I fired up the Facebook application for the iPhone. There’s a big “What’s on your mind” box that appears at the top. Enter something, like “I hate my boss,” and that message goes to your Wall — and to the world.

Unlike Facebook itself, there are no privacy settings that I can find in the application, no share with “Only Friends” choice. If you share via the iPhone — and perhaps other mobile devices — you share with the world. That’s also true if you use Facebook’s mobile site on the web. There’s no option there other than to share with the world.

So, status updates you do via the Facebook app are always visible to everyone and appear in searches. I’m not using Facebook on the iPhone for status updates any more.

if i’m reading this correctly, this begs the question: if a central computer is dictating which machines win and how much they pay out, is it any longer a game of chance?  does it then become a game of controlled loss? i mean odds are odds but is it still considered chance when a computer decides that it only pays out once every 3,409,403 times played and only 10% of what it takes in because that’s what statistics COULD dictate? if so, i’m in the wrong business.

There is a  new booster shot for pertussis, better know as whooping cough. Although infants are routinely vaccinated, it has become clear that the benefits of the vaccine wear off by the time you are a teen. It is now advised that teens and adults get the new booster every 10 years. It is easily combined with a tetanus shot.  Although it has been out for about a year, it is now becoming easier to get it from your doctor (at first it wasn’t being supplied for some reason).

Why worry about this? Let me share my story (skip if you have heard this before)… about 2 weeks after my daughter was born my husband started to cough. A lot. He went to the doctor who told him it was a cold and to take cough suppressant. Well, it was a “cold’ like you have never seen. He coughed day and night without stop. Nothing helped. (Take a moment and imagine what it is like to cough nonstop for weeks.) When my daughter was 5 weeks old she started to cough the same cough. As you might guess, they both had pertussis. She had to be hospitalized for three days and had to have oxygen given through her tiny nose. (Take a moment and imagine watching your 5-week old turn blue from coughing and you will understand why I am sending this out.)  Luckily we diagnosed her right away and the could give her antibiotics which helped her significantly.  My husband coughed for about 2 months.

Infants die from this. As the pertussis vaccine is not started until 2 months, the youngest of babies are the ones who are most vulnerable. While you might be willing to risk having a terrible cough for weeks on end, please consider whom you might be coughing on, and that they might have a tiny baby at home.  I urge you to get the booster.

• Fastest Growing Cities Are Suburban
• Report Links Suburban Sprawl with Health Woes

I wish Seattle had the same percentage of roads with bike lanes as Eugene, Oregon — which seems to have them on just about every piece of pavement — though being as level as Eugene would probably do more for human-powered locomotion.

Just the other day I made a batch of Hamentaschen in case my plumber came back. We had a long talk about the tribe before he set out to snake the common sewer line that’s giving us so much trouble. When I was in Israel, where my plumber lived after he left Lithuania and before he moved here, I learned that Purim was not Jewish Halloween, though they make it out that way in the US. In Israel it’s more like Jewish Mardi Gras. A sort of Jewish “show us your boobs!” holiday.

From the page linked to above comes this directive:

According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai,” though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is.

I can’t recommend the Hamentaschen recipe on that same page, I tried it and the cookie dough just isn’t that good. At any rate, should you find yourself drinking at any time today, rest assured that it’s a-okay with the tribe. Enjoy. I can’t speak for the conflict between this raging party day and Good Friday but since I’m going to hell anyway, I feel okay with my plans to celebrate by going for Chinese food and beer.

Yup, it’s true. There’s a decent blog post here discussing why this matters – in case you’re one of the 8 or 9 people in Seattle who read this and haven’t seen the movie yet. And if you are, you might think about going to the Neptune instead.

My movie going companions are looking in to what else Carlyle owns that we’ve been buying or using and are wondering if it isn’t time to seek those things elsewhere.

Aside: things I loved about seeing the movie here in Seattle? The way a guy down in the front row let how a horror movie scream the first time Condi appeared on screen and the way everyone burst in to applause when our guy Jim McDermott showed up.

If cell phones could provide reliable and reversible sterility, their market would become even wider. Think of the branding opportunity! Actor: “My Trojan-brand cell phone offers a higher becquerel rating than any other phone currently on the market.” [Cut to picture of nuclear cooling tower covered in colossal condom.]