I think his assumption is a sub-assumption of "Advertising makes advertisers money," which is itself a dubious assumption. I used to work for an ad agency, and no one there was ignorant enough to believe that. Advertising, at best, does two "good" things: 1) Inform people who would buy a product anyway if they knew it existed that it does in fact exist, and 2) Make brandX = productX (like Coke = carbonated beverage or Xerox = photocopier or RHAT = Linux) to a small degree in the minds of the gullible. Usually, it just makes money for ad agencies and sellers of ad space/time.
But, on the internet, where the advertiser can monitor (some of) the effectiveness of an ad directly (click-through rate), advertisers can see that advertising doesn't do as much for them (directly) as ad agencies and time/space sellers had led them to believe. So, the move on the internet will be away from "measurable impact" (banners) to "presence" (interstitials, etc.)--not because we're blocking and ignoring ads (we've always done that), but because it's easier to delude an advertiser about the cost/benefit of "internet presence" than about a.04% click-through rate.
Advertising has been "found out" by the internet. It will release some squid ink and re-conceal itself. All will go on as before. The commercial net will be saved (but made very annoying). Woohoo.
I tried to avoid Verizon. Then they merged with the telecom I've got a 5-year contract with. So they get my money.
Less trivial:
I tried to avoid AOL. For example, when they bought Netscape, I deleted a lot of crappy browsers. Now, I'll be working for them (about 7 subsidiaries down).
Boycotts are a capitalist protest against individual businesses. They can't work in a mixed / corpo-socialist / neo-feudal / whatever-this-bullshit-is economy, because it really is a growing-big-fat-Them vs. shrinking-little-tiny-You; as Them grows, more of You works for them. I became a Them (for the next three years or so) today.
Now where's that big-ass asteroid I keep hearing about?
You suck. I took a break from modding unjustly -1ed ACs Underrated and gave the parent a Funny just to piss the guy off (and support his point), and you made it disappear within about five seconds.
May your overclocked Celeron disfigure your genitals somehow!
Thanks for mentioning The Tempest; you accidentally made some sense of this guy's unbelievably thoughtless article for me. I was thinking it was merely a neurotic manifestation of Carr's desire to be one of the Arbiters of Fact he calls for, and/or his belief that if the world were divided legally into info-eaters and info-feeders, he'd be on the "pitching" team--and that's what it is, but it's also something else: We are Prospero. The internet is our library. Insert H.L. Mencken quote re: someone, somewhere having a good time (defined as an unapproved-of inner life). Fold in a little monomaniacal Puritanism and BINGO!--Caleb Carr. Prior to reading this, I'd thought he was just a bad writer; now I know he's a bad writer like Hitler was a "bad painter"--someone really should name a new complex after this bad-artist-turned-would-be-dictator thing.
(Yes, I know that's not what you meant by the Shakespeare ref--and I'm loaded, so my rant probably doesn't hang together too well--but thanks.)
So, if the public can be convinced that 'hackers' with their illicit computer equipment are, say, a 'threat to our children', we could have similar laws targetting 'controlled technology'.
If you've ever wondered why the media (especially the likes of Disney-owned ABC and PravdAmerica (PBS)) continually make the kiddie-porn--internet--hackers--scary-Ligeti-music connection....
Speaking of which, during a recent news item of the above-described sort (on Lehrer's "smart" PBS show), I asked the woman watching it with me--who is of far-above-average intelligence but has no interest in dorky computer junk--if she thought that one could just go to Yahoo! or Excite, type in something like "three-year-old girls getting fucked in the ass," and immediately be led to millions of pictures of three-year-old girls gettting fucked in the ass. She was under the impression that one could do just that, and was shocked to learn that it's actually nearly as difficult to find such things on the internet as it is to find them in
"real life."
Still, she thought it was sorta creepy that I knew that, because no amount of my being a non-creep (who happens to know his way around the internet) can erase the years of brainwashing. You know that scary music that plays behind any "computer hacker"--or, really, any "computer guy" who isn't a marketroid--on tv? That's guy's me and you, dude. When "normal people" see you, they hear the music.
You are not paranoid. The world doesn't like you very much. On the Big Bad List They Have, you're under the same heading that smokers in California and non-tourists in Manhattan are: NEXT.
on open fileList
tell application "Finder"
repeat with i in fileList
set filePath to i as string
display dialog
"Open with..." buttons {"Select", "Never mind."} default button "Select"
set fav to button returned of result
if fav is "Select" then
tell application "Finder"
activate
set creator type of file filePath to creator type of (choose file with prompt "MacRocks You")
open selection
end tell
end if
end repeat
end tell
end open
END OF CODE.
