Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
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The weblog of Seth Johnson -------------- INKSLINGER.ORG -------------- OD ARCHIVES -------------- FEEDS Posts:  Shared Items:
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Saturday, February 09, 2002
Friday, February 08, 2002
Guess before you click:
"He didn't drink, he didn't do drugs, he just rocked," Nicholas says.
And now he's the voice of MSNBC.
I think I've talked before about how much I love metafiction: exploring the frameworks of fiction, how characters from different narratives might--and do interact. Well I've found a guy who's interested in the same thing, but focuses on television crossovers. An interesting theory pulled from this mass: that the old Bob Newhart Show may acutally be a delusion in the brain of an autistic child...
ADDITION: Conversations with JP have reminded me of other metafiction "hubs"; I'll find some links and put them here for the curious (note that while the very idea of obsessing about these things is fannish, I personally only count officially published works as proper metafiction--fanfic doesn't count):
- Phillip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton theory (including this incredible family tree)
- Another Wold Newton page, worth a second link just to show how expansive fans have made Farmer's theory.
- Jon Myers Myers' novel Silverlock (Get a copy while you still can, or hunt it down in a used bookstore--it's an amazingly fun book.
- The Punisher Meets Archie, in the Comics Crossover Index
If the Punisher meeting Archie wasn't entertainment enough for you, read this true history of the Scooby Doo Gang. It's fanfic masquerading as scholarship, but it's a fun read.
Interesting reading: Gold Rush Games' Update page on the problems they had recently after their PayPal account was compromised...
Thursday, February 07, 2002
It's fun to look at this site's tracking data, and I do it regularly+. Mainly I do it because my ego requires me to find out whether or not my words are actually being read. I know it's sad, but we all have our weaknesses. (Now if only they'd come up with a counter to keep track of how many people read the page and say "Stupid ass." I'd pay for that service.)
But it has some weird side effects--like when I discovered tonight that, via their own Site Counter data, hits through the link on this page a couple days ago were tracked back to OD by Plus P Technology, the Twin Cities-based gun training service and site.
It wouldn't be all that hard to track me down--starting with this site and its bio page and ending with simple Web tools (and, of course, this post makes that even easier)--and that flares up my usually-dormant sense of paranoia just a bit.
But you know--I stand by what I said: I respect that they are and train responsible gun owners. I really do. But that doesn't stop me from being a bit creeped out by some of their behaviors. Heck, I feel that way about my friends who own guns. And I've fired guns myself on more than a couple occasions*, so it's not just a kneejerk ignorant reaction; I just don't want to own a gun, and have a hard time getting into the mindset of those who do.
Hopefully we can agree to disagree. Because they're, like, armed and stuff.
* Plus, I note, I fire what's probably thousands upon thousands of virtual rounds every week.
+ Later addition: I just checked OD's blogdex stats for the first time (another thing to routinely check now, see?), and was surprised to see that OD actually had links to it. The best is from this entry on the blog /dev/null; I don't know how he found my page in the first place--glad he stopped by, still have no idea--but I think he actually meant tolink to Alterslash rather than to me. Hopefully he found it again, or that the link to his blog in the previous sentence, bumping up his own blogdex stats, soothes the pain.
Well, after a phone conversation tonight, my parents now know about this page. So you'll see no more liquor ads or pornography. Sorry.
Instead I will just post things like links to tabloids angry at you. Yes, you.
NASA's new Blue Marble site has some of the most incredible pictures from orbit that I've ever seen...
If I wrote Reuters' headlines, this story would be called "ROBOT KILLS TALL GUY".
Oh, and if my friend Sean were still around, this is exactly the kind of thing he'd be doing.
Wednesday, February 06, 2002
Now these are the rules for war:
"Cowboys, Pirates, Davy Crockett guys and Alamo Texans could be used to supplement either side. If a figure was molded in blue or grey, however, he had to go to the appropriate side."
