This. This. A million times this.

It’s like he’s reading from the (as yet unwritten) 6000 miles… manifesto.
Chas Newkey-Burden has nailed it here. Completely.

If you don’t like Facebook, why don’t you just leave?

Yes. Why don’t you? And here, I’m already beginning to repeat Chas’ thoughts, but if you don’t like that recent change they made to their UI, why not just delete your account? No-one is forcing you to be there. It’s not mandatory.

Just go.

The fact that a lot of complaining about Facebook takes place on Facebook has always had a dash of irony about it, particularly for those of us who still quite enjoy the platform and do not smash our fists against the screen if it slightly changes the hue of its background colour.

He’s talking about me there. I am always amused by people raging about Facebook… on Facebook. I tell them to demand a refund from Mark Zuckerberg. They seek revenge by sending me invites to Farmville.

People complain about Facebook as though it was a service they were forced to use, or were paying over the odds for. Nobody is making you use Facebook and humanity survived for thousands of years without it – so if you are that angry with it, why not just leave?

Ouch. That’s going to ring painfully true with some of my “Facebook friends”. You know who you are. Possibly, anyway.
All of which brings up another question, namely: Why am I still “friends” with these people? Well, the answer to that is that I’m not anymore. I’ve grown old, tired and cynical and I’ve memorised the quick route through to the ‘Unfriend’ button. It’s a pleasingly cathartic process.

Cheerio!

Personally, I still enjoy a lot about Facebook… the site is like my office water cooler, somewhere to congregate for a bit of energising banter a few times a day. And if my office managers changed the colour of the water cooler, or used the water cooler for a bit of market research about its consumers, I imagine I would soon get over it, just as I have yet to feel like crying my eyes out over any of the ways Facebook has evolved over the years.

What have any of us got to fear from leaving? Being out of the loop? Good grief – wouldn’t you pay to be out of the loop of a fair amount of what’s on your Facebook feed?
Because let’s be honest: some Facebook posts are as annoying as hell. And no Facebook posts are more annoying than those that complain about Facebook.

Like I said, Chas Newkey-Burden has nailed it here.

Completely.

“Like us on Facebook”

I found myself behind this vehicle earlier today.
For the record, the driver of van number 21 drives like he’s trying to secure some extra clientele.

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Look, business is business, and the funeral business is a big business in SA. But it just seems somewhat inappropriate and actually rather pointless to ‘Like’ a funeral directors on Facebook, as they’re suggesting.

Still, 408 people have done exactly that, and consequently are getting some lovely images of Fern’s staff and services on their timelines. I particularly like the post including their happy happy joy joy secondary capital letter tagline “DEATH USUALLY STRIKES UNEXPECTEDLY”, which bewilderingly garnered 11 Likes.

But even that couldn’t match the bizarre 18 Likes which this promo photo(?) of two Fern hearses in the car park of a local hospital managed. What on earth were those 18 people thinking?
“Oh – look at those nice white vans going to pick up dead people in the rain in Wynberg. What a lovely sight. I’ll click the Like button for that.” or
“How nice of them to remind the patients that even if they don’t recover, there’s always the guarantee of peace of mind. Like!”

I have no doubt that Fern Funerals provide a professional and caring service to those who require it. But for me, their Facebook presence is just weird.

UPDATE: It gets worse. Check this photo (one of many) of an example of their graveside setup.
The gazebo – is that… Comic Sans? Sweet jesus…

In case you need to be told

Because some of my FB friends do: Likes don’t save lives.

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That’s the tagline of a new campaign by UNICEF in Sweden. They’re encouraging people do donate money rather than just click a button. Because while the clicks are absolutely lovely, they don’t actually do anything. They’re just an easy way to pretend you’re making a difference. It’s slacktivism at its worst.

Of course, far fewer people will put their money where their click was. But it’s worth remembering that even a single cent is still worth more to charity than any number of those likes.

(Oh, and while we’re on the subject, actually, “one like ? one prayer”, although both are worthless, as mentioned above, it’s likely to do about as much good. i.e. none.)

Five Useful Moving Tips From Stuttaford Van Lines

This arrived on my Facebook stream as a “suggested post” and having read it, I thought I’d share it with you just in case you were planning on moving any time soon and were looking for professional movers (Stuttaford Van Lines).

