MaryAnn Johanson | My Own Private I Dunno

thought for the moment

2008-09-07T18:48:13Z

Good writing advice from Aristotle, in his Poetics:

Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet. For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place. This is the impression we should receive from hearing the story of Oedipus. But to produce this effect by the mere spectacle is a less artistic method, and dependent on extraneous aids. Those who employ spectacular means to create a sense not of the terrible but only of the monstrous, are strangers to the purpose of Tragedy; for we must not demand of Tragedy any and every kind of pleasure, but only that which is proper to it.

the Internet is finished -- we can all go home

2008-08-17T19:12:34Z

I think I have found the greatest thread in the history of the Internet. It's such a perfect soup of geekiness that I half suspect it's all invented. Whether it's real or not, it reaches a pinnacle that I think we've all been striving for since about 1997. It's like a "Nine Billion Names of God" thing: now that this thread has been achieved, there is nothing else left for the universe to accomplish.

It starts with a blog posting by SF author Charlie Stross -- who is a fantastically inventive writer, by the way. He writes:

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I refuse to believe this.

The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ (better known as the Knights Templar) have just launched a legal action against the Pope: among other things they want him to recognize the seizure of assets worth an estimated €100Bn, and restore the good name of the order. (More here.)

No. Just, no. This is too silly. Back in 2001 we obviously changed Cosmic Scriptwriter, with a new team consisting of the ghosts of Eric Blair and Philip K. Dick taking over from the previous incumbents -- but this? The Pythons aren't even dead, yet! (Well, most of them.)

I didn't reproduce the links -- go to Charlie's blog to check them out. But that's the entirety of the post. And it's a good, geeky post: it hits current events and comments on them via multiple pop-culture references, including some deeply literary ones.

But it's in the comments that geek nirvana is achieved. There, we find referenced:

• cynicism about Hollywood marketing practices
• the nature of God
• YouTube
• goofy advertising
• the concept of parallel worlds
• the mortgage meltdown
• a geek meme spun off from The Simpsons
• the French
• Doctor Who
• the history of the Catholic Church
• Wikipedia
• propeller beanies
• the differences between zeppelins, blimbs, and dirigibles, complete with cheerfully nerdish squabbling over them
• classic rock
• Indiana Jones

Need I even mention that (at least as of this writing) there are exactly 42 comments in the thread?

(Technorati tags: perfect thread, geek nirvana, Charles Stross, web)

holy crap: tornado warning in NYC

2008-08-15T21:52:35Z

I'm right in the middle of this up in the Bronx right now. The rain is biblical, but the hail has now stopped -- yup, huge chunks of ice were falling in the Bronx in August. The wind has dropped a bit too, though not before a huge tree branch came down in the street outside (it looks like it may have damaged at least one parked car). There will certainly be more down all over the neighborhood by the time this is over.

Our summer weather has been like this a lot, lately, in fact. Not the tornado warnings, but the afternoon deluges. You can almost set your watch by them. It's gorgeous and sunny all day, and then around 5:30 or so, it starts pouring, and I mean torrential, and the wind is strong enough to send it sideways. It doesn't matter whether you have an umbrella: you get soaked anyway. So people huddle under awnings and in store doorways. I did that yesterday--

(I just *heard* the electrical crack of lightning. Shit.)

--huddled in a doorway for a while, and took a few pictures:

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And then half an hour later, the sky is clear again and the sun is out again and, except for the rivers running down the streets, you'd never know it rained.

This is not normal New York weather -- at least, it didn't used to be normal. This is our planet on global warming. A warmer atmosphere is a wetter atmosphere. It makes me think of how it was always, always raining in Blade Runner...

(Just as I'm about to post, the tornado warning has been lifted.)

(Technorati tags: New York City, tornado, weather, rain)

don't use your iPhone the way you want to use it...

2008-08-15T18:19:42Z

...use it the way Apple wants you to use it.

