Two Moments of Irritation This Weekend
Saturday, when at a friend's apartment for a Rock Band party, the yellow pad on the drums peripheral stopped working just an hour into playing (and perhaps 10 hours into the total life of the unit). No one was drumming with any special vociferousness. We opened it up to discover that one of the two thin wires that connect to the cheap foil sensor at the bottom of the pad had broken free of its solder. I recommended we attempt to fix it, then wisely absconded when repairs started to take a turn towards the inevitable request for a hammer.
Last night, when adding new movies to my Blockbuster.com Total Access queue—I prefer Netflix's library, but there is a Blockbuster literally a few hundred feet from my apartment, which makes the "turn in your mailed video and get a free rental" service a real bargain—I was prompted to add my selections to the news feed of my Facebook account. Every time—despite clicking the checkbox to decline the offer. Worse, when I looked at my Facebook account later, it appeared that the selections appeared in Facebook anyway as part of their ridiculous "Beacon" auto-opt-in integration. It's the first time I've been grateful that Blockbuster.com doesn't offer porn.
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I despise the beacon thing with Facebook. I've never felt so used by a website. It's just so damn ... sneaky...
Drop the whole social networking BS and gone are your worries.
Right, Michiel. I manage to keep in touch with people I want to just fine, without having to offer up my personal and behavioral information for public consumption and commercialization.
I haven't confirmed whether this works, but blocking Beacon seems like a simple task with Firefox.
I actually like facebook. It's a nice way to keep in touch with people I might not otherwise contact. But I don't begrudge those who can do so without the use of commercial lubricants.
As far as I've been able to tell, the method linked from comment #4 works just fine.
The first 30,000 rockband guitar controllers are being replaced free of charge due to poor build quality.
Sounds like they picked a crappy controller design/manufacture firm this time 'round.