A Guide to Leaving Facebook
Over the past year I’ve been increasingly uncomfortable with Facebook and have finally decided to abandon it. It was Salim Virani’s article Get Your Loved Ones Off Facebook that finally sealed the deal. I’m not going to spend anytime reiterating what he has written. If you’re on Facebook you really should read it yourself. What I intend to do here is detail how I am transitioning away from Facebook by replacing it with different services.
I’ve been a regular user of the internet since 1997 so I had 10 years of experience before joining FB. Remembering the days of the internet before Facebook is an interesting exercise. There’s no doubt that FB provides a convenient access point for sharing anything and everything via timelines, groups, and messaging. From images to video it’s all just a click or two to post or view content from practically any internet connected device.
A few resources for staying in touch. The most obvious is the old standby email. Make sure you collect the email addresses for folks you want to stay in touch with. And make sure your email address is available to those who may prefer email.
Chatting without FB Messenger is easily accomplished via free services and apps such as Skype. With Skype I can have private text, video or audio chats or group chats from my Mac or iPhone or iPad. Also available for Windows and Android. Individual texting and group texting is yet another option which is increasingly easy to access from a variety of devices and operating systems. In our home we’re using Macs, iPhones and iPads to message with each other as well as anyone with a cell phone. Twitter is an interesting blend of messaging and wall posting and might as well be in the mix.
The Facebook “wall” is also replaceable though it requires a bit more effort for everyone involved. For the sharer it requires setting up a blog which is fairly easy to do and free. Free options include Google’s Blogger platform (the home of this blog), WordPress, or paid options such as Typepad. Here’s a nice list of free and paid options. When you set-up your blog you have a variety of options such as allowing comments to articles as well as visual/design customizations via themes. A nice change from Facebook’s persistent blue graphics everywhere.
Then there is the process of gathering up the blog feeds of friends, similar to friending people. This part is not as easy as it is in a closed ecosystem such as Facebook. One of the easiest ways to get started is via a free service such as Feedly. Set-up an account and then begin adding the feeds of friends blogs. This is accomplished by clicking the “Add Content” link in the Feedly sidebar then copy/pasting the address of the blog into the field. Feedly will look for the rss feed for the blog and give you the option of subscribing. Done. I’ve been using RSS for 10+ years so I’ve got a fairly large list of sites that I read, or, in some cases, skim. Feedly allows for easy organization of feeds by topic areas via folders. I’ve got a folders for a variety of interests: astronomy, science, Apple and tech news, general news, design and most recently I’ve added a “Friends” folder in which I will place the feeds for any Facebook friends that have a blog. You can access your Feedly via web browser or a variety of rss apps. On the Mac I prefer accessing via web browser, on my iPad or iPhone the free Feedly app is excellent.
What about photos and video? Photos can be fairly easily added right to your blog’s timeline via upload from whatever device you’re using. Or, if you prefer a dedicated photo service Flickr is a free service that offers plenty of space (1 TB) for sharing photos. A nice side benefit of flickr is that it is in itself a social medium which encourages following and commenting. Flickr photos can also be posted to blogs. Video can be easily accomplished with YouTube or Vimeo, both of which offer the option to embed video in your blog.
There’s no doubt that developing your own ecosystem takes a bit more work but it comes with the benefit of greater control of content presentation and independence from Facebook’s data collection machine. Well, not quite independence because it is becoming quite clear that it is nearly impossible to be clear of such collection but why make it easy?
Lots coming... stay tuned.
I’ve been on Facebook since 2007 but have grown increasingly uncomfortable with it. This article was the last straw. I’ll be closing my account there and getting very busy here. I’ll probably be posting a few articles and backdating to the original FB timeline post… just the better posts that I don’t want to loose track of. I’ll try not to flood the feed.
Riding Light
Excellent visualization of the vast distances of space even in our local solar system.
