The Gamer's Quarter

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:28 am Post subject:

speaking of fucks, whenever i read someone's livejournal and the word meme pops up, i want to punch them in the face, forever.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

For the record, I know a lot about this stuff but I really do not buy into any of it.

You might have heard of the "blogosphere". What you may not realize is that when "bloggers" talk about "the blogosphere" they aren't talking about everyone's mom and cat who have a livejournal, blogger or wordpress.com account (no offense), they're talking about an inner circle referred to as "the a-list" that you will never be able to join. Basically sometime in the last few years, "bloggers" turned their social circles inward until they've become basically one giant echo chamber instead of any sort of real discussion. People on "the a-list" are considered worthy of worship by anyone striving to be a part of the circle jerk (most of the comments on the entry I linked to a while ago, and all the trackbacks).

Anyway, so all the people involved in this thing are "A-list" bloggers. That you've never heard of any of them means "you probably wouldn't get it" because they are the celebrities or something.

Okay, I think I need to go take a cold shower after typing all of that out.

Also, you'd probably hate techmeme then.
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dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:26 pm Post subject:

backstory: i got really heavily into this sort of stuff back in 95/96, in terms of the whole rushkoff/hypermedia/process/type shit. dawkins' work seemed to fit very well into how these processes moved. it just aggravates me that "catchphrase" or "in-joke" is used interchangingly with wikipedia three feet away. it's still a genuinely useful conceptual filter, however, but only for a small slice of the population that's interested in things like "conceptual filters" etc.

and i guess it comes down to "you could actually fill your head with knowledge instead of jerking off over how can butcher english, you fucking retards" but such is the way of the world.

ultimately, all the folks i know and read use blogosphere laughingly to describe anyone. i mean, an a-list blogger is still somewhat isolated, depending on their actual interests (i.e. the difference between a daily kos type thing and a more personalized approach). i'm not sure what that has to do with memetics, unless you were roundaboutly saying "these people are fuckfaces" in which case, amen sister.

edit: pet peeves are difficult to explain sometimes. like my professor who called e-zines "ee - ZYNES"
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extrabastardformula · . Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 295

May I please dump that text into my livejournal to explain the hate I have for people using meme like that too?

It messes my mood with a quickness.

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:15 pm Post subject:

sure!
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Err my last post was more in response to your question of who those people were (on the last page) but they are all fuckfaces who can die in a fire (oh noes, I am threatening people on the internets).
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dessgeega · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:43 pm Post subject:

elitism sucks but death threats aren't really cool either.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 7:41 am Post subject:

perhaps the problem is too little elitism? after all, an aristocrat of the soul wouldn't be bothered with something as mundane and shamelessly performative as blogging, now would they?

man, i gotta stop reading julius evola before bedtime.

anyway, that was a weird little thing, though she was kind of overreacting. LOL INTERNETS does have some truth in it, as "YOU NEVER KNOW" isn't an answer so much as a spiritual complaint about the transient nature of existence.

there was a blog fight a while back (political) where the team red guy's childrens names and elementary schools were posted on the team blue blog by some commenter, which were taken down after some time. which then turned into some other shit and all sorts of gobbledygook because the team blue guy was posting pseudonymously and someone found out he was a community college professor upstate and posted his office hours (no shit) but by this time i kinda fell asleep reading it (i was kicking some choice early eno). the only real interesting point of interest is the dude whose children were basically broadcasted in a vaguely threatening way was less chuffed than the dude whose job came to light. the comments were by and large the general tribal nonsense that makes political blogs so terribly terrible but it struck me that so long as everyone stayed at an emotional peak, the frisson between the two blogs were something of a success as an ad hoc community.

it's sort of like two people who hate each other but can't stop popping in every three months to have ridiculously acrobatic sex that leaves the neighbors hating them with the bright passion of a thousand shining suns. they are no good for each other in terms of being emotionally whole, but sometimes the needs of the monkey outweigh the needs of man, as it were. who are we to judge their actions, unless we are their neighbors, in which case i recommend putting speakers up against the wall and cue up unsexy-mix.mp3. (not really sure what would be on that but i should consider making one sometime)
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dhex · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 10:43 am Post subject:

man chicago is a terrible fucking town

interesting (read: god fucking damn it) story in the comments:

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Just wanted to let you know that the blogfight was the top headline on today's SF Chronicle.

dhex · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:41 pm Post subject:

what?

that's intensely lame. she has friends in the media i presume? this smells like that kind of story.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:55 pm Post subject:

dear god this thing is really small:

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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Possibly? It's also possible that the Chron has decided that the "blogosphere" is something that's actually important given the importance of the tech industry in the Bay Area, they could be competing with the San Jose Mercury News in this department as the Merc has been extremely tech-heavy recently.