I heard about this recentlly, when Larry Dignan, editor in chief of ZDNet wrote at his blog about the rumor -- now confirmed as fact -- that

Apple apparently can disable App Store software remotely on your iPhone 3G. The iPhone calls home and poof the application is nuked.

That was enough to make my head explode. But Dignan continued:

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the ability to simply deauthorize apps already installed on an iPhone is worrisome.... Is this something to be outraged about? Yes, it's creepy...

But then he went on to suggest that

assuming the company doesn't abuse its privileges the remote nuking capability may not be such a bad idea.

Its privileges? It's now a "privilege" that corporations may control what we do with their products once we've bought them?

Dignan isn't the only one who feels this way. Baltimore Sun tech blogger David Zeiler thinks the "kill switch is a necessary evil":

Unless an app contained malicious code that escaped detection, Apple would have no reason to kill it.

Of course not. What possible reason could Apple have for, say, zapping an app that lets an iPhone circumvent whatever corporately synergistic joint ventures Apple might have in place, like how iPhone owners can use only AT&T as their service provider?

I think the kill switch is exactly what it appears to be: an emergency-use-only tool for Apple to prevent malware from getting a toehold on the fledgling iPhone platform.

It's so sweet that Zeiler has so much faith in Apple. And anyway, all us babies crying about invasion of privacy and so on will love Apple for it someday:

I also wonder how the iPhone community will react when a clever hacker sneaks some nasty code into an otherwise innocent-looking app and it slips by Apple's screening process. It's inevitable.

And just as predictably angry iPhone owners will expect Apple to come to the rescue.

At that point millions of iPhone owners will be grateful for the kill switch, regardless of how they feel about it now...

See? It's always so awesome when corporations treat us like children, and their our stern-but-loving daddy. It makes me feel all warm and cuddly and loved and protected. So next we'll get the iGun that prevents criminals from shooting it? Yeah, I didn't think so. Corporate interference that saves us? No way. Corporate interference is only okay when it protects the corporation.

Good to know. I'll be sure to keep my MacBook Air Supreme running OS Eleventy-One off the Internet for good, when I buy it in 2010, lest Apple zap any material on the hard drive it doesn't like. That'll be real practical, won't it?

(For the record, I don't have an iPhone, and probably won't until the AT&T-only restriction goes away.)

(Technorati tags: Apple, iPhone, evil, technological fascism)

ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States

2008-08-15T17:51:16Z

Looking, for all the world, like he was falling-down drunk in Beijing:

See that guy in the upper right corner? No one is that concerned (or worried) for someone who merely "stumbles," as the official explanation would have us believe. Laura Bush is spectacularly unconcerned, of course -- Xanax will do that, I hear, as well as plaster a 24/7 Stepford smile on one's face -- but look at the woman next to her (is that a Bush daughter?). She's worried.

A closeup:

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Sure as hell looks like he can't stand up on his own.

Then again, this is no different from how he's been behaving in Beijing:

God, he really is a fucking moron, isn't he? He's like our national embarrassing uncle.

Oh: LOL Bush. From the Brits.

January 20, 2009, cannot come soon enough. As long as it's not the alzheimerrific McCain replacing him.

(Technorati tags: Bush, Beijing Olympics, drunk)

China to little girl: "You're ugly"

2008-08-13T18:18:14Z

Speaking of sexism at the Olympics... The little girl who sang the Chinese revolutionary anthem at the opening ceremonies the other night? She was lip-synching. But she was lip-synching to the singing of a totally different little girl:

The real singer was Yang Peiyi, a seven-year-old deemed not pretty enough to be the face of China's most watched moment in history.

Chubby-cheeked with crooked teeth, she was substituted at the eleventh hour by Communist Party officials desperate to present the best possible image of Chinese youth to a curious world.

And the Chinese don't see anything wrong with this:

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"The reason why little Peiyi was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image. The reason was for the national interest," said Chen Qigang, the renowned contemporary composer and French citizen who directed the music for the opening ceremony.

"The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings and expression. Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects but in terms of voice Yang Peiyi is perfect."

