eerie: November 2006 Archives

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November 30, 2006

Trivial Distractions: Seduction Quiz

I find that online quizzes and similar internet flotsam are a useful distraction if one has spent too much time reading about the Rwandan genocide. (curse you Tom Odom!)

Yesterday, I discovered an interesting one making the rounds at Livejournal, called "The Art of Seduction". Nice Flash interface, but like Ms. Dewey, requires a reasonably fast connection and Flash 8/9.

So, without further ado (because I'm sure all of you are anxious to find out my seduction style as determined by a stupid internet quiz), I present my results below.

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Posted by eerie at 08:18 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Random Notes

November 22, 2006

Blogging, Anonymity and Public Debate

Further to Abu Aardvark's notes on the MESA blogging panel, thought I might offer a few observations of my own on blogging, shaping public discourse (or wanking on as the case may be) and using pseudonyms instead of real names online.

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Posted by eerie at 06:55 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Site News

November 09, 2006

Ms. Dewey

A colleague sent me a link today, said it "reminded him of someone". Turned out to be Ms. Dewey, a bit of marketing fluff cooked up by Microsoft. The angle is essentially a sexy, exotic librarian (in the model of Ask Jeeves) who enjoys taunting the user and vying for his attention (target audience is, ahem, obvious).

Rather interesting in terms of "intelligent agent" software, but takes far too long to contextualize results (i.e. make a snappy and somewhat relevant remark based on the search term entered).

Requires Flash 8 and a fairly fast connection.

Posted by eerie at 06:19 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Random Notes

November 07, 2006

Brooding Interrupted

Sheikh al-Catmeat and the Cairo Pervert Convention made me a bit broody and pensive this weekend. In the same vein, I received a press release today from HRW (not sure how I got on their mailing list, but no matter) about honor violence in the Palestinian territories. Unpleasant reading, to say the least.

Then Kitten dropped by and asked if I wanted to see the late showing of Borat. Really, I shouldn't have laughed so much, but I'm sure even the haute culture critics giggled a bit at the nude wrestling scene (not that this was evident reading the highbrow discussion of Borat-humor in the New Yorker, etc).

Shall return to my regularly scheduled brooding tomorrow.

PS - Saw a trailer for the new Bond movie. Bless that new blonde guy, he is stunning.

Posted by eerie at 12:01 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Random Notes

November 04, 2006

Saturday Night Reading

I'm supposed to go to another girly gathering tonight but I just can't bring myself to brave the cold weather. As well, I'm reading two very interesting books at the moment. The first one is Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a detailed account of life in the Green Zone after the Iraq invasion. I've mentioned it before, if only to complain about the media hype, but the book itself is fascinating. As expected, the author spends a lot of time describing poor decisionmaking by hilariously incompetent political appointees, but he also notes that the CPA wasn't entirely staffed by green 20-something Republicans. Unfortunately, the experienced post-conflict veterans were often stymied by bureaucracy, inter-agency squabbling, lack of resources and overly optimistic commitments made by Bremer and the White House.

None of the anecdotes are terribly surprising (most were reported in the news), but it's enlightening to see the events arranged as part of a larger narrative that includes US domestic politics, foreign policy, public perception (Iraq and American), etc. Ties everything together rather nicely.

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Posted by eerie at 06:51 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Personal , Reviews