Or she knows somebody at the paper.

dhex · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 9:02 pm Post subject:

hey why didn't someone tell me the grand theft auto 4 trailer is actually interesting? they're doing some kinda crazy koyanisquatti (not going to bother looking up the spelling) montage in the middle. that's neat.

i really liked that movie, btw, but i didn't think it was sad or "bad humans, bad!" at all. i thought "shit, look at the continual imposition of order and the continual escalation of chaos. hail, she whut done it all."
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dhex · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:29 am Post subject:

proof that metal was taken over by nerds.
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dhex · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 1:18 pm Post subject:

this is a very sad story as well.
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dhex · Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:16 pm Post subject:

after i'm done torturing myself making diagrams, i'm going to make myself a garlicky dinner.

CHILI-GARLIC CHICKEN

ingredients:

boneless chicken, cubed or shredded
chili paste
oil
garlic
sherry
peanuts (handful)
water chestnuts
string beans

1) cut chicken. mix two tablespoons (or more) of chili paste with a small amount of oil, just enough to wet it. mix thoroughly. then cover with sherry and mix thoroughly again, and pour over chicken. cover and refrigerate (at least 2 hours, but more is better)

2) cut tips from string beans and sautee in a bit of oil and chili paste until the desired softening is achieved. remove and drain in separate bow.

3) cook water chestnuts in another prep (tiny bit of oil and chili paste, all of which you can mix beforehand). drain and remove when well cooked (should be slightly softer, but still crispy)

4) cook peanuts in the runoff until they seem a bit soft. shouldn't take too long, and they can burn so beware (burned peanuts suck)

5) add remainder of oil and past. drain off any liquid from the chicken and cook on high heat (put the chicken in when the oil and past are sizzling). put in garlic cloves, which you can leave whole, slice lengthwise or dice completely, depending on how much zing you want. when chicken is cooked add all other vegetables and a tablespoon or two of sherry. stir until everything seems to look cool, then remove from heat.

6) serve over rice. best with peanut oil, but that's high in calories. you can stir fry with olive oil, but you do have to watch your temps. a little bit of oil goes a long way.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 10:08 am Post subject:

it was delicious, btw.

unrelated to anything: i find the puffery about "public art" (aka graffiti aka egoistic vandalism) pretty gross, but it's no more or less difficult to ignore than any other kind of advertising. the smug factor aside, some of it is actually cool.
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helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

I am going to make that and eat it someday.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:37 am Post subject:

you should! it's fucking great. tofu works too for those of us who wish to remain alienated from our animal nature.

unlike this gal!

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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:09 am Post subject:

doggy yoga up in your area! no doubt some enterprising chap would see this and say that there needs to be a yoga licensing agency.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:21 am Post subject:

awesome anti-evolution museum that i'd like to go to when reeeeeeeaaaaaaaallllly high.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:08 am Post subject:

this is an interesting move down in florida to return voting rights to felons
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dhex · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:36 pm Post subject:

hey josh wolf got out
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dhex · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:45 pm Post subject:

a friend of mine wrote this about being fired as a phone sex operator, completely with a fairly creepy call near the end of the piece. NSFW prolly
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

dhex · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:35 am Post subject:

friday we're all fucked edition: baking soda registry
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Wow, it's a proud day in St. Louis.

Just think of all the children who move from their baking soda and vinegar sciecne projects right into a $200 a day crack habit.
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dhex · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 12:45 pm Post subject:

that's just how they roll. (kids, government, same thing)

unrelated:
when i get into arguments with "national greatness" college conservative types i tend to get both flowery and angry. (i can understand their very roughly frustration, as college leftists are retarded and all the hot to trot conservative girls who don't have their brains shitted up with religion are probably too cool for your school) broadcasting for posterity:

dhex · Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:59 am Post subject:

what?

