Comments | maradydd: Where Ari Was and How She Got There

maradydd

Where Ari Was and How She Got There

Feb 19, 2015 02:51

You should probably read this before going any further.

I am the someone who read the Parable of the Gronkulated Fleebwanger. I want to say it was palecur who sent it my way but it might have just been Facebook or something. I believe we were at my girlfriend in the Bay Area's place last summer when I found it, and I handed it to thequux, who remembers binging ( Read more... )

couldn't make it up if i tried, hacking, the examined life, living in the future, small world

Comments 9

willowbl00 February 19 2015, 02:18:50 UTC

So so glad it worked out the way it did. Glad for the notes to go live soon!

weev February 19 2015, 02:53:54 UTC

<3<3

can't wait to see two of my favorite people in the world

ext_3018874 February 19 2015, 05:01:04 UTC

I heard about a "Weev" person. A lot. In a meta sort of way. Like, I heard the name "Weev" several times, but nobody told me why this person was being mentioned, they just did the mentioning in that tone of voice that means there is a Noodle Incident (link removed for despammination -- it's on TV Tropes) I do not know about that everyone else does.

I'm normally good at context, but I spent most of my time with Pilo (пило?) having a very pleasant three-hour argument about absolutely nothing over bowls of apple crisp, and being sad that I would not be around long enough to make him teach me some Tajik. It sounds much easier to tackle than standard Farsi. I always appreciate it when a language leaves its vowels lying around out in the open, in front of God and everybody.

maradydd February 19 2015, 13:02:52 UTC

He commented just above. Under his walletnym, Andrew Auernheimer, he was prosecuted and went to prison under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act a couple years ago, and is otherwise pretty notorious as an internet troll. He was released on appeal (because the prosecution tried to pull some straight-up unconstitutional bullshit with respect to venue; the courts didn't address the "and the CFAA rationale is suuuuuuper sketchy with regard to the facts" angle I helped bring up in an amicus brief, but hey, we got it brought up) and lives in Lebanon now. That's probably the Noodle Incident he's best known for, but as is the case with trolls, there are many other Noodle Incidents as well. Which probably explains the meta.

I knew exactly none of this when I woke up from a jetlag nap in Pilo's apartment one evening in 2012 (on my way to a conference) to find a short beardy redhead sitting on the couch playing Skyrim, the apartment otherwise empty. Somehow we got to talking about Erlang and we've been friends since. Others' experiences are ...

ari_flynn February 27 2015, 17:43:47 UTC

This is not the first time I've been introduced to someone, or at least the idea of someone, under some perfectly normal-human-style name or nickname, only to find out later that they have their own Wikipedia article, which is even mostly accurate! I hung around a guy named Michael for many moons before someone remembered to tell me he was Mookie, of webcomic fame. One of these days I'll get used to this, I swear.

ext_3018874 February 19 2015, 06:05:52 UTC

Unrelated question: What is the thing decorating the top right corner of your LJ? It looks like a map of someone's subway, but it isn't Boston, doesn't look like the MTA maps I saw of Manhattan, and doesn't seem to match up to the Métro in Paris or Bruges. The U-Bahn in Berlin?

maradydd February 19 2015, 13:07:21 UTC

I think it is an abstract design meant to evoke a subway map but not actually represent any particular real-world one; other people have asked this before. (Though, now that you mention Berlin, what actually comes to mind is the tram map; I'll have to take a look at that.) I grabbed it out of a catalogue of LJ themes somewhere, long enough ago that I have forgotten where exactly I found it. I've been thinking about doing a redesign or at least some tweaking, but I'm kind of attached to it; maybe I should play around with the Brussels metro map and see what falls out.

thequux February 19 2015, 18:55:47 UTC

It's almost certainly not any real subway map; the dark turquoise, blue, and green lines are unlikely on their own due to looping back on themselves, and I can't see any reason to have *that* much redundant east/west capacity on very similar lines without more north/south connections in the middle. Even Manhattan, which has a highly anisotropic transit layout, has lots of ways to get across the island the short way (23ACE in the south, BDFM around Houston, L at 14th, 7 at 42nd, and various Bronx connections between 2BD and the 5).

Further, the scale doesn't make sense. Consider the Washington D.C.-esque cluster in the middle (from the red vertical above the left side of the profile picture to the green vertical in the middle of the profile picture). In any reasonable design, that cluster would be at least 8x8 city blocks; any smaller and stations would be merged, which would result in the map being drawn much differently (eg, the ne/sw yellow line would be drawn *below* the light green line.

ari_flynn February 27 2015, 17:39:55 UTC

It does look a bit odd with the loopbacks and such, but 1) subways grow organically and what they do and do not choose to dynamite when revamping the lines doesn't always make sense, because humans are weird; and 2) if it's a topological map and not a topographical one, it's not necessarily to scale ( ... )