Also Taken

Yesterday, I discovered that the thief took something else in addition to the Wii and GameCube things: he took my Game Boy and games as well. This one actually bothers me. In order to understand what I mean, you have to understand that this wasn't just money; this was a part of my childhood. These games, and the contents saved on their cartridges, represented countless hours invested, of fun and hard work. Also, I kept my games in immaculate physical condition, and kept most of the original boxes and manuals, which I still have, but sans games. Here's the list (or at least, the list that I remember/have records of): Game Boy games:

• Super Mario Land
• Super Mario Land 2
• Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
• Yoshi's Cookie
• Tetris
• Radar Mission
• Prince of Persia
• Super RC Pro-AM
• King James Bible (put out by WisdomTree; not licensed by Nintendo)

Game Boy Color games:

• Tetris 2
• Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
• Wario Land 2
• Wario Land 3
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
• Donkey Kong Land
• Donkey Kong Land 2
• Donkey Kong Land 3
• Donkey Kong

Game Boy Advance games:

• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
• Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda
• Super Mario Advance
• Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
• Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3
• Sonic Advance
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit
• Donkey Kong Country
• Donkey Kong Country 2

All these were taken, along with my translucent purple Game Boy Advance that I bought on the day it came out. Everything, including a few accessories, was kept in a large case that looks like an original Game Boy with a handle. As you can see, I'm somewhat of a collector, in particular of Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong games, or at least, I was. It makes me sad to lose these games. I faxed in the list to the insurance company and added it to the police report. I don't know how much I'll get back for them, since many of them are older, and have theoretically depreciated. Most of the games that I bought, though, are not the sort that actually depreciate beyond a certain point, but become classics. Maybe now I'll be getting that DS I was considering. Phantom Hourglass looks fun.

Robbed, Again

Our apartment was robbed on Friday, for the second time in two months. It looks like it was the same people as the last time, or at least one of them: same entry point, same style. Last time, most of the stuff that was taken was Casey's. This time, we were both hit, but he was still hit much harder than I. Both of our rooms were ransacked. Oddly enough, this time, they didn't take any computers. Even though my laptop was sitting right on top of my desk, and they climbed in through my window onto my desk, they didn't take it. They did take the Zune from my desk. They also took my Wii, and all of its games and accessories (including the Gamecube games, but not the Gamecube controllers). I think this time they were constrained by what they could carry, and what they could sell quickly. I had jars of coins in my room that were taken, and Casey had some coins taken too. I'm okay, what they took from me is mostly replaceable: it boils down to just money, and we have renter's insurance that will cover most of that. The apartment is under construction: the balconies were torn down and are being rebuilt, so I imagine there wasn't a car big enough to load TVs and bigger objects into, or they would have been seen doing it. My personal theory is that one of the burglars, probably younger, needed some cash, and decided to revisit our place, because he knew there were still things to take, and he figured that he could still get in the same way. He's not getting in the same way a third time.

Facebook's Beacon: It's Easier to Ask Forgiveness Than Permission

Facebook recently released a new feature that it calls Beacon. Basically what this feature does, is when you shop online (or interact with a website in some way, such as posting a review, etc.) at a site that has signed up with Facebook, that site sends information about what you do to Facebook, and Facebook updates all of your friends. The idea being, that the sites that send your information to Facebook get referral business from people learning that you visited their site, and Facebook gets to hone its consumer profile of you, and serve you more relevant ads, and collect better market research about you. (Facebook is big on data mining.) Sounds great, right? In order to placate your privacy concerns, Facebook gives you two opportunities to opt out:

• Before the site sends your information to Facebook, a small pop-up appears in the window. If you don't click it, or if you wait too long (20 seconds), it assumes you have no objection, and sends the data to Facebook.
• The next time you log in to Facebook's site, it presents you with the opportunity to not display the information to your friends. If you don't exercise this opportunity (like, say, you simply go and do what you went to Facebook to do in the first place), the information is added to your feed for all your friends to see.

Do you feel violated yet? You should. First of all, under no circumstances (except in cases where I specifically opt-in) do I want any information whatsoever sent to Facebook about any of my online activities external to Facebook. I do not want them to know my Amazon.com shopping habits, nor do I want them to know that I even have an Amazon.com account, unless I tell them specifically, and then I want explicit control over exactly what information is sent, when, and how. The opportunity to opt-out is unacceptable. This should be an entirely opt-in system. Amazon should not be sending any information to Facebook, until I permit them to do so by telling Amazon that I want the information sent. I have strong objections to Facebook's "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" philosophy (think Application invitations/notifications/annoyances), especially when it comes to collecting user data. Any site that tries to send its users' data to Facebook without their express "opt-in" consent will not be getting any of my business, and I intend to tell them exactly why they are not getting my business. Second, automatically displaying a user's online activities for all their friends to see is just a bad idea. We can all imagine situations where this would be a bad thing, from buying gifts, to embarrassing purchases, to information that you simply don't care to broadcast to your entire acquaintance. Now, there are times when I want the whole world to know that I bought a ticket on Fandango, or wrote a review of a product, or joined this-or-that forum, or participated in this-or-that discussion. In fact, the RSS/Atom feed to this blog is automatically posted to my Facebook profile as notes. There are certainly things that I have chosen to publish to all of my Facebook friends, including the information on my public profile. The point is that I took the initiative: I specifically chose to share these things. They are under my control, by my choice. So, what is my course of action? Any website that participates in Beacon, and does not do so with the users' explicit permission and control (i.e., they ask whether or not to contact Facebook in the first place, before Facebook's servers are contacted) will not get any of my business. I will not shop/participate there, and I will in stead send them a short e-mail message telling them exactly why I refuse to do so until they allow the user to control when and if Facebook is contacted. Also, I am using Firefox's AdBlock plug-in to block "facebook.com/beacon/*", which should prevent the servers from being accessed in the first place. If Facebook continues its cavalier attitude towards user privacy, I will delete my account and tell them to remove absolutely all data associated with my account (because, apparently, deleting one's account does not accomplish this).

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Update: Apparently, Facebook has responded to the consumer backlash regarding their Beacon service, and so they will be requiring a user's "opt-in" consent on a site-by-site basis. However: they are still collecting all of this information for themselves. This is still an unacceptable solution, and is designed to get sites not to prompt a user before sending the information.

Why I Chose HD DVD over Blu-ray

Because you're all just dying to know.

Viva La Resolutión

Terrestrial exodus? Death? Oh, please. Mostly I blame my dearth of bloggy effluence on the time leech that is Liz, but it's not as if I haven't been busy before, and still found time to blog. I've been doing lots of memorable things; hanging out with great friends 'till all hours of the night: solving the world's problems, and bearing consternation at our own before the Throne. I haven't been dancing as much lately. It is both a symptom and partial catalyst of my mental discomfort. I miss it physically; my body is anxious for exercise, but tomorrow morning, I will satiate it well enough with paintball. I think the main reason I haven't been posting to my blog lately is that my mind hasn't been settled: I write about what I think about, but often, I cannot write my thoughts, particularly if they are unresolved. Certain breath-bated of my readers will be happy to know that resolution is at hand⁰. As a P, I tend to thrive on a certain level of uncertainty, ambiguity, and cavalierness, much to the chagrin¹ of the Js in my life. This, however, only extends to a point². My free-spirited intuition must have its basis in truth, and I cannot remain permanently in a state of flux³.

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⁰And, presumably, as a consequence, more frequent posts. ¹And intrigue, admit it! ²Or it might be considered a fault, which would be inconceivable. ³The monotony of it would be terribly boring.