There’s no Pasadena or even any special SoCal centricity to Facebook, unless you want to ‘like’ all the businesses you patronize here, if they have a FB page, you see their advertisements in your feed. So if I announce a show, it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if I had a page classified as a band, group or business, either. And it doesn’t work for anyone else in this way unless they already are semi-celebrities or have a substantial following. You can’t get one through Facebook.

For example, Gary Stein — the disgraced Marine, I would bet didn’t have much of a following for his page UNTIL one of his viewers ratted him out to superiors and the subsequent publicity over the wheels he’d set in motion gave him notoriety in the traditional media. He’s almost the perfect example of a fool who’s gotten a real lousy exchange for the privilege of ’sharing’ to the world through Facebook.

I analyzed my ‘friend’ list and realized well over half of it were those who made ‘friend’ requests only because they wanted an audience, usually for their political picture spamming, and probably never looked at anyone else’s pages directly. So I’ve taken out about two-thirds of my list and that’s been an improvement because the spammers and FB algorithms do drown others.

Anyway, I went through my wall again and deleted almost all of it. TimeLine wise, it’s just mostly the 29 vids and when I originally posted them, plus duplicates. Since Facebook isn’t searchable except for names and is not actually net transparent, it’s of no value in this regard — except to cripples who can’t follow search returns outside of Facebook to YouTube.

There a choice bit I got from the LA Times coverage of why ‘investors’ allegedly ‘like’ Facebook,’ yesterday, and the lead example is from someone who is either a ninny or deluded:

The answer can be found partly in the experience of people such as DeAnna Stephens of Charlotte, N.C. The 36-year-old video producer quit using Facebook in December, deciding she was frittering away too much time reading about what her friends were eating for lunch. Then she realized that she had lost touch with 900 people.

“I couldn’t believe how out of the loop I was on things in life,” Stephens said. Tired of being the last to hear about new jobs, new boyfriends and new babies, she signed up again …

Nine hundred ‘friends’. That’s just ludicrous and a sign that whatever must be coming from the person’s mouth is either exaggeration or rubbish having no root in the real world. You can’t follow 900 people in your feed. The very idea that someone actually thinks they have so many friends is stupefying. You don’t lose opportunities to work or expand yourself in America because you don’t have hundreds and hundreds of ‘friends’ on Facebook. Opportunity does not roll downhill to you in direct proportion to the volume of your cyber-stooge list.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-captives-20120518,0,7113610.story

Obviously, I’m also a bit tickled that, other than the people who vested because they held large amounts of Facebook stock prior to the IPO, most didn’t make any return on investment yesterday despite the volume of trading.

Also, as a trans woman, it’s been very helpful in connecting with others in our cult/clique/”community”/specialinterestgroup/embattledminority.

AND … I have three friends in Tasmania! (preens)

Otherwise, probably yes.

Sincerely,
- bonzie anne

PS: Of course, one can be ejected from Facebook instanter without explanation or recourse. Sooo… “Play nice, children! OR ELSE.”

†According to a recent article in Forbes, Ithaca is the third best “city” in the U.S. to find “employment”. We’re all laughing (with an hysterical edge). Seriously? This is INSANITY!

It went well at first. I went to a meeting and ran into a great bunch of people; they gave me a phone number as a contact for some other business I needed to know.

So I called the guy and he gave me some information that I needed, and then I asked about the emergency organization. He told me that he wasn’t an actual member. Confused, I asked why? As you would expect, you need to have a standard criminal background check. “No big deal,” I thought. The problem occurred with respect to there requirements: that you would consent to “other means” as part of the background check. And nobody would elaborate on what “other means” entailed.

Hmm…hmm…it all fits together…connect the dots, people. My chance to help the local community in case of a natural disaster a possible conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism!

Well, that settled that: I’m just too dangerous to trust–thank God, they’ll have one less person manning the radios when disaster strikes and people die as a result of sans User Hostile–cuz, otherwise, the terrorist would win.

That would be end of the story, but…a little later, I ran into my sister who spoke about a mutual acquaintance. He, too, had received a ham radio license. He’d gone to a club meeting (which I’d about joining) and discovered that a substantial minority were survivalist. As I understand it, our acquaintance wasn’t too concerned at first (he’s pretty conservative and a devout Christian, but also a live and let live kind of guy), but gradually realized that for all intents and purposes they were creepy and profoundly selfish people.

I stuck with being a volunteer at a food-bank instead. So far as I can tell, the terrorist and survivalist are not targeting the poor and destitute in this country….

Anyway, as written the linked piece was about someone employing a tax dodge to preserve a fortune and, apparently feeling the need to fudge the issue with assertions that he still believes something is good about America and that, boy, he’ll still make some investments and start a charitable foundation. Which is kind of dog ate my homework stuff delivered by the p.r. mouthpiece.

I live in Romania and theoretically if I sell apples (or anything else) here then I am obliged by law to report this income to the American authorities, even if not one tiny bit of this business has any link to the United States other than my citizenship.

If I’m Brazlian and live in Singapore then what in the hell does my stock holdings have to do with American taxes? Or put it this way, this guy isn’t losing any of his Facebook stocks, only renouncing his citizenship. So according to your reaction he’s somehow depriving the US of some money that’s being spent on services he obviously isn’t receiving since he doesn’t live in the US and drive on US roads and all that other stuff (infrastructure, et al).

I don’t have a million bucks but I’m in the same boat – a dollar earned here in Romania is “taxable income” in America because I’m a US citizen – total and utter bullshit as the only “services of a good civilization” I receive is the luxury of standing in a different line at the embassy to renew my passport. Golly gee so wonderful.

Meanwhile I can’t think of a single other nation that taxes income made entirely in a foreign country. Sorry bro, again I love your stuff and this makes me seem like some 1%er apologist et al but even a stopped clock is right sometimes.