Since I'm outside furtling in the shed, you'll have to make do with the internet

[hirez]

Following on from the last posting, the Manchester Guardian ask the right person to write a piece, and Danah Boyd makes an unsurprising amount of sense. The comments are illuminating.

Meatspace rules of engagement don't map well online. As experience with AGSF, uk.control, uk usenet in general, nipplegate et al have demonstrated with depressing regularity. However, it's futile trying to educate the sort of (self-righteous) activists who understand committees but don't understand when they're being trolled or that whoever is UID-0 controls their world.

I sense a poll coming on, but I'm mildly worried about the state of the results. In the meantime, I shall put up with that sort of behaviour as much as usual.

If you fully grok 'the right thing' then you're good. If you're a rules lawyer, then there's no hope for you and I hope you have a shit life.

Anyway. [/Clarkson]

The Czech Republic is clearly the world centre for mad transport and it makes me glad down to my little socialist/anarcho-syndicalist boots that we have an EU. Or it's a steam working day for the Titfield Thunderbolt re-enactment society. (Vaguely via RDD)

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

http://lokomotivy.euweb.cz/img_galerie/498022_bvv_02.jpg

Ikea and Tesco!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

"The train now leaving Eastville stadium will be calling at Fishponds, Staple Hill, Mangotsfield and stations to Bath..."

[spride.livejournal.com]

What's he building in there?

Seriously; trains, especially Big Honking Trains, running along at street level, is something you just cannot have too much of. This is easy to arrange in Europe, where you can spend a third of the time taken by the Thalys (http://www.thalys.com/) from Gare du Nord to Amsterdam Centraal inspecting the variety of umbrellas carried by the citizens of France, Belgium and The Netherlands at close quarters. If you do this while listening to the recorded œuvre of That Kraftwerk while drinking coffee and eating pastries, you come as close to the Total European Gestalt Experience that's been my satori for over thirty years.

In your country it's much harder to come by. I know only of the section of the District and North London Lines between Kew Gardens and Richmond, which runs along North Road (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Kew,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&sll=40.939133,-73.835332&sspn=0.205144,0.20977&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=51.473431,-0.28528&spn=0.010732,0.02032&om=1) for a half mile or so. Here in Jesusland, you can get a frisson from riding one of the San Francisco MUNI subway trains that emerges blinking into the Pacific sunlight around Mission Street and becomes a trolleybus.

Side Rafiawerk note; I recently watched Minimum Maximum (http://www.amazon.com/Minimum-Maximum-Kraftwerk/dp/B0009H9NE8) and was greatly perturbed by the resonances of the grainy, winter black and white footage of train tracks accompanying The Obvious Song (http://www.amazon.de/Trans-Europa-Express-Kraftwerk/dp/B0000071FR/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/303-0609325-7034623?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1175873959&sr=8-1). They put me too much in mind of that iconic image (http://donal.wordpress.com/2006/12/28/auschwitz-train-tracks/) for me to enjoy. Give me the airbrush and pastel tinted fake memories of the DB of the 60s. It's still too soon.

Those who forget Usenet are doomed to repeat it

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Flames on Interweb, film at 11.

Re: Those who forget Usenet are doomed to repeat it

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Well, ye-es. Though actually, no. Flaming's one thing; about what you'd expect when 'robust debate' turns into 'did you call my pint a woman?' I don't think it's particularly big or clever, but there we are.

A constant background hum of sexism and misogyny is something significantly more unpleasant. I think I had this naive(ish) assumption that random a/s/l-ing and breast-size speculation were confined to the knuckle-dragging ends of IRC, Myspac and other places inhabited by basement-dwelling teens suffering from an over-abundance of sweat, spots and spunk.

It would appear this is not the case.

Re: Those who forget Usenet are doomed to repeat it

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase PT Barnum, no-one ever went broke underestimating the maturity of the self-obsessed circle jerk that is the "blogosphere". Between them and the wiki-fiddlers, they out-clique goth scene politics by a hundred to one, and are just as important in the grand scheme of things.

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

All men shall have potting shed for furtling. It is every Englishmans right.