Compile it, drop typeless files on it (one at a time or it'll go insane), and pick the application you want them associated with. Even has a li'l GUI. Whee!
(I can't believe the guy above didn't just ask a MacDork what to do. DAVE? Please.)
As a veteran Katz-flamer, I have to point this out: You're making one of the same mistakes Katz makes--the ones that make us bitch and flame here in hope of The Taco Bunch finding "us" a better columnist.
What you've got are two facts: 1) Katz makes "'obvious' observations." 2) A lot of us are annoyed at Katz for making these "observations."
There are a few different ways you can put those two facts together.
You could take it at face value: We, the flamers, are annoyed because Katz isn't doing his job very well. In this case, we're annoyed because he's followed his usual formula: Reword jacket blurb on book; add "One day historians may be writing similiar books about this time," or its prolix, ungrammatical, post-Columbine equivalent. He's supposed to be a pro, but his work is all half-assed, so we can't believe he's still got a job, and we bitch about it.
You could be cynical: Katz was hired because he's unimaginative and doesn't write well, and will get flamed into the dirt every time his column gets posted, because/. is populated by vulgar smartypantses. These flamers' pageviews are valuable, because flamers read, reply, preview, respond, etc.--much more banner-spewage than mere "readers" would generate.
Or, you could "go playground" on the flamers--"You're all just jealous." (Of what? Never mind that.)--because it's easy. In fact, there are a lot people of whom Slashies could be accused of being "jealous" in the "I could do that" way that you describe: Bezos, Jobs, etc.--sometimes even Gates. They did things a lot of us could do, but haven't, and they're rich, and we're mostly not. Likewise, we flamers might be ticked off because Katz just babbles here semi-coherently, much like the rest of us--but--he gets paid for it. And he's not even as good at it as/.'s better trolls, who are just screwing around here, having a laugh. But that's not it. We're not envious of Bezos, Gates, Katz; we're just bored with their crappy-ass crap, and wouldn't mind seeing someone else's once in awhile. This seems obvious to me, but--
But, since you used an analogy in your post, you got modded up. Same way Katz got his job--compare things at random, based on your playground-level reaction, with which many, of course, agree, becuase it's "'obvious.'" Your "hula hoop envy" would be what we Katz-flamers call a crappy-ass crappy analogy. Makes you feel smart--after all, you've made an "observation," and it was "''obvious'" enough that you've been congratulated for it--but it doesn't really tell us anything (unless "I have made an observation" is what you're really trying to tell us), and it doesn't give us anything to talk about except how crappy that analogy was.
Just like a little tiny Katzicle. Kind of like this Printing Press:Renaissance::Internet:Now Katzicle we're flaming now, in fact.
Etc, etc, Plz die now, tech-savvy Luddites, et cetera.
If TMBG were to die and be reincarnated as a borderline racist parody of a Japanese car dealership, which of the following models could we expect to find in your borderline racist parody showroom?
Mitsubishi Mini Active Urban Sandal
Subaru Gravel Express
Mazda Bongo Friendlee
Daihatsu Rugger Field Sports Resin Top
Nissan Prairie Joy
Mitsubishi Debonair Exceed
Suzuki Every Joy Pop Turbo
Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear Cruising Active
Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard
Daihatsu Town Cube
Nissan Big Thumb Harmonized Truck
Mazda Scrum
Isuzu Giga 20 Light Dump
I think it was ol' Burroughs sofa that was alive, wasn't it? I know it tried to eat him.
Yeah. 1337 j03 craXX0red the Soft House in Lawrence and redirected Burroughs's sofa to goatse.cx, back in '97. Swallowed the Old Bull whole. Sad, sad day.
Re: "the unhappiness of some academics with the increasing use of English or English-influenced words in the tech world, which they say is hurting the education of Spanish speakers" and same expressed in article:
1) Using words from another language is injurious to "education" now? That doesn't even bother to make sense on its way to being wrong, so forget that part.
2) Who cares about the language of "tech world," besides those who are in it (the same people responsible for this "corrupting" Anglo-ness of its language)? The use of French and German words in the English-speaking "philosophy world" hasn't been the ruin of English-as-a-whole; nor has the use of Latin words in the "science world." The use of "fuck" in the world-that-says-"fuck"-a-lot hasn't destroyed the English of, say, theology.