In our terrestrial view of things, the speed of light seems incredibly fast. But as soon as you view it against the vast distances of the universe, it’s unfortunately very slow. This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective. I’ve taken liberties with certain things like the alignment of planets and asteroids, as well as ignoring the laws of relativity concerning what a photon actually “sees” or how time is experienced at the speed of light, but overall I’ve kept the size and distances of all the objects as accurate as possible. I also decided to end the animation just past Jupiter as I wanted to keep the running length below an hour.Riding Light
Domestic Bliss
A fantastic new essay by Kaleesha is posted over at Patreon. Please visit and consider supporting her work as a writer. She often makes it look easy but I see how much time she puts into crafting her posts. While it is true that she loves writing it is also true that writing is not just a labor of love for her; not any more. This is now her effort to earn a living, her “career”. If you choose to support her I can promise (from my behind the scenes vantage point) that your money is well spent. As an writer Kaleesha is growing by leaps and bounds. Not only is she working on two books (both fiction) but she relentlessly polishes each essay she publishes (nearly one a week.)
Domestic Bliss, Posted to Patreon
An interesting ad that has pissed off creationists
I’m not the least bit interested in taking a cruise but this a really well done ad.
http://reverbpress.com/news/creationists-freak-evolutionary-back-sea-super-bowl-commercial-video/
DIY Well Pump Replacement
Kaleesha is over at Patreon now! Her first post there: DIY Well Pump Replacement.
Free Kindle Book and Giveaway
Win a autographed copy of “Free to Be” OR four bars of our very own Daisyblend handcrafted goat milk soap!! How? Read on.
Kaleesha’s book is free on Amazon today! When this image is shared and/or retweeted with the #freetobegiveaway and Amazon link, your name is entered into a drawing for your choice of an autographed copy of “Free to Be” OR four bars of our very own Daisyblend handcrafted goat milk soap. If you share on both Twitter and Facebook you’ll be entered twice.
Viewing Comet Lovejoy
We finally got a chance to take advantage of the clear, moonless skies to have a look at Comet Lovejoy! Farra, Atira, Kaleesha joined me at the scope and it was quite a view. Fantastic I’d say. We also had a look at a few objects that Farra had not had a chance to see yet: the Andromeda Galaxy, Orion Nebula and the Starfish Cluster.
Goodbye Talula
Homeschool Star Party
Wow. Just had a crowd of homeschool families from Poplar Bluff over for a star party. Denny manned the telescope, Farra helped guide the way up and down the path in the dark, Atira and Seth helped me in the house, making popcorn and hot cocoa and directing folks to the bathroom. I also quizzed the kids when they came in about what Denny had shown them. A wee bit hectic overall, as there were more than we were expecting, but quite a fun way to spend a winter’s evening.
The Mac Mini at 10 Years
[caption id=“attachment_1235” align=“alignright” width=“300”]
Original Mac Mini still being used by the kids for home school![/caption]
It’s been 10 years since the Mac Mini was released and Brian Stucki over at Mac Mini Colo has written up a great post/timeline to celebrate. It was released on January 11, 2005 and I remember being pretty excited. I’d recently purchased one of the new G5 iMacs but my sister was in need of a new Mac for her business and the new Mini was my suggestion. She bought one and I set it up with a custom FileMaker Pro database to track her customer billing and iCal for appointments. In the off hours the Mini was used for web browsing, iTunes and photo organizing via iPhoto.
A little over a year later I traded her my iMac for her Mini because she had need for more power (her husband was increasingly interested in using iMovie and iDVD) and I was mostly using my 12“ Powerbook. I wanted the Mini for a power sipping iTunes media server. Today, nearly 10 years later, that Mac Mini is upstairs still being used by the kids for their school work. I retired it from media server duties just a year ago when I moved that task over to my primary work machine, a new Mini (late 2012 model). The kids have used it ever since. Actually, until recently, the eldest, Farra, was using the above mentioned 2003 12” Powerbook (one of my all time favorite Macs!).
