i like this a lot

i can't remember if i linked this poem before. reading it again won't hurt you anyway. it's very good.

you might find the articles here interesting. they're mostly about education but by a computer science guy and with comp sci themes.

okie, worst romance story ever explanation. here's a link to the entry for reference

here's some correspondence from when i wrote it, to someone who liked the story(!)

the real goal was to give the characters absolutely no personality of any sort. the exception being the pot thing. i give no motivations for them liking each other, refuse to detail what they talk about, and just appeal to stereotypes for everything.

Another point is I wrote the entire story without planning ahead, and with no intention to have a plot. Just following stereotypes. I think that's a bit scary.

pot was important cause it made the story less boring to write. this was removed from the political thriller, which is otherwise *exactly the same story* except in a diff genre and w/ 2 guys. the political story is intended to demonstrate to someone who thinks the romance story wasn't bad, that the content of the story really was.

btw this is not to say that the events the story detailed were a bad thing in the romance story. (note they obviuosly aren't bad in the "thriller"). on the whole, i'd say the events were good for eric and jane. but that doesn't redeem the *story*; it still has no contingent details or anything else of interest. oh also, although i took this to a greater extreme than any stories i've read, many stories are super super light on contingent details. now i admit they are hard to write, but i also claim they are what make stories good. just as we shouldn't live out stereotypes, reading them shouldn't be interesting as a story (although it could be to learn about them, Know Thy Enemy kinda deal).

btw i'm a big roleplaying fan. and i'm perfectly willing to roleplay stereotypes, cause it's a great way to learn more about them. however, i of course can't RP the same stereotype too much w/out getting totally bored. similarly, reading too many stereotype only stories ought to be hella dull. ought to....

oh also one use of stereotypes is to facilliate ppl interacting smoothly w/out knowing each other well. just follow some stereotype roles u both know and *boom* u get along. can be good for RPing heroes that work 2gether (in games where the main focus is no inter-party interaction). however, in real life, this no way to conduct relationships (where the focus *is* interacting with the other *person*, not interacting w/ a stereotype) (this is one of the bad things the story illustrates). i suppose u could legitly use stereotyped interactions IRL if u had some other goal, like if u wanna be on a sports team, and get along w/ ppl despite being anti-social, so u can get ppl to warm-up w/ u and give u advice, u might try a stereotyped personality, since it's easier than designing one and u already have lozza experience w/ various stereotypes.

given this entry is a bit lacking in the thesis/direction part, ummm, feel free to bug me to expand on some point or other.

IMAO quotes Jonah Goldberg who says:

"Affirmative action is based upon the assumption that blacks cannot compete with whites. But if I say that blacks can't compete with whites, I'm a racist."

^^

so i was reading this newspaper article on economics, and it was ok, a little scary how stupid it says most ppl are, but anyway, it mentions the broken window fallacy (if you break a window, it creates a job to fix the window, so you helped the economy *ahem*). and it just has to give the example this way: "Some teenagers, being the little beasts they are, toss a brick through a bakery window." grrrrr

i used to work for a store
it was such a bore
now i'm a whore
i get paid more

I'm such the poet!

okie, time to reply to Virtue Pure

but first, heheh, i wanna link to this other new blog: Virtual Purity. it's commentary on Virtue Pure.

anyway, Mr Virtue Hat (sorry! couldn't resist) gave the following sum up:

- Few of the posts have much content, but some are very good.
- Elliot likes to post jokes, especially ones that contain arguments.
- Elliot extends posting jokes, to posting amusing, off-topic things.
- Elliot also posts other off-topic things he is interested in, even though his readers may not be.
- Elliot rarely bothers with the form of his blog. This is striking in his capitalisation and abbreviations, although, excepting words that are intentionally misspelled or abbreviated, his spelling is pretty good.
- Elliot often makes cryptic statements, or obscure references, with no explanation.
- Even Elliot's lucid views are sometimes found without explanation or argument.
- Almost all of Elliot's posts are short, and I get the impression he spends very little time on each.
- Elliot is sometimes offensive. Some of it is intentional; he likes to ridicule positions he deems worthy of such treatment. But some of it appears to be poor judgment.

okie, as far as capitalisation, i say he's just over-picky. u can totally read uncapitalised words. abbreviations too. *thinks of The Simpsons* Bart was writing on the chalkboard "I will not use abbrevs" over and over. heheh. umm, as for on-topic, it's my damn blog, and if I like video games, they're on topic. if you don't like it, go away!! (wait, stop, i didn't mean it!)

i understand the criticisms about incomplete or missing explanations, but insist there are other relevant factors. however, they're private... the same factors apply to form and topics issues, too, btw.

as for being offensive, i don't know what the fuck that asshole is talking about. *ahem* I mean I challenge him to find any instances of impropriety to back up that wild accusation.

PS i know i owe an explanation of the Worst Romance Story Ever and a post on static memes.