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Guess where I am

The Muppets, however, are always relevant and hence, always welcome.

You know that awkward moment when you and a stranger are walking towards each other but need to get past each other and you get confused and end up doing a left to right dance? Not for me!

When I walk through large crowds of people, to avoid walking into anyone, I simply stare at my destination. I look no one in the eyes. People actually will watch your eyes and they avoid the direction you are going. If I look into people’s eyes as we are walking into each other, we are sure to collide. You have to let people know where you intend to go with your eyes. It always works for me, try it!

And for interacting with other people,

The general idea is that you ask someone for a huge favor which you’re relatively confident they’ll say no to. Then you ask them for a small favor.

Subjects who initially refuse the huge favor have a much higher compliance rate on the small favor than if you just ask directly for the small favor or if you present both at once.

If they end up saying yes to the huge favor, that’s also good.

Check out the thread and see which tricks will work for you.

What is a “mind trick” you know of? (Reddit)

This time, however, the smart-ass reviewers tackle on something more relevant: pepper spray. BTW, unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s relevant because of a cop spraying seated protesters in UC Davis.

Here’s some choice pieces:

I casually used this product to try to disperse a small band of non-violent campers who had locked their arms together. Although initially it seemed to be effective, it took two applications! The worst part is that the next day they multiplied exponentially! Now what?

One positive outcome, I did receive a paid vacation for my efforts.

Also,

Whenever I need to breezily inflict discipline on unruly citizens, I know I can trust Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray to get the job done! The power of reason is no match for Defense Technology’s superior repression power. When I reach for my can of Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray, I know that even the mighty First Amendment doesn’t stand a chance against its many scovil units of civil rights suppression.

When I feel threatened by students, no matter how unarmed, peaceful and seated they may be, I know that Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray has got my back as I casually spray away at point blank range.

It really is the Cadillac of citizen repression technology.

But seriously, folks. The behavior by the cops and the university administration was just unacceptable. And their current rationalizations are just making it worse for them. We can only take comfort in people’s humor with their funny reviews, otherwise, we would all be wallowing in despair. You may not agree with the students or you may find their actions objectionable to your own beliefs. But it is undeniable that spraying capsaicin on seated protesters at point blank range is disproportionate and unacceptable from a law enforcement enforcer (even though he’s just a university cop).

Snarky pepper spray reviews on Amazon.com

I’m not very articulate about these things but one of the reasons (initially) why I don’t like Facebook is I have to actively police the site just so I keep the noise down. Everything’s just a mess of people blurting out what’s in their heads and Facebook makes it difficult to filter things. Sure, Facebook may have changed things recently (but only because Google+ became a viable threat) but this reason is minor compared to the next one.

Another reason why I don’t like Facebook is that it has practices bordering on deceitful to propagate its business. How many times have we heard about Facebook changing its privacy policy right under people’s feet? I don’t want to keep checking in just to make sure I still have the same level of privacy. And speaking of deceptive, have you heard about how Facebook still keeps tracks of users even after they’ve signed out? Yes…

Facebook also likes keeping things to itself once it gets things. It only likes getting things but it doesn’t like giving back. It’s building a walled garden–you have to Facebook account to access this or view that. It’s trying to keep content only within itself and trying to shut the outside world out.

And I don’t like that. Sure, you could try to make the same argument with Google but at least it’s not building a wall around you.  You can opt out and take your data with you in a usable form. You can actually build a service to compete with theirs.

Facebook is this massive blob that’s trying to engulf the whole of the internet and once it does, will keep everything to itself. I hate it when I want to check something out that I thought should be on the open web but instead I need a Facebook account to see it. Companies seem to like doing this because they can track users using Facebook’s information. Google will do the same but at least the option of not being signed in is still there.

I want options and I don’t like it when they’re not there. I want someone that I can trust that will keep those options open for me. I don’t want someone I’ve trusted to change things to a way I don’t agree with.  That’s why I don’t like Facebook–it’s not just one thing but an accumulation of a whole lot of reasons.

That’s my take on it. Here, however, is a more nuanced analysis by Anil Dash: http://dashes.com/anil/2011/11/facebook-is-gaslighting-the-web.html (via BoingBoing). Aside from points of agreement which I’ve already presented, he lays down other reasons–Facebook basically breaks the paradigm of the internet and linking (hell; even Tim-Berners Lee thinks Facebook is bad for everyone), entities who would like to publish information will have a hard time doing so, you basically get held captive into Facebook if you choose it to share,  Facebook marking the open web as unsafe compared to its own dubious paradigms…Basically, Facebook is now being classified as badware, not for technical reasons but for philosophical (and ethical) ones.

Facebook, essentially, is trying to hold the internet captive and it’s using people’s bloated sense of self and vanity to do it.

And I don’t like that.

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• Michael Caine
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