The whole "corruption" argument is silly, and linguistically ignorant. It's just base Anti-Anglo(-American) sentiment masked in the rhetoric of "purity" (see France--or even 1920s' America's "racial purity" laws). I wish they'd drop the façade (--corruption!--) and just say Americans are all fat and stupid a few thousand more times; at least that's entertaining (in a Sisyphean, another-guy-hitting-himself-in-the-nuts-with-a-gol f-ball-on-Funniest-Home-Videos sort of way).
(Any random spaces in this post are the result of the lameness of the Lameness filter.)
"traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered."
--that you find so silly and smack-worthy, and his apparent happiness over this alleged "decline":
You have to realize that his view of all these "traditional" things is as myopic, provincial, "pop," etc. as any trailer-park hick or morally outraged gaming-denouncer he's at such pains to distance himself from (a psychologist might throw out a "projection" or an "overcompensation" here).
You've surely read Katz articles before--probably dozens of them, because they pop up here with herpes-like perturbing frequency. You've got a picture in your mind of "Katz" based on what he writes. You know how his mind works, probably better than he himself does, because he's not a good enough writer to spot the "neurosis-leaks" in his texts before he whips them out at us. Now, imagine this "Katz" in your mind has invited you over to his place, and you're having your first look around the KatzCave. Tell me, do you find the latest recordings of "classical" and opera by Andriessen or Xenakis? Books by Calvino or Vollmann, or even Pynchon? A single program or recording of a ballet that's less than 200 years old?
Hardly. You find a demographically-predictable sampling of the WalMart entertainment inventory.
Katz is a babbling *Rolling Stone* consumer profile. All he knows about is what's advertised, targeted, tested. And when all you know about "book publishing, opera and classical music, dance," is what you see on television, or read about in *Wired*, you might think these things are "in decline" or "endangered." If you actually care about these things, pursue and enjoy them, you know better. Katz doesn't. But he likes video games, so they're the most important thing in the world--and their popularity with demographic groups whose insecurities he hopes to play to, a symbol of everything but the enjoyment of video games by the dorky.
Don't let him bring you down; he's just another 14/\/\3R who thinks he's 1337.
If he had read Nietzsche, he would have said "ressentiment," not "guilt," and he would have said that environmentalists (whom he would have compared to Christians) are trying to convince the young, beautiful, and successful (whom he would have compared to either Greeks or Jews, depending on which Nietzsche book he'd last read) to destroy themselves (economically and bodily) on the altar of Nature (which he would remind the environmental-Christians is in fact an indifferent, wasteful, monstrous thing that, since they claim to worship it, they should be sacrificing themselves to willingly by refusing the "unnatural" advances of technology, etc.); he would describe the morality of the environmentalists as a vengeful "slave morality" that aims to rid the world of the "aesthetic" and "Dionysian" young, beautiful, and famous, because the very sight of "unnatural" beauty and youth makes the ugly, weak environmentalist feel jealous and shitty. And he would be right, pretty much.
Is today "crappy philosophy reference day" on Slashdot, or what?
Dude, no way. Katz couldn't even pronounce Foucault's name, let alone reference him semi-intelligently. The piece does have two Katzian characteristics, however:
1) Its ideas (and, in this case, its entire content) are not original to its poster, and
2) The use of "Foucault" as a metonymy for "postmodernist" is misleading, but probably rhetorically persuasive (in a blustering, patronizing way) to people who don't know it's inaccurate (in the same way that Katz uses "Columbine" as a stand-in for "geek revenge," for example).
Not to pick PoMo nits with the AC who didn't write this, but the "control society" described in the final paragraph is actually a concept from Deleuze, who derived the notion from William Burroughs, not Foucault (though Foucault's theories and research do support the idea, and he and Deleuze were pals and mutual admirers).
In short: This whole deal is way over Katz's head. He can't even follow a Linux installation man page, let alone *Anti-Oedipus.*
The result - when is the last time you saw an FIF file?
Last night on Nova, they showed a small labful of astronomers/cosmologists looking at distant supernovae (trying to find a type 1A, I think), and the files they were inspecting (visually) were.FIFs. I only noticed because I was surprised at how good-looking the rough incoming images were, and got really, really close to the tv (so close I could see the Squant Nebula in Sector FUFME). So,.FIF hasn't failed; it's found a small-fame/big-$ niche.
Not that you actually care, but Jerusalem (the city) makes at least one bold-faced non-metaphorical appearance in the Koran, in a story called "The Night Journey." I don't have a Koran on me, so I can't give you a ref., but, again, you don't really care, so who cares.
