The recent updates to the Facebook news stream have me all disgruntled and in a bunch. The sorting and prioritizing filters they’ve applied make little sense to me and I’m spending more time trying to figure out what’s what than actually enjoying what people are posting.

At this very moment I have a “Recent Stories” section followed by a “Top Stories from the Last 15 Minutes” section and then another “Recent Stories” section. What makes it ad-nauseam worse is that these real-time-updates are constantly shifting right before my eyes. I can’t pay attention to what’s there because it keeps changing.

Whatever machine learning they’ve applied to determine what’s “Top News” and what nots just isn’t working. The “All Updates”, “Most Updates”, and “Only Important” got me wondering just how Facebook decides what’s important to me and what’s not. What’s the algorhythm? If I know them at least I have a chance to game them.

A computer trying to guess what’s important to me will always fail simply because what’s important to me changes daily, sometimes hourly. Sometimes I change my mind mid-thought.

Some days I’m big into games so The Force Unleashed is what I care about. Other days I’m watching every episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia that I can find. And my dear Facebook developers, you’ll never know which day I’m on or what my flavor of the month may be.¹

At the end of the day, I just wanna see the most Recent Stories on top. If some body/thing/group annoys me, I either hide them completely or un-whatever them. I’m an all or nothing kinda person.

Re: the new floating side bar. This floating, scrolling crap is just getting on my nerves and in my way. So what if I miss a comment somebody made on a photo I uploaded. So what if I miss a comment on a post that I wasn’t involved with to damn start with. So what fucking what? I don’t need to know damn everything about damn everything that’s going on. Life moves too fast to absorb it all and Facebook is now trying to shove all this information down my throat.

Take a cue from your good friend Google and Gmail’s Priority Inbox - give me settings to display the data how I want it displayed. I like chronological data for sorting information that I may or may not care to see. It makes sense.

Twitter does it right. Keep it simple. People are dumb.

¹ However, I bet your advertisers do.

#facebook #socialmedia

The President Signs Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

With his signature today, the President put in motion the end of a policy that has hurt our military as a whole, that has forced thousands of those who serve to do so under a cloud of anxiety and isolation, and that has stood as a symbol of the barriers to unity and equality in our country.”

And during the firefight, a private named Lloyd Corwin tumbled 40 feet down the deep side of a ravine. And dazed and trapped, he was as good as dead. But one soldier, a friend, turned back. And with shells landing around him, amid smoke and chaos and the screams of wounded men, this soldier, this friend, scaled down the icy slope, risking his own life to bring Private Corwin to safer ground.

For the rest of his years, Lloyd credited this soldier, this friend, named Andy Lee, with saving his life, knowing he would never have made it out alone. It was a full four decades after the war, when the two friends reunited in their golden years, that Lloyd learned that the man who saved his life, his friend Andy, was gay. He had no idea. And he didn’t much care.

The repeal Obama signed last December takes hold today. I say good riddance.

I also applaud the Marine Corps Times for their September cover.

Elsewhere:

• Gay weddings can be performed by military chaplains, Pentagon says
• Most Americans Now Favor Gay Marriage

#politics #LGBT

Actually, Eric Schmidt is testifying before the subcomitte during the FTC’s anti-trust probe kick-off hearing. $10 says they’ll get hit with an anti-trust suit of some kind next year.

Elsewhere, to get the juices flowing, Scott Cleland’s collected a long list of of “evils” (sans Wikileaks’ criminality) committed by Google.

Google 21st Century Robber Baron

In August, Google admitted to knowingly and repeatedly violating Federal criminal laws against the “unsafe and unlawful importation of prescription drugs” for years, in a criminal non-prosecution agreement; Google also paid a near record $500m forfeiture penalty. The Rhode Island U.S. Attorney who led the Google criminal probe said the evidence was clear current Google CEO “Larry Page knew what was going on.”

I don’t trust Google, we’re all sausages.

Elsewhere:

• Whether Google is a monopoly isn’t the point
• Senate notes: Schmidt’s Apple plug, Google piracy issues

#google

The Official site for Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day! September 19th falls on a Monday this year, which gives folks who like to party in the workplace and at school a chance to have some fun - and the rest of us had the weekend to warm up.

I hope ye’ve been talkin’ like a shipmate all tide long!

#holidays

Netflix, Qwikster: Two sites, two queues

Netflix is splitting into two companies – one for streaming and one for DVD rentals – in a few weeks. And while the services and prices won’t change, the company’s move could have a side effect that’s likely to annoy its customers: a bit of extra work.

One drawback of the split: “… the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com Web sites will not be integrated,” said Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings in a company blog post. “So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or e-mail address, you would need to do it in two places.”

Personally, I want them integrated. I don’t want different sites for DVDs and streaming. I don’t want different accounts and different website searches. What I want is a great site to find the movies.

There’s more going on that we know. My money is that Hollywood is twisting Netflix’s arm in one way or another and this split is a direct reflection.

Elsewhere:

• 10 things to remember about Netflix while scratching your head about Qwikster
• Net Flixup
• Netflix Forcing the Issue Too Soon
• Netflix Makes Another Video Apology via Conan O’Brien and Team CoCo

#netflix #movies

Postal Service move would delay mail by a day

The agency, which lost $8.5 billion last year, recently told Congress it could not make a $5.5 billion payment due Sept. 30 to a federal retiree health care trust fund. The Postal Service has proposed a number of radical changes to keep business afloat, including cutting Saturday mail delivery and closing thousands of post offices.

The federal retiree health care trust fund should be reviewed and revised. Even though the USPS has layed off a fifth of their workers, the 2006 mandated funding hasn’t changed.

Further reading on the Internets will tell you that the whole operation might shut down completely next year since they can’t afford to gas their trucks or pay their staff.

The Post Office was always a special place for me and I’ve many fond memories of going there with my Dad after they’d closed. It was one of the few public buildings that still had the lights on and let you in after dark, even if nobody was there.

But then again, I can’t remember the last time I was actually in a post office.

#usps

Fall is good, always plenty to do around these parts.

• Kite Festival at Peck Farm
• Incredible Bats at the Geneva Library
• St. Peter’s Barn Sale at the Kane County Fairgrounds

We plan to hit all of them.

#wheee

‘Lost’ star Matthew Fox sued by Cleveland bus driver

Bormann told Channel 3 that she blocked the entrance and told Fox he could not get on the bus three times. That’s when Fox started to punch her in the chest, stomach and her privates, she said.

Bormann then punched Fox in the mouth, causing a cut on his lip.

He punched her in the privates? Who punches a lady in her privates?

#sadiknow

Why Star Wars should be left to the fans

The latest revision by Lucas (putting the word “no” into Darth Vader’s concealed mouth during a tense scene during which he had previously been mute) elicited this angry (and strongly-worded) Twitter response from Simon Pegg, the Shaun of the Dead writer and star.

Looks like I won’t be buying the Blu-ray box set either, even if there are 40+ hours of extra footage. George, you gotta leave them movies alone.

You put too much pencil on the paper and you’ll overwork the art.

#starwars

Star Wars™ Night, benefitting Stand Up To Cancer

Join the Sox in celebrating the Star Wars Blu-ray release! Come dressed in your finest Star Wars attire and then march in a pre-game parade around the field.

Too bad it’s a night game (Sat, Sep 24th vs. KC) or I’d get my best Vader on. It’s for a good cause - the Sox are donating $5 of every ticket to Stand Up To Cancer. Plus there’s cool Star Wars swag for sale.

#baseball #starwars