, my cell phone coverage was shitty and I didn't move in with a TV. Plus my PowerMac had a blown power supply which I declined to replace.

I spent more time at the gym, hiking, meeting people in person, exploring and reading books than ever. It refreshing, but compared to my coworkers, I felt like an alien species.

Re: Ten days and nights unplugged

#30

Post by weland »

sliverstorm wrote: post #22
weland wrote: post #13

I have some interesting anecdotes to share about a somewhat opposite situation. I, uh, I just got a Facebook account. I have actively refused it for a long time, and even now I am very picky about it -- my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know, my location frequently changes and I access it only through Tor because I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof). That being said, I was the last i…

The thought that someone would take the location I list on the Internet seriously didn't even cross my mind Firstly, Facebook is supposed to provide information about you . There's little point to providing information that is patently false. Why even waste the keystrokes? If you don't want a piece of information known, just omit it. Thus, people generally expect the information you provided is true. Secondly, I thin…

> Firstly, Facebook is supposed to provide information about you.

I thought it was supposed to help me stay in touch with people and stuff, like they claim on their homepage. I'm adding false information related to my location to confuse their nosey advertising probe.

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