Whenever I've posted something like that, I've been (-1, Troll)ed in about nine seconds. Congrats for staying above 0 for so long.
I'll only add this:
Will Napster's "defenders" ever realize that they're pawns in a PR ploy, that they're being whipped up by Napster (and other unwitting pawns) to bark and whine in public until a settlement (the only way Napster can ever hope to see a profit) seems attractive to the RIAA, because "everyone's against them?"
The settlement will come: Napster will get money (by becoming an RIAA "partner" whose service is bought); the RIAA will look conciliatory (and get a pile of Napster "customers"); everyone who's not the RIAA or NPSTR (coming soon to a NASDAQ near you) will get nothing.
Indies/"artists" and "Information wants to be free" types--zilch for you, though without your free PR it wouldn't have been possible. Way to "stick it to the man," guys.
The PMRC and the RIAA were in bed on this one. The whole point of the record-labeling hearings (before a committee of which Gore was a member (and Gore was in favor of them)) was to distract the press and public from another RIAA/Gore-sponsored bill that we have come to know as the "blank tape tax," which was, at the same time, in committee (a committee of which Gore was the chair). It was the first bill of its kind. Look where we are now. Thank the Gores.
You're probably right. But, until you can convince people who configure routers, write hardware drivers, and throw together databases that they're not "artists," forget unionizing them.
Try explaining to your average Slashie sysadmins that they're a modern eqivalent of railroad brakemen or cotton gin operators, and should be organized accordingly. See what reaction you get.
Picasso wasn't in "the painters' union." The guy who painted his house was. No one wants to see himself as more like the the latter.
1) say something like "I hold it up next to your dick, LEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOZAH!"
2) be told by the original poster, "DUMBASS! I said Planck's CONSTANT, not the Planck LENGTH! YHBT! MOO-HA!"
(Disclaimer: I don't remember whether Planck's length and his constant are two different numbers or not, because those numbers were displaced in my brain today by the date on which Jennifer Tilly was twice my age, and the number of licks it takes to get to the center of Spike Lee. I just wanted to make a dick joke. I am not a 31337 FizziX0r.)
Materia prima has a ring to it (meaning it's more memorable than informational, like "Slashdot" or "Yahoo," and it'll look cool on a cease and desist letter).
It's one of the names for the mystical, non-physical something-or-other that alchemists believed the elements (earth, water, air and fire--those "elements") were made of, and claimed to be able to manipulate--nice little almost-metaphor there.
I haven't whoised it, but I doubt any squat-bots have made it down to the Latin domain names yet.
I don't have the time/$/equipment to get it happening, but I'd like to see a site like you've described, too. So, if you (meaning anyone) like the name, use it in good health, with these two conditions: don't give Network Solutions any money for it, and, if you make it a porn site, no fat chicks.
I don't think Pi was startlingly great, but you're not reading it right. It was not attempting to be realistic, or to present the viewer with a Theory of Everything.
In fact, it was about how the kind of person who can't understand the world without an eschatological ToE (a rabbinical sect, a loony ex-mathemetician, and a paranoid, in this case) is essentially insane.
The math, the cabalistic name-of-god nonsense and bogus geometrical stock-market prediction, was metaphorical. It wasn't supposed to make sense to anyone but the main character in the story, and it only made sense to him because he was paranoid. The increasing complexity of the nonsense that made sense to him paralleled the mounting acuteness of his paranoia; its not continuing to make sense to the rest of us was the point. He hitched onto it and rode it to the end; we weren't supposed to, because we're not nuts.
When confronted with a piece of art which is full of obvious errors (Picasso didn't understand perspective; James Joyce had bad grammar; Schoenberg's melodies aren't memorable), it's wise to assume its maker knew what he was doing, and ask yourself why he did it. I know it's easier to say it's shitty and feel superior, though.
Slashdot Mirror
I think his assumption is a sub-assumption of "Advertising makes advertisers money," which is itself a dubious assumption. I used to work for an ad agency, and no one there was ignorant enough to believe that. Advertising, at best, does two "good" things: 1) Inform people who would buy a product anyway if they knew it existed that it does in fact exist, and 2) Make brandX = productX (like Coke = carbonated beverage or Xerox = photocopier or RHAT = Linux) to a small degree in the minds of the gullible. Usually, it just makes money for ad agencies and sellers of ad space/time.