Here’s the screenshot:

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and here’s a link to the full post on their Facebook page.

Finally, here are those tips:

Moving your precious belongings need not to be a Hassle.
Five Useful Moving Tips.

1. Count all the furniture to be moved, and let the professional movers (Stuttaford Van Lines) know about the number of valuable goods.

All too often, moving my precious belongings is a Hassle, so you can see why I was looking forward to reading more about how it need not be a Hassle. And, aside from an unnecessary comma, this first tip makes good sense. (Unless you’re using a professional mover other than Stuttaford Van Lines, of course. Then there would be very limited use in letting Stuttaford Van Lines know about the numbers of anything to do with your furniture.)

2. Paper work and all other furniture insurance work should be done consciously, discuss their rate of service and all the additional charges.

100% on this one as well. Attempting paperwork and all other furniture insurance work unconsciously is a recipe for disaster. It just never seems to get done. So yes, conscious work only please!

3. Labeling all the packed cartons organizes your moving. Do all home-related work prior to calling, furniture movers.

I hope you’re listening, furniture movers, because this tip is directed at you. In addition, I hope that before calling, you ensure that you have done all the home-related work. This is a basic requirement of furniture movers (Stuttaford Van Lines).

4. Furniture movers (Stuttaford Van Lines) are experienced people, your relocation area is near by or far, all your furniture should be insured.

I think we can see from this tip that furniture movers (Stuttaford Van Lines) are experienced people. And that’s an important consideration. However, it is also worth bearing in mind that they have then apparently just flung random sentence fragments and punctuation at the rest of this tip, which is hardly the mark of experienced people.
No, experienced people write in full sentences which actually make sense when one reads them.
This dichotomy leaves me hugely confused, but at least I am comforted by the fact that all my furniture should be insured by experienced people.

5. Ask about the safest route and ask if their can take the route which is less accident prone and make sure there are no bushes on the path.

Accident prone routes are the bane of my life. Only the other day, I saw a route which had just had an accident and according to bystanders and witnesses to that route’s accident, it was that route’s third accident this month. Talk about an accident prone route.
That’s why I always ask my furniture movers (Stuttaford Van Lines) if their can take the route which is less accident prone. Thankfully, my furniture movers (Stuttaford Van Lines) are experienced people and their can always make a plan to take a less accident prone route.

And then finally, slipped in at the end like an afterthought, like it’s almost inconsequential, the whole “no bushes on the path” thing. Less experienced people might get a bit hysterical over this. For example, I’m a less experienced person and I’d be all, like:

OMFG! MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO BUSHES ON THE PATH!!!!!1!

But no, my furniture movers (Stuttaford Van Lines) are calm and collected. Yes, it’s hugely important to make sure that there are no bushes on the path, but they just take it in their stride – as one surely would after taking a route which is less accident prone.
This is the sort of benefit that experience can bring, like knowing to do your paperwork and all other furniture insurance work while you’re actually conscious.

I find it amazing that in one short Facebook post, included within just Five Useful Moving Tips, so much useful information can be imparted. Wow!
I know for sure that next time I want to move, Hassle free, I’ll be contacting professional movers (Stuttaford Van Lines).

Disclosure: This was in no way a sponsored post for professional movers (Stuttaford Van Lines).

Facebook testing quota photo post

It seems that the 6000 miles… Facebook feed has been having some issues lately, namely by not publishing post updates to people’s timelines. I’ve asked for and had a bit of assistance with testing some settings from some readers (thanks), mainly for the reason that I believe that it’s connected to this idea from Mnr Zuckerberg and chums:

Facebook is rolling out a new feature for users to opt in to receive notifications every time a page makes a post.

Attached to that feature is the option to have posts from the specific page appearing in your news feed. Quite why you would choose to Like a page and then not want their posts to appear in your news feed, I’m not sure, but Facebook works in mysterious ways.

Admin posts are never particularly pretty, so I’m going to throw in a quota photo to make this one vaguely more bearable.

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It seems appropriate to use this photo of Port Erin by “Ron”, simply because it is also from Facebook – the Visit Isle Of Man page to be exact.

I bet that they don’t have problems getting their posts to publish on their users’ timelines. Pfft.

If you do Like 6000 miles… on Facebook, please let me know if this post appeared on your timeline. Thanks.