U+FBF9

Via O’Reilly Radar, Funny Characters in Unicode. Mmm, the intersection of philology and computing, one of my favorite topics.

Dear Facebook

Dear Facebook,

Look, I like you. You allow me to keep in touch casually with a lot of old friends whom I don’t have time to email individually. You let me see cute pictures of my friends’ kids who live halfway around the world. And you let me quietly ignore people whose status updates get on my nerves.

But this whole “reconnect” nonsense has got to go. First, you suggested I reconnect with my father, who passed away two months ago. I know your algorithm has no way of knowing who is and isn’t still with us, I’m a programmer too, but still, way to ruin my day, guys. Now you keep suggesting I chat with, message, or otherwise reconnect with friends. Let me make this very clear: I already have a Jewish mother. I do not need you to monitor my communications and keep track of how often I chat with Olivia or how many friends Steve has. You are a tool, a means of contacting people, not a Big Brother, and especially not a Guilt Generator. I talked to Paula yesterday and emailed her this morning, I don’t need to post on her Wall this afternoon. I know you do this so that I can click around to other people’s pages and see more advertising there, but if you keep making your service more annoying instead of more useful, your users are going to leave.

Or at least we’re going to read it on the iPhone where there is less stupid crap.

Thanks,
Alex.