[kwlug-disc] Scraping Facebook

[Andrew Kohlsmith (mailing lists account)]

> On Dec 5, 2017, at 4:21 PM, Darcy Casselman <dscassel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Scraping HTML is a pain in the as and incredibly fragile, but you can do it. It does get harder when most pages these days are rendered by Javascript, and not simply handed to you buy an HTTP request. But if you've got the time and persistence, you could emulate a browser, run all the Javascript and then scrape the resulting HTML to get your data.

> And then you begin the cat and mouse game of fixing your script every time Facebook changes their pages/scripts to prevent you from doing this. But again, if you have the time and persistence, you can do this.

At some point you have to think “is this *really* worth keeping up with the Jones’? Do I really care *that* much to get information about people that I’d get no other way than through FB?

I wonder what I’m truly missing out on without a FB presence, but I don’t wonder about it for very long. I don’t know if that makes me an antisocial a-hole or not, but I’m at peace with whatever that makes me.

It’s the same thing with cutting out cable over 10y ago, and dropping my goofing around with ATSC and MythTV about 6y ago. I’m missing out on some of the social aspects/watercooler talk, but it’s almost impossible *not* to find the latest crazy commercial/talk of the day with a quick youtube search.

I wonder if this is what getting old is really about; dropping the pretexts about social norms and effectively saying “I’m not interested in that, and I’m ok with not being cool because of that.”

BRB, some damned kids are on my lawn again...

-A.