But, on the internet, where the advertiser can monitor (some of) the effectiveness of an ad directly (click-through rate), advertisers can see that advertising doesn't do as much for them (directly) as ad agencies and time/space sellers had led them to believe. So, the move on the internet will be away from "measurable impact" (banners) to "presence" (interstitials, etc.)--not because we're blocking and ignoring ads (we've always done that), but because it's easier to delude an advertiser about the cost/benefit of "internet presence" than about a
Advertising has been "found out" by the internet. It will release some squid ink and re-conceal itself. All will go on as before. The commercial net will be saved (but made very annoying). Woohoo.
(Or something like that (I just got out of bed)).
Trivial example:
I tried to avoid Verizon. Then they merged with the telecom I've got a 5-year contract with. So they get my money.
Less trivial:
I tried to avoid AOL. For example, when they bought Netscape, I deleted a lot of crappy browsers. Now, I'll be working for them (about 7 subsidiaries down).
Boycotts are a capitalist protest against individual businesses. They can't work in a mixed / corpo-socialist / neo-feudal / whatever-this-bullshit-is economy, because it really is a growing-big-fat-Them vs. shrinking-little-tiny-You; as Them grows, more of You works for them. I became a Them (for the next three years or so) today.
Now where's that big-ass asteroid I keep hearing about?
Whoever modded this Insightful:
You suck. I took a break from modding unjustly -1ed ACs Underrated and gave the parent a Funny just to piss the guy off (and support his point), and you made it disappear within about five seconds.
May your overclocked Celeron disfigure your genitals somehow!
--Cranky Old School Moderator
Thanks for mentioning The Tempest; you accidentally made some sense of this guy's unbelievably thoughtless article for me. I was thinking it was merely a neurotic manifestation of Carr's desire to be one of the Arbiters of Fact he calls for, and/or his belief that if the world were divided legally into info-eaters and info-feeders, he'd be on the "pitching" team--and that's what it is, but it's also something else: We are Prospero. The internet is our library. Insert H.L. Mencken quote re: someone, somewhere having a good time (defined as an unapproved-of inner life). Fold in a little monomaniacal Puritanism and BINGO!--Caleb Carr. Prior to reading this, I'd thought he was just a bad writer; now I know he's a bad writer like Hitler was a "bad painter"--someone really should name a new complex after this bad-artist-turned-would-be-dictator thing.
(Yes, I know that's not what you meant by the Shakespeare ref--and I'm loaded, so my rant probably doesn't hang together too well--but thanks.)
So, if the public can be convinced that 'hackers' with their illicit computer equipment are, say, a 'threat to our children', we could have similar laws targetting 'controlled technology'.
c connection....
If you've ever wondered why the media (especially the likes of Disney-owned ABC and PravdAmerica (PBS)) continually make the kiddie-porn--internet--hackers--scary-Ligeti-musi
Speaking of which, during a recent news item of the above-described sort (on Lehrer's "smart" PBS show), I asked the woman watching it with me--who is of far-above-average intelligence but has no interest in dorky computer junk--if she thought that one could just go to Yahoo! or Excite, type in something like "three-year-old girls getting fucked in the ass," and immediately be led to millions of pictures of three-year-old girls gettting fucked in the ass. She was under the impression that one could do just that, and was shocked to learn that it's actually nearly as difficult to find such things on the internet as it is to find them in
"real life."
Still, she thought it was sorta creepy that I knew that, because no amount of my being a non-creep (who happens to know his way around the internet) can erase the years of brainwashing. You know that scary music that plays behind any "computer hacker"--or, really, any "computer guy" who isn't a marketroid--on tv? That's guy's me and you, dude. When "normal people" see you, they hear the music.
You are not paranoid. The world doesn't like you very much. On the Big Bad List They Have, you're under the same heading that smokers in California and non-tourists in Manhattan are: NEXT.
If you open this with Acrobat Reader, you just get a black box--
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--but, if you have a text editor, well...gee.
NOTE TO CIA: Rasterize!
Sorry it's so late; missed the story.
APPLESCRIPT CODE:
on open fileList
tell application "Finder"
repeat with i in fileList
set filePath to i as string
display dialog
"Open with..." buttons {"Select", "Never mind."} default button "Select"
set fav to button returned of result
if fav is "Select" then
tell application "Finder"
activate
set creator type of file filePath to creator type of (choose file with prompt "MacRocks You")
open selection
end tell
end if
end repeat
end tell
end open
END OF CODE.
