I knew the social networking giant had jumped the shark way back in 2008 when one of my mother’s friends wanted to know if I had a Facebook so she could “friend me”. Two years later when my beloved Daniel told me he was establishing a Facebook account I told him that I had lost respect for him. Despite that, when he joined I felt some desire to join as well, still I shied away from it.

And I’ve never been able to articulate precisely what it was that made me so uneasy about the concept of Facebook, other than a few (mostly) glib remarks about hating people and not voluntarily interacting with them any more than I already must.

This morning I was flipping through the current issue of Newsweek and I came across an editorial by David Lyons on the subject of Facebook and the privacy concerns surrounding it and he managed to put into words what I could not:

In the past five years Facebook has repeatedly changed its privacy policy, always in one direction, and every time this happens, the same movie plays out: people complain, Facebook stonewalls, then spins, then pretends to be contrite, then finally walks things back—a bit. Nobody seems to notice that, after the walk-back, Facebook is still grabbing more personal info than it was before …
The truth is, Zuckerberg needs your data. His business is built on it. You are not Facebook’s customer. You are its inventory—you are the product Facebook is selling.

The article goes more into much more detail about the nature of the changes, etc. It goes so far as to note that the current rendition of the privacy scuffle will in all likelihood play out without leaving so much as a dent in Facebook’s popularity. (100 millions new users in the last four months is an astounding figure.) I hold out hope that it will one day soon hit a saturation point and become just another fad that nobody wants to admit having once taken part in. (MySpace, anyone?)

Daniel does make a good point when he notes that I share far more information on my LibraryThing account than he does on his Facebook one. I’m comfortable with people knowing I own a lot of books; I’m even comfortable with the inferences that can be drawn from my collection such as the fact that many of the horizontal surfaces in my apartment have books stacked on them — twenty-six volumes deep in spots, if you must know. The difference is that LibraryThing has never made me feel like a commodity, which these days on the web is rare.

I got an e-mail last night from a mailing list that I’m on for one of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black. The e-mail was announcing an “Emergency Benefit Concert for Haiti” the event comprised several evenings featuring many different artists all performing at the City Winery in New York in the coming week. My first reaction was very positive, I was impressed that such a series of events could be put together on such short notice. A short way down in the finer print I spotted that the proceeds were going to Wyclef Jean’s YELE. That was distressing considering the allegations being made against that particular charity (see here and here). I sent out some e-mails to those involved asking that they carefully consider where they want to donate the money. I really doubt that it will make a difference, but I also felt like I had to say something. There are few things worse than a shady charity.

Addendum 20 January 2010:

More information here regarding the allegations against the YELE Haiti Foundation including Wyclef Jean’s brief statement in which he refused to address the payments made to him by the foundation.

October was a month of tournaments for me. I spent part of last week at my first regional tournament and a few weeks ago I played in my first sectional. I managed to come away from the sectional with some silver MPs and a first place finish followed rather quickly by a last place one. At the regional I gained a few red MPs and I scored a “Regional Winner” glass. Even better, I made lots of contacts for future tournaments, including perhaps a return to this same event next year.

Of course, upon returning to my regular club on Wednesday night (and telling my teacher and my regular partner this), I played like a moron. Consistency continues to allude me at every turn. On Sunday afternoon I managed to come in second. Yesterday afternoon I came in middle of the road and last night I managed to come in first with a 65% game (a mere *cough* 10% less than the game my partner had with someone else while I was away playing bridge in Amish country). I have with this glut of playing reached 20 MPs and the title of “Club Master Weenie” so there’s something.

Unrelated, and thereby being of far more interest to most, I need to remember to stop by Barnes & Noble and buy this month’s issue of Playboy. I doubt that it will be a “collector’s edition” in that it will actually accrue value, but it is Marge Simpson and while she’s not quite as hot as Bugs Bunny in drag, she’s still pretty darn cute.

This story about two men running a raffle in which the prize was an evening with a prostitute is a good example of the way language can be used to express more than what is actually being said.

The involved parties, Christopher S. Johnson and Rusty Blades, are referred to as “(a)n Ohio State University academic adviser and a real estate agent” respectively while Vanessa Dunn is referred to as, “a prostitute who is also a child sex-abuse caseworker”. The very order in which those two occupations are listed is odd, plus neither of the men are referred to as pimps.