Upon seeing that first Mac Mini being presented by Steve I knew it would be a hit. How could it not? A $499 Mac in such a small form factor would, I thought, be what the higher priced G4 Cube (2000–2001) should have been: an affordable yet stylish introduction to the Mac for potential switchers. The Cube was a beautiful bit of design but at $1799 its high price made for an impractical purchase. The Mini did indeed succeed and is still in production. The original form factor was used until 2010 when a beautiful new, unibody aluminum enclosure was introduced. With it came a built in power supply, hdmi port and easy to upgrade memory via a twist off bottom cover. This new Mini was updated again in 2012 and as recently as October 2014 after a 2 year gap between updates.
A month ago a visiting friend had occassion to be in my office and observed the Mac Mini on my desk. He was surprised that I did all of my design work on something as lowly as a Mini which prompted a bit of a chuckle from me. Not only is the Mini my workhorse but this tiny machine generally handles my projects with plenty to spare. Only the largest Photoshop or Illustrator files ever require that the little beastie break a sweat. Exporting or converting movie files from iMovie or Handbreak also pushes the processor but that’s to be expected. The important measure with such work is of course the time it takes to complete the job and I’ve been nothing but pleased with the speed of the Mini in such tasks. All this with what many consider the bare minimum of memory in 2015, 4 GB.
It’s been a good 10 years.
Little Brook has begun learning math!
A Busy Place
Ultra High Res Portrait of the Andromeda Galaxy
Star Trek and Humanity
Ha! I just brought up Star Trek in a discussion the other day and came across this today. Star Trek: The Next Generation In 40 Hours — Medium
And this is why I love the NG:
"Our heroes fly around on a 1,000-person spaceship run by Starfleet, which is Earth’s peacekeeping/military organization. Earth, along with a bunch of alien planets, is part of the United Federation of Planets (The Federation) which is a like a space U.N., devoted to universal liberty, rights, equality, sharing knowledge, and exploring the galaxy.
In the world of Star Trek, hunger and poverty have been eliminated. Energy comes from matter-antimatter reactors (or something). Food is created instantly in replicators. Humanity has dedicated itself to exploration and self-improvement."
Of Chickens Roosting
Dave Winer over at the Scripting News has hit on something important in regards to the violence of the U.S. abroad and the militarization of our society domestically. Worth a read.
Talking with a friend the other day I learned something I had not previously understood. The people of the NYPD want the support of the community the same way we support soldiers who are or were fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. They want “Support Our Troops” to apply to them as it applies to soldiers fighting overseas.
The people of NYC are horrified to see what we are supposed to excuse in this support. The video of the murder of Eric Garner, and that’s the only word for it, was totally incriminating. The thought that the perpetrators of that crime would go free is something we can’t accept. Not when the evidence is so clear and overwhelming.
This is a huge disconnect, and we let it happen. The problem isn’t with the NYPD, the problem is with the blanket total support we give our military when it fights in Afghanistan and Iraq. The price of placing zero value on the lives of the people of these countries is that our lives in turn become worthless. What goes around comes around. You reap what you sow. There are dozens of adages and fables that explain this phenomenon. The lives of the people of the foreign countries are worth exactly as much as ours. We overlooked the behavior of American soldiers in these countries. Now the cops want to know why we treat them differently.
And they’re right to ask. Why? If the army can arbitrarily kill thousands in Iraq, why can’t they kill a few people in Staten Island, Missouri, or Ohio? You “support the troops” why don’t you support us, they ask.
The Typography of Alien
A pretty fantastic post about the typography of Alien.
My third post about typography in sci-fi has been gestating for a while now. Indeed, it’s been slowly taking shape – you might say it’s been forming itself inside of me – for really quite some time. I’m delighted to say that it is now ready to burst forth from my allegorical chest, and to spatter allegorical typographic blood all over your allegorical faces. Welcome to Typeset In The Future: The Alien Edition.