I mean, Duh: what right-thinking and patriotic nation wouldn't do such a thing? And she's only a girl, after all. Her "internal feelings" must surely be less than perfect, since she's so ugly and, well, female.

Of course, she's actually adorable, little Yang Peiyi, the real singer:

China: Better at sexism than the decadent West, which is so lazy it can't be bothered to tell seven-year-olds they're ugly!

(Technorati tags: China, Olympics, sexism, Yang Peiyi)

sexism at the Olympics

2008-08-13T18:00:55Z

Simon Barnes at TimesOnline is all hot and bothered about what these amazing new swimsuits the Olympic swimmers are wearing are doing to their breasts:

Those who have been watching the swimming at the Olympic Games could be forgiven for asking the obvious question. I mean: what's happened to women's breasts? Once, female swimming champions had them, now they don't. They have broad shoulders and wide chests, but no lumps on them. It's not quite as it should be. Is it masculinising drugs? Some kind of anti-cosmetic surgery? An early example of massed gene-doping?

No. It's the Speedo LZR Racer. This is a swim suit that improves your hydrodynamic efficiency, and it does so by holding you in, by compressing the body. This has a dramatic effect on biomechanical efficiency, it means that your muscles don't flap about so much. Because of this, the process of recovery after each stroke is infinitely easier for the body to deal with.

An expert in biomimetics has suggested that the suit also helps your body to deal with pain: the compression makes the body send less urgent messages to the brain. You can bear it all much better. In short, you go faster. You can always regain your femininity when you have wriggled out of the damn things after the race.

]]> Regain your femininity. Cuz God knows, there's nothing feminine about winning a medal at the Olympics, especially if you have to endure "looking a bit flat-chested" in the process.

Nah, just kidding. Barnes says it's all worth it for the extra speed the suits give. It's jolly generous of Barnes to let us know it's okay with him that the gals are making him suffer by not displaying their breasts for him. Cuz he's not gay, you know. Even though the diving makes his thoughts turn to homosexuality:

Sex and the springboard

Just managed to catch another round of the synchrinised diving. It was the springboard today, and the British pair, Nicholas Robinson-Baker and Benjamin Swain, were doing their stuff. Their achievement was, it must be said, in reaching the final. Theirs is a sport not without beauty, but it always seems to have a homoerotic whiff about it as well. It all looks like a wonderfully elegant gay suicide pact.

So not gay.

(Technorati tags: Olympics, swimming, sports journalism, sexism)

if they can impeach a dictator in Pakistan, why can't we impeach George W. Bush?

2008-08-07T14:35:29Z

From BBC News:

Pakistan's ruling coalition parties say they have agreed "in principle" to start impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf.

Wow. I guess Musharraf mustn't be the all-powerful evil-overlord dictator we thought he was, if he can be impeached. I mean, otherwise he'd just, I dunno, dissolve parliament or something, and it's not like he can do that or anything, right?

Last year, he gave up control of the army, the country's most powerful institution, but he retains the power to dissolve parliament.

Oh.

Will someone please tell Nancy Pelosi about this?

(Technorati tags: impeachment, Musharraf, Bush)

no one appreciates writers, even the people who hire them

2008-08-07T14:14:37Z

I'm still fuming over this ad, spotted on Los Angeles Craigslist, seeking a "Very Brainy + Creative Thinker, Planner, Editor" for a series of high-end newsmagazines covering ritzy Southern California communities including Malibu Beach and Beverly Hills.

The publisher is looking for a brilliant miracle worker:

We need more intellectual firepower, investigative articles on serious issues.

We should do more interviews with top-level movers and shakers, authors, academics, CEOs, political leaders, etc.

...

This is for someone really brainy who wants to test the envelope.

...

I see you as someone who comes up with 4-5 really great ideas every month that we should write about. You could do some or all of the writing, or you could help me find just the right writer or writers who should.

...

