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09/26/07
So, I've been having quite the ordeal with HP lately. See, I sent in my laptop for service (yay for extended warranties) on August 13th. I don't feel like going into all the details, but a month and a half, three missed delivery dates, and what was probably around 6 hours on the phone with tech support (most of which was getting transferred to the proper people) later, I am now here with a brand new laptop which is better than the old one in a number of ways (double RAM, 2.4 times the HDD space, faster processor, better graphics card, etc), all at no extra charge to me. I'm not sure what exactly happened to the old laptop; I suspect it got lost at some point in the process. But the moral of the story is that in the end, though it took longer than I'd've liked, HP made it right in the end. Not sure if this is praise or condemnation for the company though, so you should take it as you will.

I also found of interest the following anecdote. A friend of mine's niece was recently made aware that we (as a culture) kill and eat cows as food. This upset her terribly, and she began to cry. In five years though, the idea of eating a cow will be no more repulsive to her than that of eating cake. It makes you realize exactly how much conditioning we (as people) are put through when we are young.

09/19/07
Yar. For those of you who be not in the know, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. I meant to have a pirate themed comic today, but too much grog last night kept that from happening. Despite this, you all should celebrate this great day (Pi-rate shirt optional.)

09/12/07
It is no secret that I'm not a big fan of Facebook. Despite my general dismay with the direction of Facebook over the last year, I kept my account as it was useful for finding classmates. With the recent removal of the ability to add your courses to your profile (and to search for people by course), I found myself in a position where I no longer had use for Facebook, and decided to delete my profile.

Easier said than done. You see, Facebook does not provide an option to delete your profile. Let me repeat that so that its inanity can be fully realized. You CANNOT delete YOUR OWN profile from Facebook. The best that is offered by the ever benevolent Facebook is an option to "deactivate" your account, which will leave all information, photos, etc intact on the Facebook servers. This is great, if you think you may want to come back. It is very bad, however, if you care about control over your personal information.

At this point, I did some searching on the internet, and learned that if you wish to delete a Facebook account, they will require you to empty your account (a process that the Facebook interface does not facilitate, as each friend, each wall post, each photo must be removed one by one.) Having done this (thankfully, I'm not very popular, so I only had about 20 wall posts) I deactivated my account and then sent an email to Facebook asking for the deletion of my account. It was an annoying process, but it was over, right? Wrong.

Mike Fenwick to privacy@facebook.com
Please permanently delete my account and all records pertaining to it from your servers. Thank you.

Clive from Facebook to Mike Fenwick
Hi Mike,

You can deactivate your account by using the "Deactivate Account" link on the Account page. Deactivation will completely remove your profile and all associated content on your account from Facebook. In addition, users will not be able to search for you or view any of your information. If you reactivate your account, your profile will be restored in its entirety (friends, photos, interests, etc.).

Reactivating the account simply requires that you log in with your email and password. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Clive
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

Mike Fenwick to privacy@facebook.com
I do not want it deactivated. I want it DELETED from the servers.

Clive from Facebook to Mike Fenwick
Hi Mike,

If you deactivate, your account is removed from the site. However, we save all your profile content (friends, photos, interests, etc.), so if you want to reactivate sometime, your account will look just the way it did when you deactivated. If you do want your information completely wiped from our servers, we can do this for you. However, you need to remove all profile content before we can do this. Once you have cleared your account, let us know and we'll take care of the rest.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Clive
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

Mike Fenwick to privacy@facebook.com
I have had all the information removed from my account for the last two days. Please delete it.

Clive from Facebook to Mike Fenwick
Hi Mike,

We have made the changes that you requested. Please let me know if you have any further issues.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Clive
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

So in the end, it took three separate, and in no way ambiguous requests over the course of two days to get my account deleted. Personally, I think this level of service (or lack thereof) is abhorrent. I'd say it's enough to make me want to delete my Facebook account, but the irony is that I already have, and even if I hadn't, I'd have a hell of a time doing so.

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