Compile it, drop typeless files on it (one at a time or it'll go insane), and pick the application you want them associated with. Even has a li'l GUI. Whee!
(I can't believe the guy above didn't just ask a MacDork what to do. DAVE? Please.)
As a veteran Katz-flamer, I have to point this out: You're making one of the same mistakes Katz makes--the ones that make us bitch and flame here in hope of The Taco Bunch finding "us" a better columnist.
/. is populated by vulgar smartypantses. These flamers' pageviews are valuable, because flamers read, reply, preview, respond, etc.--much more banner-spewage than mere "readers" would generate.
/.'s better trolls, who are just screwing around here, having a laugh. But that's not it. We're not envious of Bezos, Gates, Katz; we're just bored with their crappy-ass crap, and wouldn't mind seeing someone else's once in awhile. This seems obvious to me, but--
What you've got are two facts: 1) Katz makes "'obvious' observations." 2) A lot of us are annoyed at Katz for making these "observations."
There are a few different ways you can put those two facts together.
You could take it at face value: We, the flamers, are annoyed because Katz isn't doing his job very well. In this case, we're annoyed because he's followed his usual formula: Reword jacket blurb on book; add "One day historians may be writing similiar books about this time," or its prolix, ungrammatical, post-Columbine equivalent. He's supposed to be a pro, but his work is all half-assed, so we can't believe he's still got a job, and we bitch about it.
You could be cynical: Katz was hired because he's unimaginative and doesn't write well, and will get flamed into the dirt every time his column gets posted, because
Or, you could "go playground" on the flamers--"You're all just jealous." (Of what? Never mind that.)--because it's easy. In fact, there are a lot people of whom Slashies could be accused of being "jealous" in the "I could do that" way that you describe: Bezos, Jobs, etc.--sometimes even Gates. They did things a lot of us could do, but haven't, and they're rich, and we're mostly not. Likewise, we flamers might be ticked off because Katz just babbles here semi-coherently, much like the rest of us--but--he gets paid for it. And he's not even as good at it as
But, since you used an analogy in your post, you got modded up. Same way Katz got his job--compare things at random, based on your playground-level reaction, with which many, of course, agree, becuase it's "'obvious.'" Your "hula hoop envy" would be what we Katz-flamers call a crappy-ass crappy analogy. Makes you feel smart--after all, you've made an "observation," and it was "''obvious'" enough that you've been congratulated for it--but it doesn't really tell us anything (unless "I have made an observation" is what you're really trying to tell us), and it doesn't give us anything to talk about except how crappy that analogy was.
Just like a little tiny Katzicle. Kind of like this Printing Press:Renaissance::Internet:Now Katzicle we're flaming now, in fact.
Etc, etc, Plz die now, tech-savvy Luddites, et cetera.
If TMBG were to die and be reincarnated as a borderline racist parody of a Japanese car dealership, which of the following models could we expect to find in your borderline racist parody showroom?
Mitsubishi Mini Active Urban Sandal
Subaru Gravel Express
Mazda Bongo Friendlee
Daihatsu Rugger Field Sports Resin Top
Nissan Prairie Joy
Mitsubishi Debonair Exceed
Suzuki Every Joy Pop Turbo
Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear Cruising Active
Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard
Daihatsu Town Cube
Nissan Big Thumb Harmonized Truck
Mazda Scrum
Isuzu Giga 20 Light Dump
Thank you.
I think it was ol' Burroughs sofa that was alive, wasn't it? I know it tried to eat him.
Yeah. 1337 j03 craXX0red the Soft House in Lawrence and redirected Burroughs's sofa to goatse.cx, back in '97. Swallowed the Old Bull whole. Sad, sad day.
Re: "the unhappiness of some academics with the increasing use of English or English-influenced words in the tech world, which they say is hurting the education of Spanish speakers" and same expressed in article:
l f-ball-on-Funniest-Home-Videos sort of way).
1) Using words from another language is injurious to "education" now? That doesn't even bother to make sense on its way to being wrong, so forget that part.
2) Who cares about the language of "tech world," besides those who are in it (the same people responsible for this "corrupting" Anglo-ness of its language)? The use of French and German words in the English-speaking "philosophy world" hasn't been the ruin of English-as-a-whole; nor has the use of Latin words in the "science world." The use of "fuck" in the world-that-says-"fuck"-a-lot hasn't destroyed the English of, say, theology.
