#330 ::: Susan,
tip jars are fine by me. I don't use them*, mind you, but I've never minded their existence.
Could you put a link to your site in your "And your URL here" box when you next post? You mentioned people were showing up and reading stuff, but I don't know where that is.
*I buy comic books, t-shirts, jewelry, from the sites that I like that happen to have them. And I go to conventions and buy in person. E.g.: alpha-shade.com, girlgeniusonline.com, megatokyo.com
#48 ::: Linkmeister,
I'd have to see statistics on whether he's saved millions of lives, but stipulate he probably saved a good number in his early days advocating for auto safety.
Did he?
I know he built his early reputation on demolishing the Corvair, but as I understood it, all of it's design flaws were shared by a certain small car originally produced for a certain Godwinesque world leader, that remained in production until 2003. (Albeit in Mexico.)
(see NHTSA report PB 211-015, available here: http://www.ntis.gov/ if you have 52$. Where's Carl Malamud when you need him?)
Abi, maybe, instead of relying on algorithmic processing of text ab intio, we could start with some framework?
Back to community markers: most things that TNH, or Charlie Stross, or Scalzi, or Gaiman write are worth reading - have quality - say 90% quality. They are very valuable due to their quantity, too: instead of searching everything, everywhere, for relevance (the bind google algorithm way), one merely need wait for them to tackle the topic. Given an inadequate, but still large amount of text, and an inadequate assemblage of great writers, the chances of finding a relevant "answer" are pretty good.
Our ancient tribal skills of recognizing really good storytellers (and truthful ones) is a good enough algorithm, I think.
Ahem. Well, I meant to be more insightful. This isn't working out well. Let me try with numbers:
Scenario: you want to understand something. You have access to:
20 people* who cover 80% of everything with 70% more text than most people can muster.
70 people** who cover another 10% of the world's knowledge, but do it with about 20% more text than the average person
250-500 people*** who cover the remaining 8% of the worlds knowledge, and do it with about the same amount of text as an average person.
That's not that many blogs to search through, or books to read, but a primitive sorting algorithm might be to start skimming group one right away.
Note the missing last 2% of the world's knowledge, which is the property of the dead.
I lost my point. I'll try again tomorrow.
*e.g. TNH
**e.g. Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software
***e.g. Ashcraft on Kotaku's Night Notes
I lived in the midwest for eleven years, in both red and blue states. I don't think people from the coasts understand how deeply embedded the anti-Clinton story is out here.
#162, Brenda von Ahsen, wrote:
Well, we are all imposter's aren't we? Some of us are just better at it than others. We all wear a mask of sanity but there is still a monster beneath us all. We sit in our Chinese Room and make the mistake of believing the symbols we see are ultimate reality
Agreed, but I had something more basic in mind when I wrote:the horror of a human who does not see that other humans are real. People who counterfeit humanity.I was thinking of those, who despite repeated, personal contact and interaction, and a lifetime of socialization, still do not (or choose not to) recognize the human-ness of others. This is the basic flavor of horror that underlies tales of dopplegangers, different than the basic flavor of horror that underlies zombies* or ogres**.
abi, 170, you wrote:
In that, it is a lot like politics. (It is a lot like politics in other ways as well, I think, but that's another matter.)
Which is what I think as well; not politics proper, but the demonization of the Other that diminishes our humanity by assenting to that demonization. It's such a common device in political speech. I think it not an accident that so many trolls carry such passionate hatred for others that is so easily triggered by political beliefs.
*dead things that move
**big things that want to eat you
#132, Rachel,
My personal theory of internet trolling is that it's a lack of attention. People who can't get positive attention start seeking negative attention. If you can get someone screaming at you, so the logic would seem to go, then you're building a connection.
I'll agree with that, wholeheartedly. In my misspent youth I went through a brief period of spamming people in MUDs and deliberately misconstruing people's points of view in order to have an argument. I was lonely, and text on a screen is hard to understand as being human. I felt so helpless and isolated, like nothing I did or said was heard or understood, so what could I do but rage against the phosphors on that black screen?*
It didn't last too long, though, because I soon wanted to share personal stuff online, and I didn't want to deal with that kind of thing.
