Deleting my Facebook Account (Part 2)

I'm still trying to delete my Facebook but it appears Facebook lied to me. Once I delete it, I will signup again. This is just a reboot so I can start fresh. I opened my Facebook account when they first opened it up to general public so I've had it a long time and it has collected a lot of junk I'd like to purge. Since it's hard to purge that stuff, deleting my account seemed like the simplest way to remove everything and rebuild.

They said that my account would be deleted on Saturday August 14. It's now Monday August 16 and I tried to signup and it said "There is an existing account associated with this email".



So I logged in and saw this.



I clicked Confirm Deletion and saw this.


They had me wait 14 days until it got deleted. I waited 16 days and discovered they lied. My account has not been deleted now they are having me wait another 14 days. This time I will wait 30 days before I attempt to signup again.

Deleting my Facebook Account

I've had a Facebook account since they opened it up to the entire Internet. I've subscribed to tons of stuff, installed tons of apps and accumulated nearly 150 friends. It's time for a reboot. The unfortunate thing is that all pictures tagged with me will get un-tagged. Oh well. This time I'll just invite about 50 of my closest friends instead of every one I know.

I discovered that it's not easy to delete your account. The first thing I tried was to visit my account settings.



but I discovered that you can only deactivate your account there.



Here is what they say about deactivation.

If you deactivate your account from the "Deactivate Account" section on the Account page, your profile and all information associated with it are immediately made inaccessible to other Facebook users. What this means is that you effectively disappear from the Facebook service. However, if you want to reactivate at some point, we do save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.), and your account will look just the way it did when you deactivated if you decide to reactivate it. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and expect their information to be there when they return to the service.

I clicked on Deactivate Account and I saw this screen showing me who would miss me and asking me why I'm deactivating.



So then I went to the Help Center searched for "Delete My Account" and still they tried to bury the most obvious and best matching link.



When you finally do click "Delete My Account" it warns

If you do not think you will use Facebook again and would like your account deleted, please keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added. If you would like your account permanently deleted with no option for recovery, log in to your account and then submit your request by clicking here.





You then have to put in your password and prove you're a human.



When you finally pass that, you learn that your account has not been deleted. It's only deactivated for 14 days then it will be deleted. You see this text

Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14 days, you will have the option to cancel your request.

The sent me this emails

Hi Patrick,

We have received a request to permanently delete your account. Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days.

If you did not request to permanently delete your account, please login to Facebook to cancel this request:

http://www.facebook.com/login.php


Thanks,
The Facebook Team



I then logged in and saw this



I clicked Cancel Deletion and saw this



saying that I canceled the deletion but my account was still deactivated. While it was disabled, I had people check to see if any photos of me were still tagged and they weren't. I also was not listed in anyone's friends list. Once I canceled deletion, everything went back to normal and I was once again tagged in photos and showed up on people's friends list.

I repeated the steps and canceled my account again. Now I have to wait until August 14 for it to actually delete. Then I can sign-up again and start fresh and new. I'll post back to this blog once I do that.

BTW, when I was logged into Facebook, I listed all of my friends and used a Firefox plugin to save the page. Now I can open that page locally on my PC and pick and choose which friends I want to re-invite.

Driving in Los Angeles, California (Part 2)

Notice in the map below how 101 North becomes 170 North and 134 West becomes 101 North. It makes no sense. 101 should have continued North and 134 should have continued West and there should be no 170. This is one of the strangest highway intersections I have ever seen. Try going from 101 North to 134 East or 134 West to 101 South. It's not possible as I have shown in part 1.

Driving in Los Angeles, California (Part 1)

Most of the time two highways intersect, you have the option of transferring but it's not always the case in Los Angeles, California. Sometimes it feels like the highway planners decided to save money and not make certain connections.

170 North to 5 East?

5 West, Exit, 5 East

101 North to 134 East?

170 North, Exit, 170 South to 134 East.

134 East to 5 North?

Exit before 5, take back rode to 5 North

101 North to 134 East?

Exit before 134, take back road to 134 East

Celebs followers on Twitter

Here is a list of some of the celebs I'm following on Twitter and how many followers they have as of Tuesday 4/28/2009 7:30 pm PST.

3,674 - Sylvester Stallone
5,297 - Steve Wozniak
17,771 - Andy Dick
22,896 - Will Smith
24,183 - JJ Abrams
25,182 - Jessica Alba
30,201 - Steve Buscemi
53,254 - Kristen Stewart
60,079 - William Shatner
92,524 - Richard Branson
151,216 - John Cleese
152,519 - Kevin Spacey
194,048 - Nicole Richie
277,360 - Al Yankovic
307,592 - Brent Spiner
335,350 - Tina Fey
354,917 - Fred Durst
437,703 - Kevin Smith
404,114 - Trent Reznor
470,206 - Penn Jillette
502,782 - Wil Wheaton
516,828 - Dr. Drew
529,721 - Tony Hawk
551,636 - Rainn Wilson
565,506 - Kevin Rose
682,318 - Oprah
688,610 - Al Gore
733,244 - Lance Armstrong
774,296 - Demi Moore
832,050 - Shaq
847,569 - Jimmy Falon
1,014,764 - Barack Obama
1,223,110 - Britney Spears
1,492,967 - Ashton Kutcher

Next

Ever notice how the word "next" is ambiguous?

I signed up for the gym yesterday (April 1) and the woman said "Your next payment will be March 1.  I assumed she meant that my first payment was at the end of month.  Should she have said "your next payment is today"?  I intepretted the word "next" as "first".  So does "next" mean "first" or "the one after"?

Another Example

Today is Monday and I say "I'll see you next Friday".  Do I mean this coming Friday or the one after?

Most people would say it means "this coming Friday".

Today is Thursday and I say "I'll see you next Friday".  Do I mean this coming Friday or the one after?

Most people would say it means "the Friday after this coming Friday".

Aha!  There it is!  Ambiguity based on proximity and a common mis-usage of English.

Dictionary.com defines "next" as "nearest or adjacent in place or position" so it never means the one after.

So if it is Friday and I say "I'll see next Friday", it actually means "I'll see you today" since today is the nearest in time position.

The American Sign Language sign for "next" implies "the one after".

http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/n/next.htm

You leap-frog one hand over the other to indicate you're skipping the up-coming thing for the one after.  That sign gives the wrong idea about the meaning of the word "next".

The sign should actually closer to the sign for "near".

http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/n/near.htm

Your two hands move toward and away but in a close proximity but they don't touch.  So in my mind, the right sign for "next" would be to have the front hand stationary and the back hand move toward the front hand and touch.  Unfortunately that is the sign for "arrive".

http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/a/arrive.htm

So even sign language perpetuates the ambiguity of next.

Idea for banks

I would love the ability to create as many virtual savings accounts as I wanted to. I need to save money for dozens of things so when I get paid, I can transfer small amounts of money into these many small virtual accounts.

Let's say I want to save money for a new PC, a new bicycle and a new couch. I would log into my account on the web and create new V-Savings account with names

PC
bicycle
Couch

I could then transfer money from any account into these accounts and vice-versa.

This way I can easily track how much I have saved for each item. I can delete a V-Savings after I transfer all the money to another account. I would still have a primary savings account.

This would make my life easier. Currently I'm saving money for a dozen different things but all the money goes in one account so I have to keep track of how much I've saved for each item.