Wings Over the Pyre - February 8th, 2007

12:41 am - New Toys

New toys! With SMS and IM interfaces!

Current Mood: tired

07:04 am - Validation

zamiel</lj>'s LiveJournal popularity rating is 4.42/10. zamiel</lj>is more popular than 99.17% of all LiveJournal users. zamiel</lj>is more popular than 87.7% of their mutual friends. How popular are you? LJ Popularity created by thehumangame</lj>.

Well, that feels pretty good, as validation goes. Though Cyn has a higher ranking than I do, which means I either need to go on a membership push or drug some folks into becoming my LJ-alias zombies, doing nothing but making new blogs to friend me with ...

Current Mood: tired

07:38 am - A Brief Guide to Infective Linguistics

Cross-posted from the DropTeam fora:

Unfortunately for the sanity of my friends and I, DropTeam has actually infected the way we discuss ... well, pretty much anything that has to do with communicating semi-covertly in public places. As typical for a group of geek-guys and lesbians, it's typically about the fairer sex. (What? I told you it's a weird group.)

• I'm goin' after the enemy flag! or I'm goin' in!
  Translation: "Your choice of female target is so overwhelmingly attractive that I'm going on the approach; cover me."
• I'm attacking!
  Translation: "I'd hit that." "Your choice of female target is quite attractive." Alternately, emphatic yes.
• I'm escorting the flag!
  Translation: "The target is quite attractive but more observation or data is required for confirmation." Alternately, "I'm covering you."
• I'm holding position.
  Translation: "No opinion." Alternately, "Meh."
• I'm recovering our flag.
  Translation: "The target is somewhat unfortunate or is otherwise not really desirable, but not immediately offensive."
• I'm defending!
  Translation: "Your target is unacceptible to me." Alternately, "emphatic no."

It's at this point that I start getting worried about the sanity of those I spend too much time with ...

Now, if we could just get a few more voices for the bots, this would become ever more ironic.

The sad thing is that Starchild, Eric the .5b and I can use this elaborate shorthand at this point without much thinking about it. The only reason there was a post at all is that we were discussing the fact we needed intermediate steps between I'm attacking! and I'm holding position! and I'm defending! while at the mall today. I'm goin' after the enemy flag! is sort of the dynamic extension of the set to a state that has not as yet been actually needed.

I'm a damn geek.

09:52 am - Singularly Well-Done

I called up just a few minutes ago to cancel my Cingular account on my old cell.

Now, normally, I'd expect it to be a massive hassle. Get connected, go through a lot of phone tree, deal with annoying mis-routing, then wrestle with the Save Team before finally getting what I want. It's what telcom companies have been famous for doing since the beginning of time, right?

Not this time. I called, went through a very basic phone tree, got a very friendly, helpful rep who just asked why I wanted to go (and accepted my reasons with more than equanimity, with understanding), set me up for severance on Mar 2nd, and I was done.

Painless and fast.

While I'm no longer with them (the LG-eNV and VZ Navigator sold me on switching), I can definitely give them egoboo for today's service.

Current Mood: chipper

05:41 pm - Death Note

Anna Nicole Smith is dead, as of a few hours ago.

Which, as strange as it might seem to most of my readers, I find more than mildly depressing. Almost as depressing, but in a wholly different way, as DVD mentions, is that the news channels are running a gonzo full-court press of footage about reporters standing around outside the hospital waiting for a cause of death announcement and not actually reporting. Gerald Ford didn't get that kind of baited-breath hanging-on to every bit of footage, but he sure as Hell got a lot more respect shown to the fact he was a human being.

The truly disturbing thing is that I was watching FOX News, and while Neil Cavuto was getting by with merit, saddled with the requirement he pretty much devote his whole show to the circus, but that the vast bulk of the folks that they interviewed were media folks, reporters for fashion magazines, that sort of thing, and frankly I expect to be better eulogized by Vladimir Putin for my devotion to the Communist Party than the respect they were offering to the recently deceased. The most sensitive and compassionate person they had on at all was a random very conservative political hack who looked to be as appalled as I felt when he offered his condolences to the family and focused on the fact that Smith was a human being and deserved a bit of dignity from them, if nothing else. Which immediately led into the editor of Parade magazine being catty about Smith's weight gain before the reality show.

Look, I'm the last person to be a moralist. I've got absolutely no moral compass and barely a sense of ethics, but even I recognize the difference between essential dignity and how offering it reflects the kind of person you are. I'm happy to put the boots to you while you're down, but I'm under no delusions as to how it makes me look. The preening, vulture-headed scavengers of the media think that their mere discussion of someone they consider so much their lesser should be flattering enough, I suppose.

Smith stayed in the public eye for fifteen years or more, which is not an unsuccessful run for ... well, anyone. The funny thing is that the media what made her don't seem to understand why she had such a lingering impact.

Ultimately, Anna Nicole Smith seemed like someone the average human being could actually know. She was attractive (except when she wasn't, but who doesn't know the high school beauty queen who put on weight?), she wasn't notably intelligent, she sounded like what she really was -- a gool ol' Texan girl who lived a life just a bit too big and hard for her emotional reserves. Pretty much everyone has family who is not too far off that, they just didn't have a multi-millionaire husband or model for Guess jeans.

Current Mood: sad