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"Other similar cliques, less pretentious but equally destructive, would form and reform as time goes on - we call them all Mensas. The internet, sadly, made this effect far more pronounced, as mailing lists became an ideal forum for smugness feedback."
Raven doesn't just hate stupid people, at the Upsideclone.
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| johnhegley.co.uk exists, with a bit of poetry
and tour dates and a mug. Good things.
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| Some people have decided that November shall be
National
Novel Writing Month, in an actually-international sort of
way. But they're not just encouraging people to start writing something during
that month; they're demanding that they finish as well. 50,000 words
before December. Speed and quantity over precision or quality. A fine
way to convince yourself that you're physically capable of writing a
full-length novel, even if it's awful. I might give it a go, just to see
what my brain does. Hm.
[via
Life As It Happens]
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| Excellent letter in the Guardian from someone so enraged by a
jingoistic tabloid headline that they bought the shop's entire
stock of it and threw the lot away. I'd do the same if I had
the money to burn; tearing up Daily Mails is gloriously
therapeutic, from experience. Three cheers for left- and right-wing
politics joining up somewhere at the back.
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| An extremely intriguing game from the Icehouse folk;
falling somewhere between Mastermind and Blind Nomic,
Zendo
is a mightily elegant game of pattern recognition. And is quite playable
with whatever rubbish you've got to hand, Bock-style.
[via Raven]
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"How does it feel to have won the Loebner Prize?"
"Much the same as it would feel for you, except different."
It turns out that Alice walked away the Loebner
Prize on Saturday, if anyone else was wondering. You can read papers,
download gubbins and talk to her online at alicebot.org.
[via Bottomquark]
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| "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
And a lot of clunky angry-child talk about no negotiation. And
outright rejection of the Taleban's offer to move towards a trial for
Bin Laden, presumably because there's no such thing as a neutral country
in Mr Bush's scary view of the world. Feh. I think we're still on for
a tenth of November apocalypse.
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