Category: Elsewhere on the Internets

Other kinds of fail

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Other kinds of fail

My favorite part of this piece on the Hugos and How You Can Change Them is that it completely elides over the whole issue of money and how that plays into folks ability to vote. Cheryl does acknowledge that it costs a chunk of change ($50 at least) to become a voting member, but then goes on to say still, it’s less than how much it costs to join SFWA so you can vote on the Nebulas, and voting for Locus awards is free except your vote has less weight.

Um.

First, just because $50 is less than the annual membership for SFWA that allows you to vote does not mean it’s a better value. Nor does the comparison swipe aside the basic consideration of paying $50 to vote. Is voting in the Hugos worth one week of food for me? I can’t say that it is. Does that mean that I just don’t care about changing the Hugos? No, it does not.

This is a serious consideration and I don’t often see people talking about it. God damn, where is Will Shetterly when you need him?

I don’t think that Hugo voting should be opened up to non-members of WorldCon per say, but I would really enjoy it if people didn’t act like this consideration wasn’t a big damn deal, because it IS.

As to the rest of her points, I’m in agreement. If you have the ability to vote because you had the money to attend or have the money to be a non-attending member, do it!

What Real Abuse, Attacks, and Hate Looks Like

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
What Real Abuse, Attacks, and Hate Looks Like

Hey guys, remember Luke Jackson?  The guy who started the whole Helix thing on accident and recently has been running around these here Internets being super offensive just to gain kudos (and perhaps sweet lovin’) from William Sanders and the people who hang out on his message board.  Well, he’s just taken his crazy act up to a whole other level!  Our boy is growing up so fast.

Previously on As The World Fails, there was a nasty commenter named Igor Sanchez who often left blatant and stupid racist and sexist hate comments on people’s blogs.  As you do in such instances, I and many others banned him.  Life went on.  During the recent RaceFail, Igor made a comeback, just once, with a comment that very, very closely followed one by Luke Jackson in the same post.  Both were moderated by default, and I only took note of them being together because they happened to be in the mod queue.  Something in the back of my mind said that it was related, but I didn’t care all that much.

Yesterday Kynn exposed Luke as Igor Sanchez, which wasn’t surprising but still, WTF people?  Luke upgrades from a Fail Boat to a Fail Ocean Liner — Failiner!

But wait, there’s more!  Upset at the fact that no one cares about or listens to him (including, apprently, Mr. Sanders himself), Luke is determined to do something so awful that people will may SO MUCH attention to him.  So, when attacking Kynn for being trans didn’t drive traffic enough, he decided to try posting Kynn’s home address and phone number.  Not only is that massive fail in and of itself, but even moreso since he got it wrong — that’s not Kynn’s address.

Any intelligent being who reads this blog understands full well the multilayered disgustingness going on here.  And were it not so very deep and wrong, I wouldn’t bother giving Luke the Google Juice.  However, this is not longer about a blog pissing contest, it’s about a mentally unbalanced person hunting down someone’s “real” name, address, and phone number thenn inviting his (non-existent) fans to call and get to the bottom of things.  (things being Kynn’s private parts, which Luke is desperately curious about.)

The bottom line is, Luke Jackson (lawyer in the prestigious firm of Choe, Jackson and Weitz, for all your sexual harassment needs!) is a sad, dangerous troll who is so screamingly frustrated with his own insignificance that he would rather committ borderline illegal acts than be ignored or mocked.  I suggest you all act accordingly.

Oh Jesus, Here We Go

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Oh Jesus, Here We Go

I was just contemplating asking around the FList and WisCon friends about having the virual cultural appropriation panel we’ve thought about doing for some time.  But I suspect that this thread is going to make me want to take a shot every time I hear the words Cultural Appropriation for a long time.

Just look at the userpics of so very many of the commenters there and take bets on how fast we get a bingo.  Maybe bit should be a drinking game.

Or maybe not.  I can’t afford to be drunk before 3PM today.

Update:  wow, the fail comments just keep coming.

Christmas and Carols

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Christmas and Carols

I’m particularly stoked about this week’s content because most of it has been about one of my favorite things — the Christmas Carol TV Trope.  You know how a lot of shows have done episodes that use the plot of A Christmas Carol?  It’s frighteningly common.  And when they don’t get around to that, they use It’s A Wonderful Life.  Paula Stiles wrote a great piece talking about which of these works and which don’t and why, and then I sent my interns off to look for video evidence.  All of this culminates in today’s Blog For A Beer, where we ask what your favorite Christmas trope episodes are.

When Niche Marketing Goes Too Far

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
When Niche Marketing Goes Too Far

There will be longer posts about this on the ABW and Laptop Mag later today, but I just needed to get this out of my system:

BlackBird, the browser for African Americans

WAT

Blackbird was developed on the simple proposition that we, as the African American community, can make the Internet experience better for ourselves and, in doing so, make it better for everyone. Primarily we believe that the Blackbird application can make it easier to find African American related content on the Internet and to interact with other members of the African American community online by sharing stories, news, comments and videos via Blackbird.

In turn, we can provide you with up-to-date information about what’s hot in our community as well as news and user recommendations related to all things African American.

Essentially it’s Firefox but tweaked to add some black-specific features like Black Search and Black News and Black Video.  You think I’m exaggerating — I AM NOT.  Just go look at the website.

I’ve been playing with it for a minute, and my first criticism is that the social networking button only includes MySpace and facebook.  Even I–oreo that I am–know that Hi5 is the black social network.  Why isn’t it included?  I’m very suspect now.

Okay, back to work.

(Thanks Vylar!)