How to get in touch with the web-type-person and...I don't know. Yell at them. Whinge about the font being too small. Ask about the lame attempt at applying a theme.

Jul 20, 1998

Permalink

Citizenship brings uncounted rewards!! Trust the Computer. Registered citizens are happy citizens!!!

Jul 20, 1998

There are actual, real benefits to registering. Aside from the knowledge of being a member of the elite, having instant Ultraviolet clearance (the highest clearance level of any citizen), and the warm glow that you get when you know — really know — that the Computer is your friend, you also enjoy these other benefits:

• Unmoderated Comments
  when you add a comment, it's visible immediately. No more waiting for your comments to be vetted before their dissemination.
• Change the site skin
  no drastic changes...you won't suddenly be able to see content you couldn't see before (because there's nothing else there to see. If there were, the Computer would of course tell you thusly — if it were in your best interests). But you'll be able to change the font size and customize the sidebars. [Note: For societal purposes, this is not counted as a mutation. If you can change your own skin instantly, though, that is a mutation and must be registered with the Computer. Failure to register a known mutation is treason.]
• Full Syndication Feed
  if you use a feedreader, you'll want to get the whole story instead of just 150 words. [But you'll want to visit the site and comment every once in a while. Not to do so is treason.]
• Full Forum Privileges
  don't just reply to existing threads, or vote in other citizen's polls. Start your own.
• No Adverts
  on the forums, on the site...anywhere. When you're logged in, you aren't served the ads.

Keywords: | privileges | members | customization |
Permalink

Where the ideas come from, why they're here, and what you can do about it (which, by the way, is precisely nothing. Just so you don't get your hopes up. I was just being polite.)

Jul 20, 1998

I have been on the Internet since 1988, and on the World Wide Web since 1992. (And yes, there's a difference — it's just subtle.) I learned HTML in late 1991, when the standard for HTML 1.0 was initially released by the World Wide Web Consortium. Wow, doesn't that take me back...no tables, frames, and no JavaScript, oh my. I grew up in California's Silicon Valley, and worked there for ten years. I lived and worked in Canada for nearly three years. For the past decade, I have been owned by my cats.

I'm an iNFp (Healer Idealist), enneagram-5, England, B9 D+++ T+ K+ S+ F I O X-- E- L C+ Y3 R++ W+ P++ M5 N H , GTW/IT/FA/P d+ a@ C++$ U+$ P+ L+>+++ W+++$ N+ o+ K? w MV PS+ PE Y+ PGP t 5+ X+@ R(+++) tv- b+++ !DI !D G+ e+ h r* z+, and brown-blue-red. You can even learn 100 bits of trivia about my life.

More..!

Keywords: | chart |
Permalink

Quotes are used as placeholders and mental crutches. They're also funny, which helps the whole 'social awkwardness' thing.

Jul 20, 1998

Quotations are what peole use as proverbs, as quick and painless ways to remember and transmit information, and (on occasion) to prop up fallacious sagging arguments and make them appear grander, fuller, and more solid than they actually are. Quotations are verbal push-up bras.

Quotations are also used by geeks in place of wit and social skills. We get them from movies (duh), television, books, magazines, each other...about the normal place you'd find quotable material. Geeks are just as media-saturated, as a group, as any other social subculture. Each individual's repository is different, though. It all depends on what we've watched, what we've read, and so on and so forth. Some people will latch onto entire sentences, and then quote those. I'm more of a mix-and-match kind of gal: if two or three words sound interesting when laid end to end, and they then happen to pass by my eyes or ears, I own those suckers.

I've been asked several times if I write because, as one person put it, “you have such an interesting turn of phrase.” This is further proof that I read odd and out of the way things, and notice and retain even odder things. (If this guy knew my reading list, he wouldn't be half as impressed.) I draw my quotes from:

Books

• The Dark Crystal novelization by A.C.H. Smith
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Cyteen by C J Cherryh
• Serpent's Reach by C J Cherryh
• MacLendon's Syndrome by Robert Frezza
• Child of a Rainless Year by Jane Lindskold
• Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore by Sheri S. Tepper

Movies & Television

• Real Genius
• Buckaroo Banzai
• Babylon 5
• coming soon
• coming soon

Elsewhere

Peoples' .sigs, Usenet archives, or just about any page that passes in front of my eyes. The eiditic memory is very helpful with the collection.

Permalink