Trolling is about seeing other people as less than real. You can see how people make that mistake when they go online: they're still in their kitchen/dorm room/office, and all they see is text. Text didn't use to have feelings. In real life we know trolls are bullies, delusional**, or psychopaths, and can recognize the horror of a human who does not see that other humans are real. People who counterfeit humanity. I think troll is really close to the right word, though. I think of
the question James Nicoll asked.
*green, on a DEC type terminal.
**habitual liars who reshape the world to fit their internal script, for instance.
Lindra,
in #216, joann said:
I don't know if Lindra is US-based, but U-haul has a 1-foot cube box (labeled "small") that works quite well. (Also holds LPs and, if you're doing an in-house move involving file cabinets, can hold Pendaflex folders if the flaps are folded outward.)
This past summer, and perhaps currently, uhaul offered a "buy a bundle, return the ones you don't use" deal. This offer did not extend to the cube boxes, but to the next larger size (12x14, I think, called a "small").
I can report from first hand experience that cubes are excellent boxes for moving books, and the smalls were much better than average.
Good condition liquor boxes that are the winebottle type are slightly better than the smalls, the hardliquor type are slightly worse.
#82, Marilee,
I don't know why you guys are arguing with Sean about minorities when it's already been done all over the stfnal newsgroups.
One of the reasons I come to Making Light's political discussions is the ability of the guests and hosts to summarize an anti-talking-point in a clever and succinct way. So, I appreciate the effort expended arguing with Sean, it saves me countless hours dealing with my smart but wingnutty friends.
Mark Pilgrim on dive into mark had an excellent, short post on getting rid of stuff, yesterday. It starts like this:
In the back of the attic were two boxes, curiously labeled “Attachments,†a wry perversion of the Buddhist principle of the same name. These boxes were hastily taped shut almost 15 years ago; I have not opened them since....
Madeline Kelly, 186,
I would call them digital prints and be done with it. It's every bit as legitimate as, say, lithography, which has long been regarded as a legit high-art plus mass-production medium. Perhaps there are some galleries that specialize in prints that would be interested?
However, I would skip the canvas printing. Stretched canvas is an expedient solution to a certain kind of technical problem with painting. Printing on canvas is, um, imitative of a process that wasn't used to make the art. That imitativeness is a marker of fakeness in some contexts, thus the problem you describe. (I intend this not as an insult, just as an explanation for the communication problem.)
If the texture of the canvas was not part of the original design decision of the artist, then I would not want to purchase an image put upon it. I would be more interested in a perfectly flat, archival, heavyweight paper that was appropriately mounted (and framed), so that nothing would come between me and the image, and so that nothing would screw it up later.
(If you have patrons who want their prints on canvas, great! Give them what they want.)
Ahem. Post #8, suitably modified:
<satire>
#8 ::: Evan Goer ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2008, 09:54 AM:
Patrick and Teresa,
Please start marking links in Sidelights or Particles with a big fat "[SATIRE]" tag. Time and time again, you link to The Onion, or this Jon Swift character, or some other allegedly satirical site... and I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that this sort of thing is very confusing. Thanks.
</satire>
#137, will shetterly,
Lee @130, thanks for reminding me that the care issue isn't so simple with Teflon and cast iron. I've seen far too many non-stick pans gouged by people using metal utensils, and too many plastic utensils melted by people who didn't pay attention to heat. The argument could be made that cast iron is actually easier to care for than non-stick.
Agreed. For most things, if I have a residue that I know won't come off stainless easily, I plan on adding wine, vinegar, or tomato sauce after I'm done to make a sauce. I still keep a tiny, 8" mystery-coated aluminum skillet for doing omlettes though. Eggs are funny to deal with.
I also found a way to sort out my books. I asked myself; were there a slow-moving disaster, like a flood, which book would I put in the car first?
Then I moved that book to a different bookshelf in a spot where I would see it often. And then, I iterated. (Bless you Mike Ford!)
Funny how all those books that I kept because I ought to, or because I'd get to that someday, or because it's a good reference, never made it to this bookshelf. Why do I have books that make me unhappy? I thought to myself.
Over time, I've found it easier to subtract the books that make me feel meh. And this provided a template for giving away any number of things.
It's not the keeping of things that I loved that harmed me, it was the loving of things that harmed me that kept them close.
The one thing to be said for Ikea stuff, is that at least it all breaks down into pieces I could move by myself.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 14 |
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