Got a weird name? Facebook may deny you

NEW YORK - Alicia Istanbul woke up one recent Wednesday to find herself locked out of the Facebook account she opened in 2007, one Facebook suddenly deemed fake. The stay-at-home mom was cut off not only from her 330 friends, including many she had no other way of contacting, but also from the pages she had set up for the jewelry design business she runs from her Atlanta-area home. Although Istanbul understands why Facebook insists on having real people behind real names for every account, she wonders why the online hangout didn't simply ask before acting. "They should at least give you a warning, or at least give you the benefit of the doubt," she said. "I was on it all day. I had built my entire social network around it. That's what Facebook wants you to do."

The local channel 4 here in Detroit every morning gives out birthday greetings on the air to people who email them with their birth dates.

I think they were Pwned this morning.

On the birthday list there somebody named "Eaton Beaver"........LOL!

These are not just aquaintances. In many cases these are people I have fornicated with...

Oh, my! I guess I really don't want any exes figuring out where I am, or wanting to contact me. But, that's just a personal difference.

I'd also be pretty P.O.-ed if they started charging. There's other ways for them to make money. I'm sure you don't use Google- you being someone who is against us evil 'something for nothing' people.

I never called the people who used free sites evil, and I certainly don't blame people for taking something that is free, if they do so ethically, of course. You and I would switch overnight if Google started charging, I just wonder what would happen to the people who have built a major portion of their lives on free sites, they are ripe for the pickings when it comes time to charge money for the ride. I'm sure there will always be a free (to the user) search engine out there, the Internet depends on it.

I don't understand the animosity towards facebook users. It is at least the same level of banality as political forums- yet here we all are.

You make a solid point. I'm sure there are quite a few people in my life who consider my posting and reading postings on a political board to be a waste of time. But sometimes, I get a bit of news that I can use, ahead of them. That's worth something. I guess I just never found social networking sites to be anything nearly as valuable than that. I have plenty enough trivial details to put up with from my lady, who tells me every bit of gossip in her office, and keeps up with the crap in her People magazine subscription.

In any case, will you give me my point that someone basing their livelihood and their social structure on something that didn't exist ten years ago has done so on a very flimsy foundation

Quit smoking 5 weeks ago. Your fault ;-)

I accept responsibility, if it will keep you on the right track. A friend is in the hospital right now, he knows he should have quit ten years ago after his heart attack, but he didn't. They were able to take him off the ventilator yesterday, but that doesn't mean he's out of the woods. His wife is a very good friend of ours, she's going to look pretty young to be a widow.

Damn. Sorry to hear about your friend.

I’m doing ok so far. I’ve quit a few times in the past but never made it past a few months most times. I think it was always because I was quitting for someone else- (for example). And then when I would get pissed off at them I would go and smoke a cigarette because my mind was blaming them for not being able to indulge in its habit.

But this time I really just wanted to quit for myself- because I wanted to. I’ve been smoking for three decades. I just need to quit and leave that behind me. I’ll save money for sure and hopefully a few years of life.

And the few years of life might work out to be really, really important because of my age- 43. All the people like Ray Kurzweil who go on and on about the coming tecnological Singularity reckon it could happen in about 25 years. At that point, they ought to be able to add about two decades of life to you medically and with that under your belt, you might make it to a form of immortality (mind uploaded into a computer). It sounds crazy and it wouldn’t be quite human but it wouldn’t be quite non-human either and you could ponder the matter for a few centuries if you made it that far.

I figure looking after my health isn’t going to hurt me none.

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