This is NOT a role in which you will say to me, "What do you want me to write about this month?" It's VERY MUCH a role in which you will say to me, "Here are five fantastic ideas your readers will absolutely love." And then I want those ideas to be so great that I'll simply say "yes, yes, yes, yes -- and yes."

]]> Sounds like a vital job for this enterprise, a combination of ingenuity and creativity, the kind of stuff that's unfakeable, that's invaluable, that cannot be done by just anyone. Plus, it will feed on the new job holder's own network of contacts both within the industry -- if the publisher expects this person to have access to a stable of writers, plus have PR contacts that will put him/her in touch with "top-level movers and shakers" -- as well as within the community, if this person will be ferreting out stories that readers have not already come across in other local publications, stories that make them go Wow!

As if to reemphasize how special a person someone will have to be to take on this extraordinary job, the ad spells it all out:

Please be smart, educated, talented, insightful, visionary, peppy, clever, earnest, fun, positive, reliable, organized, sane, honest, willing to work -- and eager to make a difference.

And what will the remuneration for this extraordinary person be?

For great story ideas, I see paying you $20 per idea we use, with a maximum of five, or $100 a month.

If you write the story, I see paying you 20 cents a word. So a 1,000 word article nets you $200.

If you aren't perfect for writing the story, but find the right person who is, I see another $20 "finder's fee."

So you could make maybe $100 - $500 a month doing this.

But hey, don't be so glum:

it's not really a "job job," it's more an advisory role -- something fun and stimulating for you to take on in addition to whatever else you're doing.

See, you get paid in fun! Who doesn't love fun?

What? You say you expect to be paid on a scale commensurate with your total awesomeness? Are you some kind of idiot? Don't you know that

writing and/or editing is not a road to riches

and also that

this is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

Geez, you geniuses with your brilliant ideas and massive network of contacts, you really do expect something for nothing, don't you?

(Technorati tags: writing for free)

oh, wait: it's not fascism when we do it

2008-08-06T18:16:36Z

This makes me laugh till I cry:

(Technorati tags: fascism)

how do we fight the rising tide of fascism?

2008-08-06T18:12:38Z

It was seven years ago today that President George W. Bush -- may his name life in annals of infamy and disgrace forever -- got the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." memo, and ignored it in favor of clearing brush on his faux ranch in Crawford.

When I think what Bush and his cronies have done with this country -- how far down the road to full-blown fascism they've taken it ("President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.") -- I feel ill and angry and desperate to do something to counter it. And then I feel despair, because I can't think of anything to do that will be effective. And today I discovered (via Sideshow) that Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque has put into words why I can't think of anything that might be effective:

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[T]he kind of civil disobedience that Thoreau preached - and practiced - is immensely more difficult today, because the power of the state is so much greater, far more pervasive, more invasive...and much more implacable, more inhuman. No one would have dared put Thoreau in "indefinite detention" without charges, or torture him, or delegate some underling in intelligence apparatus (which didn't exist then) to kill him as a "suspected terrorist." Of course there were many egregious suspensions of Constitutional liberties and draconian measures during the Civil War; but these occasioned fierce fights in Congress, investigations, lawsuits, and outraged protests on the streets - the worst, by far, in American history, dwarfing the urban riots and war protests of the Sixties. But only the most ignorant fool - or devious liar - could compare these short-lived, ad hoc, inconsistently applied, frequently reversed and much-disputed depredations, carried out in the midst of a massive insurrection by fully-fledged armies on American soil, with today's thorough-going, systematic creation of an authoritarian state, on the basis of a zealous ideology of an unrestricted "unitary executive," operating in a nebulous, self-declared "state of war" that we are told will last for generations.

...

