No Title
Posted on August 24, 2002
Filed Under computers, tv | Comments Off
I used to be more active on Usenet than I am now. After a while, it
all seems so pointless. Two groups in particular are symbolic of this
new-found apathy: rec.arts.sf.written and alt.radio.old-time. Both are
ones I used to get a lot out of and contribute to (rafsw more than
arot-t) but now seem kind of full of self-righteous assholes. In
either there are certain actions that seem harmless to me that will
bring out the wolves. In rasfw, it is a writer talking about their own
work, particularly the availability of their own books. My low point
with the group was when the Seeing Ear Theater people, a group who
does nothing but good for SF, announced that their adaptation of
Octavia Butler’s Kindred was available via
RealAudio. You’d think they pissed on Hugo Gernsback’s grave! The
prickly hordes arrived to decry this horrible crassness. Nevermind
that 50% of the posts in the group at any time are absolutely idiotic,
off-topic nothingness, usually smart-assed and pointless replies to
someone else’s smart-assed post. THIS wrong must be stopped. I
killfiled many of the hair-shirt, usenet purity crowd around
them. Most of those filters have expired, but I’ve never really posted
much or even read much since then. I have upfilters on a few people
and topics. I’ll read everything Charlie Stross or Lois Tilton or
Brenda Clough or Lawrence Watt-Evans posts, but that’s about it. Most
of it is of low enough value taht I don’t miss it when it is gone.
In aro-t the hot button topic is
mentioning the sale or even *purchase* of anything to do with old time
radio. It is impossible to say “I have this for sale” without a
furor. One might argue that those are off-topic in a non-marketplace
group. OK, I’ll agree. The same people that protest that protest
people that mention buying things! One guy posted information about
a stack of reels he had purchased at on OT Radio convention. The group
consensus was that he was an asshole for talking about radio stuff
when he wasn’t going to post MP3s of them. Nevermind these are on
reels and he may or may not even have the capacity to do it, unless
you post the stuff you are just bragging (actual words used by a
poster.) To this day, I have more killfile entries in that group than
any other.
The thing that bugs me most is the fundamentalism. I don’t believe in
zero tolerance rules, and this is what exists in these groups (or
would, if they were evenly applied but that isn’t even true.) The
atmosphere that this stuff engenders is a generally chilling effect on
conversation. A few years ago, the late George Alec Effinger made a
post on rasfw, and rather than being greated warmly (as such a great
and friendly guy deserved), a group of the same people who got under
my skin during the above replied with “How do we know that is really
GAE?” It was all too ridiculous, even more because GAE had the most
unique voice in posts I’ve ever run across. Everything he wrote,
whether fiction, e-mail or a GEnie post shone with its own weird
light. The only person who could successfully mimic that would be,
well, George.
I probably have posted fewer than once a month since then, almost always
answering a specific question on a narrow topic. Today I posted in
response to a query about Michael Moorcock reading order. I can’t see
ever really hanging out as a social thing there unless I stop hating
most of the residents so much. Hate is a waste of time and resources
anyway, better to just put that heat elsewhere.
No Title
Posted on August 24, 2002
Filed Under radio, weblogs | Comments Off
Two signs the weblog trend is close to flashing in the pan:
- I got involved.
- Business 2.0 carried
an article about it.
No Title
Posted on August 24, 2002
Filed Under computers, conventions | Comments Off
I’ll be attending two science fiction conventions this fall – Dragon*Con in Atlanta and Orycon in Portland OR. The Dragon*Con
schedule of panels is up, and for the umpteenth time in a row I’m not
actually scheduled on anything, despite filling out in excruciating
detail the programming survery. I’m about tired of this. I may only
attend Dragon*Con for a day or two now that I see how it is going
down. I’ve been declining other things for that weekend, but if I have
no panel responsibilities, who cares when I am and am not there? I’ll
wait until I check in – maybe I’m on programming and just am not
listed on the website. Uh huh.
I’m hoping for a little better at
OryCon. I moderated a panel there a few years ago on literary comics
that was the best panel experience I’ve ever had. It is also notable
for being the time when I gave my first ever autograph of my work,
signing a diskette of my Reality Break ebook. The autograph seeker? My
fellow panelist Larry Niven. He may have just done it to be nice, but
I got quite the kick out of it.
No Title
Posted on August 24, 2002
Filed Under misc, music | Comments Off
I don’t believe we have anything on the agenda today. After a few
weeks of serious activity, including cleaning for our house guest, we
just don’t have a lot on the plate today. We might go see Full
Frontal today, or we might just loaf on the couch all
day. I checked out David Brock’s Blinded by the Right
and am reading that lately. Other than that, I hope for today to be a
battery recharging day.
Ran across this from a random walk – posters for the RIAA education
effort into the evils of downloading, available from Modern Humorist.
No Title
Posted on August 24, 2002
Filed Under computers, misc | Comments Off
Although I should have done this a long time ago, I just got
around to setting up an account with
DynDNS. I now have dave-slusher.is-a-geek.com pointing to my
house. Here is my
local copy of this weblog. Pretty slick. If my NetGear router gets
a new IP address via DHCP, it is supposed to notify DynDNS of the new
one. We’ll see if that happens. I don’t think I’ve changed IP address
in the last year, but someday it will happen.
No Title
Posted on August 24, 2002
Filed Under bandoftheday, misc | Comments Off
Today’s band is another new one to me. Now that I’ve ran out
of the easy ones that I already knew about, I’m having to dig a little
further to find them. This is a band I’m very glad that I dug
for. They are from my old home of Portland OR, and are called Make
Believe. I stumbled across their page looking for something else,
and listened to some of the MP3s on their download
page. I’m hooked. “C’Mon Juliana” is my favorite of the 6 or so
I’ve listened to. Eventually I’ll listen to them all.
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