Entries by Azundris

MacBook, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways!

Surviving the Mac, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the 'book (A guide for emigrants from X11-based unices)

Updating Snolo contendere

There is no 'from.'
Not in the sense that one is immersed in, influenced by a single defining culture anymore, save maybe that of the 'net.
We are jet-setters, internetters;
we've all moved for work and for love, time and again.

My culture is cosmopolitan.
My friends are online.
My home is the internet.
—ID:cyborg updated to v1.1

--giants; /* */

It's a tough one, but the question did come up.

Now truth be told, #22 could lay me any time I'm single. Ooooh, Stahl, baby!
But long-term, there might not be enough substance there, it's hard to tell ...

Likewise, I like the art deco elegance of the the Chrysler, but that's up there with old school jazz, pretty dresses, pretty cars, and hardboiled detectives in good hats -- it only works as a dream (until you next need birth control, the internet, or medicine, say -- or token human rights for women). We'd have a dream of a time, but in the end, we wouldn't work out. Much as I appreciate the elegance, some of my sensibilities might just be too modern ...

If a hospital makes a fortune off products derived from blood samples you gave while they were treating you, should you get a share? Or are bodies special?

If we believe in redistribution of wealth to help the poorest, should we also do that for surplus organs like second kidneys? Or are bodies special?

etc.

The most important lecture you will hear this week.

Anne Phillips @ LSE
Bodies as possessions and objects
45 minutes + 30 minutes Q&A

Pornography made for strange bed fellows -- conservative bible-thumpers, and radical feminists. Porn has thoroughly seeped into the mainstream, and some of its users even think of themselves as "edgy" or "transgressive." But is it all the same porn? And is there a simple yes or no answer to it?

I never got that whole sticks and stones thing.

The distinction between actions and words.

Words are actions. "I do." "I declare you husband and wife." "I sentence you to life in prison." "Yes. Yes I am homosexual." "I change my plea to guilty." Who hasn't been consoled by words? Who hasn't been aroused? Who hasn't been hurt? Who hasn't entered into a contract verbally, with every intention of honoring it?

Words are actions.

= good-looking

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.

That's already funny because has worked with good photographers isn't quite the same as hawt, but the amusement doesn't end there.

Useful and amusing stuff on my Android phone. Check out screebl etc.!

I saw the most amazing thing,
and I don't know what to call it.

Most people will immediately think of Cirque du Soleil when they see the – themed – daring feats, the clowns, the diva singing an operatic rendition of Splish Splash to it all. But CdS it ain't. On a smaller, more intimate stage, Soap stealthily inserts sexy without ever being sleazy – no small feat–, and an aesthetic that moves from straight to lesbian and gay to bi so fluidly that it almost makes you wonder why we have these distinctions in the first place. But it's not just the sexy – Cirque also never had people celebrate smoking on stage, or an angry choreography of acrobatics done in and on a full tub to the music of Tool. The pacing is flawless, from fun to funny, from breathtaking to sexy to tongue-in-cheek, and it's impossible to pick a favorite, with almost every act a winner. A must-see that no video can do justice. Get the front-row experience if you can, but prepare to get wet.

I think it's funny that grown adults would find (the) writing style (of Lord of the Rings) too dense or boring when I didn't at eight years old.
–Slythwolf

I think the Wolf has her analysis backwards here, because what she observed coincides 100 % with what I'd expect.

If an adult reads Tolkien, chances are that they have already seen a lot of what's good in Tolkien's books in derivative works, so that the originals will hold much less wonder and surprise – leaving only the bits that weren't so stellar. If on the other hand you're eight years old and Lord of the Rings is one of the first fantasy books you read, it's far easier to get pulled in by universe and forgive the faults (the writing, the absence of women, etc.).

In other words, I think what you think of a work that counts as a milestone depends a lot on how many derivative works you have consumed beforehand.

Some things work only once, and if you had that aha! while consuming a derived work, experiencing the original later will seem much less impressive – it did, after all, not give you an epiphany (as you already got that from the enhanced work or copycat).

By that token, I also find the Beatles mindbogglingly boring, while some people credit them with the musical equivalent of inventing the wheel. Well, even so, their work has been expanded on so much that by now, it looks like one of those wheels they use in B.C. or the Flintstones. You appreciate the historic value, but you wouldn't want to use it on a daily basis. The WalkMan was a great step up in portable music from the ghettoblaster, but I still wouldn't trade you my MP3 player for one.

Since this question comes up every now and again …
The naming of my machines.

My Sun U5, my first work machine, was slow as sin. (Hence it was the original sin – hahaha, I never noticed the pun). The linux PC that replaced it freed me from the slowness, so it was my salvation. There was a Windows instance on it because sometimes to do business, you gotta make a sacrifice. Then I got the linux laptop which is nice, but has slow disk, and the Sun had gone since, so that laptop became the new sin. If it's cable-bound, that is. If I come in via wireless, I end up on a different subnet, and then the same machine is the blasphemy (that IP was originally reserved for another Windows instance, hence, again, the name). The file-and-compile server, the white (named for the white old-style case), since got a new (black) box to live in, and hence is the noir. So yeah, the user-facing machines are a little biblically themed in a way, but there's also a method to my madness. Oh! And I have a Sun instance, which is the invictus. As in Sol(aris) Invictus. Har, har.
The latest addition to the zoo is a Mac (a 15" Macbook Pro, as it were), which of course is the vanity. If all the terrible Mac-ness gets too much, I can withdraw into a virtual linux, the sanctuary.
The Mac was this close to becoming the pain, by the way – for the obvious reasons (it being my work-machine, thus supplying le pain quotidien!).
Get it? Get it?

And now you know!