In a land crawling with armed - and armored - SWAT teams, with operatives from innumerable federal agencies packing heat and happy to use it, a land where more than 2 million people languish in prison (many of them captives of an endless "war on drugs" that has done nothing to curb substance abuse but has greatly augmented the power of the state and the criminal gangs whose laundered money enriches Establishment elites), a land where almost every transaction is wired up to some national grid, where national ID cards are now being imposed - a land where you literally cannot exist without placing your liberty, your privacy, your very life at the mercy of a government apparatus besotted with violence, coercion and intrusion, there is no place left for the kind of action that Thoreau advocated. His way - and that of Gandhi and King, who took so much from him - envisions a state opponent which one could hope to shame into honorable action by the superior moral force of principled civil disobedience. But the very hallmark of the present regime is its shamelessness, its utter lack of any sense of honor or principle, its bestial addiction to raw power.

It is pointless - and counterproductive - to simply throw yourself under the wheels of such a monstrous machine in futile spasms of rage and despair. The machine doesn't care. It will gladly chew up your life and move on. For the action of the ordinary individual to have an effect, it must be amplified by a larger social movement. And it is difficult to imagine such a movement arising in America today, in a society atomized by the engines of profiteering, its communities gutted or abandoned by elites seeking greener pastures - and cheaper labor - elsewhere, its citizens isolated from one another, locked in their own bubbles of electronic diversion, and their own struggles to keep their jobs (unprotected by unions, subject to the arbitrary whim of local bosses, or faceless corporate masters, or predatory hedge funds, etc.), hang on to their health insurance (if they've got it), and stay out of the hell created by the bipartisan Bankruptcy Bill for the benefit of the credit card companies.

There's much more.

Floyd is absolutely right. I'm not sure, though, if I wanted to hear this: perhaps it was better thinking that I was merely too dumb to figure out what to do.

(Technorati tags: fascism, resistance)

thought for the moment

2008-08-05T20:02:46Z

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca:

There are certain sections of New York that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.

(Technorati tags: New York)

Kindle is catching on

2008-08-05T19:56:33Z

Are people actually using Kindle, Amazon's e-reader? It seems like they are -- TechCrunch is reporting that 240,000 of the things have been sold so far.

Since I first wrote about the Kindle last year, I've seen one in the flesh, so to speak -- it's way cooler than I ever imagined -- and have heard from friends who've gotten hooked on them, and the general consensus seems to be that the only people complaining about them are those who haven't actually used one. I wouldn't mind the chance to play around with a Kindle on an extended basis... and I think I may need to get my own book into a format that Kindle can read.

(Technorati tags: Kindle)

celebrity chef sorry he tried to kill you

2008-08-05T14:38:12Z

From BBC News:

Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has apologised after he recommended use of a poisonous plant in recipes.

In a magazine interview about watercress and other wild foods, Mr Worrall Thompson said the weed henbane was "great in salads".

Healthy & Organic Living magazine's website has now issued an urgent warning that "henbane is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten".

The chef had meant to recommend fat hen, which is a wild herb.

...

He is unsure how the mistake happened.

I'll tell you how the mistake happened: it's one of two things, or maybe both.

]]> 1) It could be that Thompson is a bullshit artist who doesn't know the first thing about herbs or cooking or things you should or should not put in your mouth, and just picked the name of a cool-sounding plant out of his ass to add an exotic tidbit to his interview.

2) It could be that the editors of Healthy & Organic Living don't know everything about the subject of their magazine, which isn't absolutely terrible, but also don't a) employ factcheckers who do their jobs right, and b) don't know words, which is an absolute crime for people for whom words are their stock in trade: everyone who knows words knows that bane means "really bad shit that might kill you." That should have sent up a red flag for the editors.

Wal-Mart: the ongoing doom of America

2008-08-01T21:26:21Z

I hate Wal-Mart. With a passion. I will not be caught dead in a Wal-Mart. I am in agreement with the Rude Pundit, who once said:

When the revolution happens, we should barbecue the rich on the flames of a burning Wal-Mart.

And when civilization collapses, I'll even hesitate to loot a Wal-Mart.

And that was before I read this, in the Wall Street Journal:

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

...

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.

Fucking Wal-Mart fuckers.

WSJ article via Digby

(Technorati tags: Wal-Mart, election 2008)