I loathe FB and their policies as much as the next person, but the problem is that, as another commenter pointed out, FB is very much requirement for arranging events and communicating because of the social inertia. Sure, you don't need a cell phone either! Throw it out, just communicate with people on your land line! Okay.. that's a little tricky.. the world moves on without me. You know, you don't need a phone at all. Just communicate with people by pen and paper!

Of course all of this is doable, but it is absurd to speak in absolutes and ignore that if everyone around you is 'speaking a new language' you can get by just by keeping the old one. You have to twist arms or be less efficient. Remember, at the end of the day, no one really cares about the implementation details: I just want to be able to talk to my friends, organize social gatherings, and share information.

We/I care because we understand the privacy/corporate-control implications, but... where do we go from here?

Jesus Chrysler, guys... this joke only Benz so far.

I agree - it's not fair to generalize, and you find people are unique too quickly and not such a crowd one might think. Just to feed (har) your anecdote some more: I am 10+ year vegetarian, I generally avoid processed foods (but, I mean, cheese is 'processed' so it's dumb to make a blanket statement like that), but I have no opinion on 'the right diet' for anyone but myself. I know what makes me feel good when I eat it, so I eat it. I don't eat meat for moral and taste reasons, and I'm happy to explain if you ask... but, that's me. I don't care if you eat a hamburger in front of me or cook a steak at my house, so long as I don't have to eat it. Live your way.

Also, the 'no GMO' and 'buy organic' crowds, if there are such things, can be easily misinterpreted. Some people don't like the food monopoly. Some people don't like Monsanto. That all might come out as 'chemicals are bad' in some context, but there may actually be some other thoughts besides that conclusion.

As for people whining about this product, remember the old joke 'how do you know someone's a vegan? they'll tell you.' No one is making you eat it.. let's let individuals decide.

You're already at 5, so instead of mod points, I just want to give you my thanks. There's been plenty of discussion in this thread from you, but this one really hits the nail on the head with the concept of being human.

Patently untrue. First-parties charge developers a fee to be licensed and release content for their consoles. Source: am a game developer.

I am aware of these stories, and I still have been using a neti pot regularly for about 3 years now... with tap water (or distilled when I travel).

Real question: given the apparently low number of incidents like this and the fact that all the stories I have read come from the SE United States (I am not there).. what are the actual odds of me killing myself from an amoeba as opposed to dying in a car crash? I know the number of people who drive is far higher than the number of people who use neti pots, but if 2 out of 1 million neti pot users die like this every year, well... let's just say I don't mind playing the odds.

I actively encourage my employees to stay home when they're sick. I realize we all can't work in these strange utopias of logic, but losing one guy for a week is much better than him coming in and getting 3 other people sick for a week. From a pure numbers standpoint, I don't get how people don't see how it's a GOOD thing to tell people to take care of themselves.

One of my only office pet-peeves is when someone shows up to work next to me with an obvious illness. Then I get sick. Arrrrrrgh.

Just for a bit of fair perspective - clubbing and dancing wound up being my 'higher' social hobby. When I turned 21, I immediately started going out dancing at clubs, since they played the music I like. Eventually I became a DJ, and, while I don't drink while I'm at clubs, I would still not write off clubs as bad places to explore your hobbies and have fun.

I would guess the average intelligence of plenty of my crowds are lower than a Salsa group, but, trust me, there are _tons_ of engineers/programmers who love dancing and (80's/goth/alternative - i.e. not hip-hop) music: I've met several folks from Apple, an entrepeneur from Yahoo, etc.

Whatever it is, the key point to remember is that socializing with mutual intellectual/emotional/physical interests will always be more valuable than forced, normalized socializing. :)

5 years old and in high school... were you babysitting for Stephen Hawking's family?

Check out Launchy. It is seriously awesome and snappy (especially if you tune it to not show the flashy UI fades and such).

http://www.launchy.net/

Nexus doesn't even come close. How about the Nokia N900. It's pretty much Debian Linux running on an ARM processor. I can open xterm and type 'su' and do whatever I want. There's always a mention of it in any of these phone threads, but it never seems to get headlines on Slashdot for some reason.

Wait, wasn't this an episode of The Critic?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Qr1Jm5cK2b4#t=283s

I agree. Costumers deserve to be treated well out of the theater, too!

Wouldn't this make every web browser illegal or subject to scrutiny/some sorts of rules about how it displays pages?

Would links be illegal because it does not display images?

Yes, but the problem here is that you have control. If you published your personal data on YOUR site, that's your choice - you can remove it, change it. It's your data.

As soon as you give it to FB, they can do whatever they want with it, including not deleting or changing it.