The whole "corruption" argument is silly, and linguistically ignorant. It's just base Anti-Anglo(-American) sentiment masked in the rhetoric of "purity" (see France--or even 1920s' America's "racial purity" laws). I wish they'd drop the façade (--corruption!--) and just say Americans are all fat and stupid a few thousand more times; at least that's entertaining (in a Sisyphean, another-guy-hitting-himself-in-the-nuts-with-a-go
(Any random spaces in this post are the result of the lameness of the Lameness filter.)
Re the dumb Katzoid--
"traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered."
--that you find so silly and smack-worthy, and his apparent happiness over this alleged "decline":
You have to realize that his view of all these "traditional" things is as myopic, provincial, "pop," etc. as any trailer-park hick or morally outraged gaming-denouncer he's at such pains to distance himself from (a psychologist might throw out a "projection" or an "overcompensation" here).
You've surely read Katz articles before--probably dozens of them, because they pop up here with herpes-like perturbing frequency. You've got a picture in your mind of "Katz" based on what he writes. You know how his mind works, probably better than he himself does, because he's not a good enough writer to spot the "neurosis-leaks" in his texts before he whips them out at us. Now, imagine this "Katz" in your mind has invited you over to his place, and you're having your first look around the KatzCave. Tell me, do you find the latest recordings of "classical" and opera by Andriessen or Xenakis? Books by Calvino or Vollmann, or even Pynchon? A single program or recording of a ballet that's less than 200 years old?
Hardly. You find a demographically-predictable sampling of the WalMart entertainment inventory.
Katz is a babbling *Rolling Stone* consumer profile. All he knows about is what's advertised, targeted, tested. And when all you know about "book publishing, opera and classical music, dance," is what you see on television, or read about in *Wired*, you might think these things are "in decline" or "endangered." If you actually care about these things, pursue and enjoy them, you know better. Katz doesn't. But he likes video games, so they're the most important thing in the world--and their popularity with demographic groups whose insecurities he hopes to play to, a symbol of everything but the enjoyment of video games by the dorky.
Don't let him bring you down; he's just another 14/\/\3R who thinks he's 1337.
If he had read Nietzsche, he would have said "ressentiment," not "guilt," and he would have said that environmentalists (whom he would have compared to Christians) are trying to convince the young, beautiful, and successful (whom he would have compared to either Greeks or Jews, depending on which Nietzsche book he'd last read) to destroy themselves (economically and bodily) on the altar of Nature (which he would remind the environmental-Christians is in fact an indifferent, wasteful, monstrous thing that, since they claim to worship it, they should be sacrificing themselves to willingly by refusing the "unnatural" advances of technology, etc.); he would describe the morality of the environmentalists as a vengeful "slave morality" that aims to rid the world of the "aesthetic" and "Dionysian" young, beautiful, and famous, because the very sight of "unnatural" beauty and youth makes the ugly, weak environmentalist feel jealous and shitty. And he would be right, pretty much.
Is today "crappy philosophy reference day" on Slashdot, or what?
Dude, no way. Katz couldn't even pronounce Foucault's name, let alone reference him semi-intelligently. The piece does have two Katzian characteristics, however:
1) Its ideas (and, in this case, its entire content) are not original to its poster, and
2) The use of "Foucault" as a metonymy for "postmodernist" is misleading, but probably rhetorically persuasive (in a blustering, patronizing way) to people who don't know it's inaccurate (in the same way that Katz uses "Columbine" as a stand-in for "geek revenge," for example).
Not to pick PoMo nits with the AC who didn't write this, but the "control society" described in the final paragraph is actually a concept from Deleuze, who derived the notion from William Burroughs, not Foucault (though Foucault's theories and research do support the idea, and he and Deleuze were pals and mutual admirers).
In short: This whole deal is way over Katz's head. He can't even follow a Linux installation man page, let alone *Anti-Oedipus.*
The result - when is the last time you saw an FIF file?
.FIFs. I only noticed because I was surprised at how good-looking the rough incoming images were, and got really, really close to the tv (so close I could see the Squant Nebula in Sector FUFME). So, .FIF hasn't failed; it's found a small-fame/big-$ niche.
Last night on Nova, they showed a small labful of astronomers/cosmologists looking at distant supernovae (trying to find a type 1A, I think), and the files they were inspecting (visually) were
I wonder if staying up until 3 AM getting his gonads irradiated by his HAM radio has mutated Slashdot's most beloved technocrat sage into a "troll"?