"Swedes: if you see Germans in green uniforms, they are Swedes. There were pictures of Swedish troops on TV last week, and they have helmets like Germans, so they are obviously in cahoots with the Enemy.
My favorite quote of the day (from a comments page on MeFi):
"What would it take for a development enterprise the size of (Microsoft) to make sure that their existing code base is bug free? I'm not religious, but I'd say the second coming of Christ and most of the Justice League."
Hurray! I've finally received a Nigerian scam email! Because I was feeling really left out, you know.
Tuesday, February 05, 2002
For the science-minded, crude magnetoptics--light changing the magnetic properties of a piece of plastic. How cool is that?
Is there synchronicity between the last link I provided and this prison narrative? I leave that to others, except to say that this is an interesting read. Scary at times, but interesting.
And to cheer you up after reading it, the Perfect Pancake!
Hello, my friends in the Twin Cities. Know that these people have likely trained some of those nearby, perhaps even loved ones. They analyze bank robbery videos in way too much detail, have several pages of photos of gunshot wounds, and they use the word "thingees" in what potentially may not be a humorous manner.
Yeah, they're responsible gun owners and users, and I respect that. But they still give off a creepy vibe.
JP told me of its existence, Google helped me find it, and now it's installed--the cool Tara's input plugin that allows me to play RealMedia files in Winamp! Now it's time to hit Fucinet and watch the run of Sealab 2020...
This story reveals exactly the leading item in the "Cons" category when I consider getting a TiVo.
"It's a fine line between where consumers might get frightened 'Are they getting watched?' versus TiVo and others wanting to make our viewing experiences better and more tailored to our interests," said Greg Ireland, an industry analyst with the Gartner Group market research firm.
I'm sure there are a lot of paranoids out there, but as far as I'm personally concerned, the above quote has it precisely backwards. I don't care if they're watching; somebody's always watching, and I don't do anything in my life that would cause me more than minor temporary embarassment were it to be broadcast on the Jumbotron in Times Square. My problem is with what marketing companies seem to take for granted: that I would want a viewing experience more tailored to my interests.
I enjoy finding what interests me myself, thank you. When it comes to media streams, it's only the serendipity of turning channels, wandering the library, reading collections of strange links like Memepool, and doing random Google searches that allow me to find new interests, to broaden myself rather than crawling into a nice, narrow, easily-advertised-to niche.
Besides, I think that Nielsen families at least get paid for their information...
Pure irony, passed along by Mike Flynn here at the Human Headquarters; when Flynn opened Windows Media Player today, here's one of the media streams du jour presented by Microsoft:
"Go watch?" Doesn't that potentially cause the same problem all over again?
Monday, February 04, 2002
Okay; all major functions and sections should now be working. The only difference to you should be the URL. Please let me know if you spot anything broken so I can fix it.
Thanks for coming along to the new site. I've been meaning to set up a squat on the Net for some time now, and as Ober Dicta began to constantly rub against the edges of the server space that came gratis with my home email account, it finally gave me the imperative reason to do so that I had been waiting for. So instead of 3MB of server space, I have 100MB--plenty of room for months of OD entries to come, along with (following the fine example set by JP) the occasional MP3 or two.
Here we go...
Please bear with me as I sort out a few issues resulting from moving. T'anks.
Why? Why can't Kaiju Big Battels happen closer to my neighborhood? Perhaps I will settle for purchasing one of their supa-cool T-shirts.
I've been playing the Hollywood Stock Exchange for a couple years now, but the folks at the Foresight Exchange Predictions Market take things a bit further. There are some claims that I don't think will prove out for quite a while, but today's news shows that at least one claim isn't looking good...
Okay, I enjoy watching The West Wing, but I've missed a few episodes lately--my television-watching allotment allegience remains with 24 (reminder--new episode tomorrow night, kids!)
So I go looking for an episode synopsis or two to catch up and find this; one would think that reading a recap or synopsis should probably take less time than watching the show itself...
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