How to update Facebook from RSS

It is clearly a nightmare working with the Facebook API, because so many things work with it in a mediocre fashion.

I post my links (and images from Tumblr) on a Facebook Page, so that they're available to people who use FB (on top of people who use Twitter, LJ, DW or RSS). However, sharing them didn't say that they came from 'me', meaning people were having to put in "via ..." - I even had one person ask me if I could fix that.

So I did - but it took me numerous hours, because depending on exactly which reposter I used, and what settings, all sorts of different stuff happens.

For a start, there's two different reshares that can happen when you click the "share" button. The one on this post takes you to a reshare URL using the template "http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='URL of shared page", which the one on this post takes you to a reshare URL using the template "https://www.facebook.com/ajax/sharer/?s=ID of update to share". The former just creates a new post referencing the URL, the latter creates a new post referencing the original update, along with attribution.

I started off using IFTTT, which is incredibly handy for moving data from one place to another, but didn't do what I wanted. I then tried a variety of other solutions, before ending up using RSS Grafitti, and setting it the Post Style to "Status Update".

I then moved onto the problem of doing likewise with image posts. I wanted to have full-size images that are reshared properly, fed from my Tumblr. This one _was_ actually dead easy, once I clicked that you can do that when sharing images that are already on FB, but not links to pages that contain images. So now I'm using IFTTT to upload Tumblr Pics to Facebook and post them on my links page's wall.

All of which was an enormous faff, but having set out to make it work, I wasn't going to give up easily. I wasn't _that_ far from starting to write my own...

Mortgage deposits, a suggestion

Ok - so the reason for deposits when you buy a home is so that, if the value of the home goes down, the bank doesn't lose any cash. Which sucks for people that could afford to pay a mortgage, but don't have oodles of savings.

So, one suggestion I just saw was that instead banks could insist on insurance for the value dropping by up to (say) 10%. If you can afford the 10% deposit, then you're fine, otherwise you're paying a little more on top of the mortgage to cover the bank against the risk of lending to you.

Is there a massive flaw in this plan? I mean, obviously it's unfair on people who earn less or don't have rich family to give/loan them deposits. But other than that?

Interesting Links for 16-08-2012

• R.I.P. Harry Harrison, creator of the Stainless Steel Rat, Bill the Galactic Hero, and Soylent Green
  (tags: scifi death )
• 16-year-old Amina Filali Who Was Forced To Marry Her Rapist, Commits Suicide
  (tags: rape suicide Morocco )
• Scotland is one of the most genetically diverse nations on the planet (And porridge played a big part in its history)
  (tags: scotland genetics history )
• America is now officially made of pi
  (tags: viaSupergee geekery pi population usa )
• How To Create A Liberal America
  (tags: kickstarter liberal usa )
• See (and buy) 27 concept images for never-made Gaiman Sandman movie
  (tags: movies art neilgaiman sandman )
• The C-Word - a follow-up on the "creeper" posts from a few days ago.
  (tags: sex socialisation )
• Factcheck: Are health and safety laws a "nonsense"?
  (tags: law uk safety health )
• Cats, shockingly, do not cope well with a lack of gravity
  (tags: gravity video cats )
• Broadband speeds rise 20% - have doubled in the last three years
  Of course, my parents still have less than 1.5MBit, but eventually even they will join the 21st century.
  (tags: internet uk broadband )
• Revel in the wisdom of philosophy dog
  (tags: funny philosophy dog )
• Wow. Unbreakable glass is _really_ unbreakable.
  (tags: glass )
• Why Sexy A-Levels are shutting down
  (tags: UK society education media feminism )
• Streaming music revenues up 40% globally, physical media down 12% - tipping point set for 2015
  At which point it's streaming media versus downloads - and which one can offer more convenience and choice.
  (tags: music thefuture )
• Mutilating girls is not "harm": the extreme relativist strand in anthropology
  (tags: circumcision children fgm culture viaFanf )
• You are allowed to run a "Company X ruined my life" site - but possibly only if you don't put advertising on it
  (tags: internet web freespeech )

A question about Assange and Sweden

Can someone tell me why people think that it would be easier for the US government to extradite Assange from Sweden than the UK? Particularly when very similar people keep telling me that the UK will ship people off to the US based on nothing more than the word of US officials.

Because it's something I keep bumping into - claims that Assange can't go to Sweden because when he gets there he'll go straight to the USA. And I can't see any way that this makes sense - am I missing something?

We're NASA and we know it

via arktouros, who would know.

Seven Psychopaths (the new awesome-looking movie from the maker of In Bruges)

Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko

It's a shame that the two women in the movie are described as either "The hot girlfriend" or "The passive-aggressive girlfriend", but hopefully that's the fault of the trailer-makers rather than the movie itself...