Why I'm leaving: An open letter to facebook

Dear facebook,
A few years ago, in a fit of rebellious teenage rage, I joined facebook. I knew my parents didn't want me to have an account. I knew "all" my friends already did. I wanted to fit in.
 Since then the idea of social networking has grown on me; I've come to know and love my facebook profile and it's not an easy decision to leave. What's triggered my decision to jump ship is simple: you won't give me my contact data back. I wanted some numbers to put on my phone and some gmail addresses. Your APIs wouldn't give them to me.

How to liberate your phone book from facebook

This is a quickly written, hacky script for personal use. For the time being, this script will only work on 99 friends at a time (Amusingly, facebook thinks there are 100 on the first page, but you're welcome to count. There are 99. Buggy programming FTW!). I'm playing with a workaround, but don't hold your breath. In the meantime, you can do the following to take your friend's phone numbers back into your own care: