I really like it when people respond to my posts with thoughtful, intelligent and profound posts of their own. The linked blogger is really talented and wonderful and I recommend her blog.
Some people can’t get over their Oedipal issues even when their Mommies turn 85. A seriously disturbing story.
In Russia, the most vulgar, horrible people can be found in St. Petersburg (I can explain why, if anybody is interested.) In Ukraine, such a city is Odessa. Here is proof.
Did you hear of the scandal that happened over an honorary award given to Ayaan Hirsi Ali by Brandeis? I still don’t understand what she is being accused of, but here is an interesting take on the situation.
I was so overwhelmed by the relentless stupidity of this review that I just had to share it: “A proliferation of characters, particularly male characters, who lack empathy probably points to a proliferation of people, particularly men, who lack empathy. . . I do know that women are, overwhelmingly, taught to be caretakers, to be watchful, to adapt their sense of self and the stories they tell themselves to what looks “right.” Whereas men, on the whole, have a certain privilege to just live their lives.”
A completely ridiculous and stupid article about freedom of speech. If you need to get into a combative mood, do read it.
Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP. Jerks.
A great post in Russian about differences between Russians and Ukrainians.
“Have you heard about “microaggressions” that come in the form of “microassaults” and “microinsults” and “microinvalidations?”” No. But I’m guessing they matter a lot to people with microbrains. This is the weirdest achievement of consumer society: people who can’t tolerate even the slightest whiff of unpleasantness or discomfort.
And this is really, really shocking and incomprehensible: “In 2001, a scientist inadvertently discovered that a pain-relief implant could double as an automatic orgasm-maker. Press a button, receive orgasm. Strangely, he continues to have trouble finding both volunteers to test and perfect this system and funding to study and market it.” No, of course, I know why this happens. I just don’t want to accept this sad, tragic knowledge.
“Carefully thinking through Russia’s different tactical options for invading Ukraine would have seemed unnecessarily alarmist as little as a few weeks ago. Today, it seems downright prudent.” And that is why everybody needs to be reading Clarissa’s Blog. I explained all this ages ago.
I love Americans. They are the kindest, smartest, most hard-working people ever. But they also have many funny traits, such as this obsessive need to micromanage everything to death, especially in what concerns human relationships.
One of my favorite writers wrote a beautiful post in Spanish about Cervantes.
The weirdest fashion project ever.
I’m getting more and more disappointed with Australia every day. I used to think it was some progressive paradise because there was this book I read about the country back in the 1990s, and it sounded like the best place ever. But now I’m guessing that either Australie has gone bad or the book wasn’t as good as I thought.
In Spanish, an article about the famous Radio Pirenaica and a book I’m dying to buy.
A very interesting discussion of whether web-surfing is changing our brains in a way that makes it hard for us to read long, complex texts. I’m not experiencing anything of the kind, but that might be because I’m older.
We all know how much I love the inane exercises in “this is just like something else.” Here is one of the more unsuccessful examples of this form of entertainment.
I was trying to reblog this post about Russia’s revisionist history but it didn’t work. It’s a great post, don’t miss it! I’ve heard the line this blogger criticizes too many times to remember and it always made me mad as hell.
And the post of the week and probably even the month. I was yelling, “Yes, exactly!!!” when I was reading it.
Clarissa's Blog 
About the weird fashion project: for something that’s supposed to be flirty, the dress looks very don’t-touch-me. I wonder how the dress decides when it should begin turning transparent – judging level of sexual interest by noninvasive sensors isn’t exactly easy.
On the brain change due to Internet: I think the key sentence is “The students no longer will or are perhaps incapable of dealing with the convoluted syntax and construction of George Eliot and Henry James.”. I pretty much grew up on the Internet and I’m perfectly capable of dealing with convoluted syntax and construction 😉 The students who can’t read anything but Facebook status updates tend to come from families who don’t read and never meet the sort of teacher that can compensate for that. And there’s *a lot* of adults who barely read. Remember how surprised many people were when they saw their kids reading thousands of pages of Harry Potter. The volume alone was enough for them to consider the kids incapable of reading the books on their own, even though Harry Potter is the book equivalent of popcorn.
Also, I would like to complain about constructions such as “activity X changes the neural pathways related to it”. *Everything* changes the neural pathways related to it. It’s called memory and learning. Jumping from that to “and it’ll make activity Y impossible or very hard” is ridiculous, and only manages to look less so by using pointless verbiage such as “changes the neural pathways” to obscure the point being made.
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This is a very good comment. People who are not knowledgeable in science (like me) tend to take phrases like “changes the neural pathways” with earnest solemnity. This is why it’s easy to dupe us with “studies” that sound serious and scientific.
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Oh and I definitely want to hear about why people in Sankt Petersburg and Odessa are so vulgar
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+1
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Me too! About both cities since the reasons probably differ.
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Leningrad (I’m so over the St. Petersbourg thing) suffered very heavy repressions in the 1930s where up to 30% of all the city’s inhabitants were either killed or arrested. Then the blockade killed off the rest. The city stoop basically empty and to populate it Stalin shipped in people from the country-side. For the newcomers, the sudden arrival in a very incomprehensible and scary environment was deeply traumatic. They started acting out against the trauma by developing this very loud, rude and obnoxious persona.
As for Odessa, I have absolutely no idea. When I visited, I was shocked by how nasty and rude everybody was even by the Soviet standards.
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// Leningrad (I’m so over the St. Petersbourg thing)
Why? I thought you would be against communist names as much as against communism itself, and its inhabitants today prefer the new-old name.
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“But now I’m guessing that either Australie has gone bad or the book wasn’t as good as I thought.”
Clearly the latter. Australia has never pretended to be anything other than a racist, xenophobic, and intellectually bankrupt nation.
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// Australia has never pretended to be anything other than a racist, xenophobic, and intellectually bankrupt nation.
Which nations are better, in your eyes? USA? Canada? A serious question since I see racism in every country I learn anything about.
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Quebec is the least racist and xenophobic place of all I’ve ever been to. Of course, I mostly mean Montreal because I haven’t spent much time anywhere else. Montreal is the best place in the world.
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“Microaggressions” aren’t for microbrains, they are a way for people to name the subtle ways they are made to feel uncomfortable because of their difference from things-taken-to-be-norms. For example: “microaggressions” are why it’s a lot easier to take my genderqueer teen shopping at JCPenney’s than PacSun or American Eagle. In the JCPenney menswear department the staff help her find her size in shirts, point out a more fitted style that might work better on her frame, check to make sure the fitting room is empty. In the hipper stores more targeted to her demographic, a sales person invariably suggests she’s in the “wrong” section of the store and points her to the other side. Are these things intolerable? Of course not–that’s what makes them “micro.” A salesclerk never goes so far as to prevent her from shopping in the section she prefers or refuses to make the sale. But the aren’t nothing. They do mean that, all other things being equal, my kid prefers to shop online or (if there isn’t time) select from the frumpwear at JCP. And she encounters a lot of moments like that, efforts on the parts of strangers to draw her attention to her “failure” to fit into their gender categories. One of them is no big deal. Lots of them aren’t by any means incapacitating. But they’re still there. (Trying to keep my life as a mother separate from my life as a cranky academic so using the accidental avatar on this one.)
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It sounds like microaggressions lead to microaversions …
It also sounds like there are too many people being granted standing, as in having some sort of implied or overt say in the course of events.
I find not giving money to irritating, whinging, problem-creating people to be a net positive.
Besides, long-running American merchants who are on the decline have fantastic shops — they have everything, but since they’re not “cool”, they have excellent value for the money.
Personally, I look forward to a time when Americans resume dressing in durable, decent looking clothes — I’ve had more than my fill of American tourists dressing shabbily, and I know that many of them know better than that …
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Apparently, boredom is a mental illness now
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This is a crime against humanity, pure and simple.
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Thank you for the Radio Pirenaica link!
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Thanks for the linkback! I’m no Russian expert, but I’m increasingly chagrined at how many Indigenous people in North America are turning to garbage news sources like Russia Today to tell their stories, when their motivations are obviously just to trash the West and cover up Russia’s own bloody hands.
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About your “post of the week” …
I’ve thought seriously about buying two dozen laptops to have stored away, mostly as an insurance policy against not being able to buy hardware that will let me run Windows XP and Linux.
I’ve virtualised the Windows XP setup I’m using, mostly because it’s easier for the virtual machine to fake the hardware that Windows XP uses than it is for me to find a laptop with that hardware in it. Fortunately that works reasonably well, although there are a few shortcomings involved with it.
I don’t like my options — Windows 8 looks like it was designed by a kindergarten committee, and Windows 7 obviously has only a bit more time left until it’ll be pining for the fjords. MacOSX isn’t an option for me. I’m already using Linux, but the hardware I’m having to choose from often doesn’t support various newer chipsets, with Broadcom and Nvidia being the two worst offenders.
Apple’s iOS 7 update let me know that the kindergarten committee is strong with that organisation as well — besides, they sell increasingly crap boutique hardware where the innovations consist mostly of how many strange screws they can use to keep you from getting inside the case.
It actually has occurred to me that in order to have a high-end work laptop in a few years, I may have to buy a high-end gaming laptop that will work with Linux, just so I can run all of my software and operating systems in virtual environments with horrific performance penalties.
Right now I am using an eight year old refurbished military laptop, simply because it’s the only thing I own that I haven’t managed to kill yet. 🙂
I don’t need massive amounts of speed when I’m actually banging on the keys to get things written, after all — I’d only need that to avoid doing the work I need to do.
Maybe that’s why I’ve converted to the ultimate in rough writing environments when I absolutely have to get things done — AbiWord has a “vi” emulation mode. “vi” is an editor from the early 1980s that was a sort of computer hazing ritual for those who were forced to cope with it, but once learned, it’s generally quicker to bang the keys using “vi” or an emulation mode than it is to play with the mouse.
I’ve turned my laptop into an intelligent typewriter just so I can get things done.
Perhaps I’ll be forced into a world where I have to get things done with an Apple tablet that runs IAWriter while I’m pounding on a custom-designed Bluetooth keyboard that has the look and feel of the last laptop that I was able to buy …
I am not looking forward to this at all.
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“… with horrific performance penalties.”
Actually, I meant “without”, but I think this version is funnier.
I’ll allow it. 🙂
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I think you are absolutely right. I’m also considering buying a gaming computer even though I haven’t done any gaming for yyears.
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