[smiley thing]
Not that you actually care, but Jerusalem (the city) makes at least one bold-faced non-metaphorical appearance in the Koran, in a story called "The Night Journey." I don't have a Koran on me, so I can't give you a ref., but, again, you don't really care, so who cares.
Whenever I've posted something like that, I've been (-1, Troll)ed in about nine seconds. Congrats for staying above 0 for so long.
I'll only add this:
Will Napster's "defenders" ever realize that they're pawns in a PR ploy, that they're being whipped up by Napster (and other unwitting pawns) to bark and whine in public until a settlement (the only way Napster can ever hope to see a profit) seems attractive to the RIAA, because "everyone's against them?"
The settlement will come: Napster will get money (by becoming an RIAA "partner" whose service is bought); the RIAA will look conciliatory (and get a pile of Napster "customers"); everyone who's not the RIAA or NPSTR (coming soon to a NASDAQ near you) will get nothing.
Indies/"artists" and "Information wants to be free" types--zilch for you, though without your free PR it wouldn't have been possible. Way to "stick it to the man," guys.
You are now within the aura.
I know you were kidding, but:
The PMRC and the RIAA were in bed on this one. The whole point of the record-labeling hearings (before a committee of which Gore was a member (and Gore was in favor of them)) was to distract the press and public from another RIAA/Gore-sponsored bill that we have come to know as the "blank tape tax," which was, at the same time, in committee (a committee of which Gore was the chair). It was the first bill of its kind. Look where we are now. Thank the Gores.
You're probably right. But, until you can convince people who configure routers, write hardware drivers, and throw together databases that they're not "artists," forget unionizing them.
Try explaining to your average Slashie sysadmins that they're a modern eqivalent of railroad brakemen or cotton gin operators, and should be organized accordingly. See what reaction you get.
Picasso wasn't in "the painters' union." The guy who painted his house was. No one wants to see himself as more like the the latter.
"Bzzt," as the Slashbots say.
You were supposed to
1) say something like "I hold it up next to your dick, LEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOZAH!"
2) be told by the original poster, "DUMBASS! I said Planck's CONSTANT, not the Planck LENGTH! YHBT! MOO-HA!"
(Disclaimer: I don't remember whether Planck's length and his constant are two different numbers or not, because those numbers were displaced in my brain today by the date on which Jennifer Tilly was twice my age, and the number of licks it takes to get to the center of Spike Lee. I just wanted to make a dick joke. I am not a 31337 FizziX0r.)
What would be a good domain name?
Materia prima has a ring to it (meaning it's more memorable than informational, like "Slashdot" or "Yahoo," and it'll look cool on a cease and desist letter).
It's one of the names for the mystical, non-physical something-or-other that alchemists believed the elements (earth, water, air and fire--those "elements") were made of, and claimed to be able to manipulate--nice little almost-metaphor there.
I haven't whoised it, but I doubt any squat-bots have made it down to the Latin domain names yet.
I don't have the time/$/equipment to get it happening, but I'd like to see a site like you've described, too. So, if you (meaning anyone) like the name, use it in good health, with these two conditions: don't give Network Solutions any money for it, and, if you make it a porn site, no fat chicks.
Uh...
"Bo," in Japanese, means "stick" or "pole." So an Aibo is a "Lovepole" (sort of).
So:
1) That's one more thing to add to my "Reasons why Japan is the coolest place in the world (sort of)" list.
2) I vote for "Hosubaggu" as his new friend's name ("Hosebag" (sort of)).
I don't think Pi was startlingly great, but you're not reading it right. It was not attempting to be realistic, or to present the viewer with a Theory of Everything.
In fact, it was about how the kind of person who can't understand the world without an eschatological ToE (a rabbinical sect, a loony ex-mathemetician, and a paranoid, in this case) is essentially insane.
The math, the cabalistic name-of-god nonsense and bogus geometrical stock-market prediction, was metaphorical. It wasn't supposed to make sense to anyone but the main character in the story, and it only made sense to him because he was paranoid. The increasing complexity of the nonsense that made sense to him paralleled the mounting acuteness of his paranoia; its not continuing to make sense to the rest of us was the point. He hitched onto it and rode it to the end; we weren't supposed to, because we're not nuts.
When confronted with a piece of art which is full of obvious errors (Picasso didn't understand perspective; James Joyce had bad grammar; Schoenberg's melodies aren't memorable), it's wise to assume its maker knew what he was doing, and ask yourself why he did it. I know it's easier to say it's shitty and feel superior, though.
Go here:
http://www.ResExcellence.com/user_cursors.shtml
Do what it says.