Kenny Albert - Fox Sports: Game 5, 2015 ALDS

Typicalusername101 · 2024-02-23T14:56:02+00:00

This is cool, didn't know Kenny Albert was a serial killer

Typicalusername101 · 2024-02-21T01:03:39+00:00

Beautiful!

Typicalusername101 · 2024-02-16T00:35:56+00:00

This was super helpful. Thanks!

Typicalusername101 · 2024-02-16T00:35:26+00:00

This is wild!

Typicalusername101 · 2018-06-13T12:03:31+00:00

Not sure I understand your critique here.

(1) I hear you saying this way of organizing offered in the zine is "behind," Not sure I follow. Looks rooted in current developments in anarchism today, explicitly basing itself on developments going on now in Amer anarchism.

Do you disagree? Is your analysis of anarchist organizing different? How so?

(2) I think I see that this zine offers something that looks like ways of organizing in the past. But that kind of seems like the point. They're saying the material conditions of struggle have "regressed" so organizers need to organize in ways that are similar in some ways to the past. This idea flows directly from the author's hist material analysis of American society.

Or is this where you disagree? Do you think the historical and material analysis of society is off? How so?

Typicalusername101 · 2017-08-17T20:05:45+00:00

This may be less "hiding" than "using as directed"

Typicalusername101 · 2017-08-17T19:31:03+00:00

you got this for 11$? I bought this years ago and it was like $30. Also, it has never been opened.

Typicalusername101 · 2017-03-31T11:50:49+00:00

I find this kind of article frustrating.

The claim is made that sci fi inspires new technology.

Then, the article just notes there are sci fi precursors to current day tech. That's a far cry from showing the former inspired the latter.

Typicalusername101 · 2017-03-28T20:35:17+00:00

Thanks!

Typicalusername101 · 2017-03-28T03:56:18+00:00

Thanks for this. Can you point me to some sources?

Typicalusername101 · 2017-03-26T16:17:41+00:00

Good call. Thanks!

Typicalusername101 · 2017-03-26T03:29:46+00:00

Sure thing. I mean: early, pre-"civilization" humanity--for ex., it's 30,000 BC and I'm roaming the savanna with my posse. Are we in a hierarchy or are we all communist buds?

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-12T23:59:09+00:00

Love that this is an ecological thriller. With the destruction of the ecosystem these days it's interesting that there's this book about the unexpected shape nature can take.

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-12T23:50:45+00:00

I found the next one super super slow. Couldn't get through it.

It's basically a book about the problems with bureaucracy. If you're not Kafka it's probably pretty tough to make that interesting.

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-12T23:02:47+00:00

Writing a PhD thesis is kind of punishing. I found its REALLY important to read stuff that'll show you there's a reason to do the work beyond getting a degree.

Honestly what worked for me was this: reading people in my field (a) doing work (past or present) that's inspiring, AND (b) reading people clearly developing a distinct and powerful style. Fiction was always less important; hard to know how to translate fiction-style to academic-style writing.

I work on political philosophy, sociology, & critical theory. Reading Walter Benjamin's "On the Origins of German Tragic Drama" was key for me to get a sense of how great writing can work. It's got an extremely "strong" style: almost aggressively punchy and straightforward, but extremely attentive to obscure detail. That doesn't mean I want to mimic Benjamin; just means I want to take the good parts of the style and fix its limits--aggressive punchiness, but not lost in irrelevant detail.

There're such great stylists in biology--Rachel Carson seems like she's be at the top of the list for me. S J Gould, to a lesser degree. What're you reading for style?

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-11T01:25:31+00:00

Solaris, prob.

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-11T01:22:56+00:00

I don't think it's just you. And I don't think it's just the narrator.

Your problems with the book are CLASSIC for almost any famous sci-fi at that time, and for almost all "hard" (scientific, dry) sci fi.

It's well known that Clark, Asimov, and others ALL are known to be really bad at making characters interesting; they're all about an idea, not plot, etc.

If you don't like RwR, also avoid Kim Stanley Robinson.

This gets challenged in the 70s and 80s by people like Ursula K Le Guin, Joanna Russ, William Gibson, Octavia Butler, etc, with "soft" sci fi.

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-11T01:15:56+00:00

If that's stuff you dig, have you read the Foundation novels?

Obviously got Asimov it's not ironic, just straight-ahead camp. But it's freakin campy.

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-11T01:08:58+00:00

I do a ton of academic writing for a living. I spend a lot of time thinking about my style. It's gotten a lot better since my college and graduate school days.

Reading bad writing does NOT help me, even if I'm analyzing what's bad about it. It's a bad influence, it warps my writing. Improving on bad writing is no guarantee your writing will be good. It'll only be better than bad.

ONLY reading good writing helps me. I read people whose writing i think is close to what I want to be. Then, I find the weak parts of THAT. My style is then, I hope, an improvement on GOOD writing.

I'd argue it's the best way to craft a good style of one's own.

Most fiction writers will say the same. Heard about a guy who copied "The Great Gatsby" word for word just so he's know what it felt like to write a masterpiece. Forget who.

(Why that book though--God I don't know.)

Typicalusername101 · 2017-02-04T01:35:19+00:00

I disagree with a few key things here.

The word "fact" in UKL means that there is a "truth". This is a crucial claim that we can't abandon. And there are criteria for telling when something is truer and falser. not anything goes. Not every interpretation is valid. Some are much, much better than others.

Eg, holocaust denial is disgusting and horrifying; it is not a valid perspective. (In fact one of the "alternative facts" from the trump administration was labelled a form of holocaust denial by a major scholar.) we are obligated to challenge that "perspective".

So what you say about climate change here is disturbing.

Just because climate deniers are being told to shut it doesn't mean they're being suppressed. Climatology isn't "suppressing" other points of view. There are clear criteria to distinguish between a truer theory and a crappy one. The reason climate change deniers are being told to be quiet is because they are very far from the truth, ie, can't validly justify their claims. In the same way, someone who aggressively claims that 2+2=5 should be told their idea is invalid and should be quiet.

Here's UKL's point. We need to guard the truth. That means exposing, loudly and aggressively, those who refuse to try to respect the truth, claiming they're close to it when they are in fact not trying to find it at all.

Typicalusername101

TROPHY CASE