WHAT?
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dhex · Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:17 am Post subject:

i love the cultural current over at hit and run that turns every thread into haiku-laden insanity because dealing with team red (or less often, team blue) types is fucking impossible:

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:18 am Post subject:

a disturbing and freaky story from sfsu with some reasonable, if obvious, implications for what could come.

somewhat reminds me of the retards up at columbia who rushed the stage when some jackass who got kicked out of the minutemen for being too much of a dickface (that's saying a lot right there) in the name of "free speech."

that's sort of the point of college though, i guess. or maybe it's the point of maoism. i don't rightly know.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

I had a run in with FIRE once while I was in college. It wasn't pretty.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:32 am Post subject:

do tell! i'm not so hot on those jackanapes either (crying victim in EVERY SINGLE CASE is lame, and there are worse things than being yelled at by a professor) but they do seem provide a counterbalance to the prevailing speech code jerkoffery.
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I'm glad I went to a smaller college. I'm way too grumpy to have either sort around.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:10 am Post subject:

we had all sorts of wackadoodles at the hof, but as a newspaper editor i was only ever threatened by...actually, i was threatened by a lot of people. but it was a broad array of people so i feel better about that. a benetton kind of love.

speech codes are a good example of good intentions and the road to hell.

edit: and i don't rightly know what the score is these days other than to say my team and your team will always be a stronger draw than principles. i was somewhat surprised at the (vastly delayed and orchestrated) response to the whole danish cartoon kerfluffle, but that was muted by my incomprehension towards the utter lack of response to the theo van gogh murder in america, outside of people (i.e. fucktards) who were already convinced that an "islamo-fascist third wave" was getting ready to take over america and burkacize the shit out of everyone.

the key, of course, is my team and your team, enemy of enemy is friend. hence we get evangelicals who have fallen in love with israel and queers for palestine and all other kinds of assaults on surface-reading "reason." given some time and digging, these configurations make perfect sense.

politics is the study of strange bedfellows.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

in a short-term sense, it is entirely rational for people to make coalitions in politics. even if those ultimate coalitions are detrimentally opposed or even entirely hostile. you get plenty of examples throughout history that seem entirely insane - zionists and nazis, for example - but at the time seemed perfectly reasonable. the zionists wanted to leave germany for a new homeland, and the nazis wanted the zionists to leave. everyone's happy...

similarly, you see a newfound respect - or even passion - for israel among some american christians, particularly tribulationists who think we're at the end days. (hell, there's a farm in the midwest that's trying to breed the right kind of red heifer)

the list goes on and on (the satanic panic in the 1980s, the american bund during the pre-war years, etc)
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:25 pm Post subject:

that's awesome!

fucking retards.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Dammit I want superpowers from my cloned milk.

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:32 pm Post subject:

well, that's what happens when you let 75% of the country get its mechanical education from science fiction novels.

superpowers!
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

That kids way too sad to be having a green milk mustache.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Wait, are people seriously up in arms about using cloned animals for food and what not?

Really?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:11 pm Post subject:

matt: yes. for many years.

dhex · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:13 am Post subject:

the whole imus thing is hilarious (he's the scariest looking bastard on earth, man!) but it's mostly sad when [jerkass]sports fans try to act like adults about anything[/jerkass]
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dhex, I thought you might appreciate these two blog entries tearing apart a lengthy dissertation called "Quantum Feminist Mnemotechnics: The Archival Text, Digital Narrative and the Limits of Memory."

The author defends her work here, sort of.

Academia!
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

dhex · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:44 am Post subject:

huh.

i call bananas on "cyber-" anything. it's a shorthand way of saying "i am old and/or have spent so much time in the tower i can't keep up with modern terms." norbert weiner was a neat guy, but his time was a long time ago.

dhex · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:03 am Post subject:

man, this is awesome stuff:

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dhex · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 11:20 am Post subject:

i will have to peep that later.

UNRELATED:

dhex · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:52 pm Post subject:

label them thar porno sites, hoss
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