Category: Annoyances

Waiting for a train

Michael Schaub points to Linton Weeks’ preview of Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 and launches a zinger:

(Nothing against Ayn Rand, of course. Without her, bitter nerds who like feeling superior to everyone despite the fact that their taste in prose is less advanced than most border collies would have no favorite author.)

But it is Jennifer Burns of the University of Virginia, quoted by Weeks, who lands the solider blow:

On the one hand, Rand’s popularity points to the vigor and growth of the American right, particularly as seen in the Tea Party. On the other hand, it points to a certain intellectual weakness amid the conservative movement, given that their leading intellectual is a novelist who has been dead for almost 30 years.

Don’t tell the Hungarians

As reported by Brad Matsen, Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King:

In 1966, Cousteau had just landed a deal with ABC to air twelve episodes of what would become The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. Quickly, a scramble was on to launch the expeditions that would provide the material for the TV series.

It took Cousteau three months to disentangle himself and Calypso from scientific and industrial charters, including one in which his divers were helping to lay a pipeline through which an aluminum plant would discharge red-mud waste into deep water. Better, scientists reasoned, to deposit the mud in deep water, where it settled immediately as sediment, than to allow it to ruin the near-shore shallows. (ch. 15, pp. 175-176)

Strange bedfellows

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II has pulled some bonehead plays in his short tenure as Attorney General of my Commonwealth, generally managing to push himself onto the national stage. It’s not for nothing that he has earned the nickname “The Cooch” from DCist. But when he’s right, I have to acknowledge it: citing First Amendment concerns, Cuccinelli has chosen not to climb on the bandwagon with other states in filing an amicus brief on behalf of the family of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder. Effectively, this puts the AG on the side of the reprehensible Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church organization. But, as foul as Phelps and his family may be in their invective, their right to say it is protected, within reason, and must continue to be protected. From the press release:

…Snyder v. Phelps… could set a precedent that could severely curtail certain valid exercises of free speech. If protestors—whether political, civil rights, pro-life, or environmental—said something that offended the object of the protest to the point where that person felt damaged, the protestors could be sued…. We do not think that regulation of speech through vague common law torts like intentional infliction of emotional distress strikes the proper balance between free speech and avoiding the unconscionable disruption of funerals.

To the extent that Cuccinelli is sincere in his reasoning, I agree with him. There is, perhaps, more to this story…

Scoundrels

Back in the 1990s, I had a close friend who joined a multi-level marketing organization, a rather large one. One of the things she told me was that the company was experiencing strong growth overseas, in places like South Korea. Perhaps there is a connection to an anecdote that Barbara Demick tells in her book Nothing to Envy. The book recounts the recent economic implosion of North Korea through the lives of six defectors. And so maybe it can shed some light on one of the engines of that MLM growth.

Although South Korea did not expressly encourage defections, those that made it into the country could qualify for acculturation training and a generous one-time payment. But North Korean emigrés often remained naive about matters economical, starting with basics like how to balance a checkbook. Demick’s pseudonymous Dr. Kim, formerly a physician in the North Korean system, learns a hard lesson:

In March 2002, Dr. Kim arrived at Incheon Airport, euphoric at the prospect of of starting a new life. But these feelings did not last long. Dr. Kim was convinced by a man she met at church to invest most of the $20,000 resettlement in a direct sales operation in which she was supposed to peddle soap and cosmetics to acquaintances. Dr. Kim hadn’t learned enough in her month of orientation… she lost nearly all of the government stipend. (p. 259)

Don, beware

New peculiar spam comes in through the transom. What in the name of Michael J. Fox are they phishing for? Gullible drapers?

HELLO
MY NAME IS JOHN .

I AM NOT SURE THAT U CAN HELP ME WITH MY CURRENT PRODUCT , SO NOW , NOT
ONLY I WANT TO PURCHASE THE ITEMS ,,,, BUT YOU NEED TO CONDUCT BUSINESS
…WE WILL ALSO WORK TILL WE OFFER TRANSLATION PROGRAM

I WANT TO ORDER: CURTAINS

100% polyester knit

SIZE : 37″ w x 63 “L

Colors: White

AND I WOULD LIKE U TO EMAIL ME BACK WITH THE TOTAL PRICE OF 1 PIECE ,SO THAT I WILL KNOW HOW MUCH I AM GOING TO ORDER ….
AND ALSO I WILL LIKE U TO EMAIL ME WITH UR CELL PHONE NUMBER AND NAME , KINDLY ADVICE ME TO THE KIND OF
PAYMENT U ACCEPT ,,,I WILL BE HAPPY ON UR QUICK RESPONSES

N.B: I AM NOT THE 1 WHO IS GOING TO PAID FOR IT , IS THE WORK OF MY
MANAGER ,,,,SO I WILL INTRODUCE HIM TO U WHEN IT COMES TO PAYMENT …..

BEST

REGARDS

JOHN

But the parkways are clear of trucks

Via Arts & Letters Daily, delicious curmudgeonliness from Charles Petersen: Mark Zuckerberg as the Robert Moses of the internet:

As Facebook expanded from colleges to the rest of the public, always retaining tight control over how every page appeared, the site’s aesthetics thus began to seem less comparable to the dorm room design principle of in loco parentis and more akin to the authoritarian building codes of a planned community.

Some links: 36

I’ve been seeing too much of the TV ads during commercial breaks for hockey games featuring that doofus with the electric guitar, the ads flogging Experian’s so-called free credit report service. The report is free, if your idea of “free” is $180 a year, billed monthly. It’s a well-constructed weir designed to snare unsuspecting consumers into something called Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring.

You are entitled to a genuinely free credit report, one per year from each of the three reporting bureaus, through https://www.annualcreditreport.com. You’ll have to click past a couple of promotions for paid add-ons, but everything is opt-in. Or you can request your report by phone or hard mail.

Each report shows credit-related activity (the formats vary across bureaus), but not your FICO score. You still have to pay for that; see Jennifer Bartlett’s recent roundup of information. Fair Isaac Corporation is revising its scoring system as FICO 08, and it’s not clear when those scores will be available for fee to consumers.

Get more information about free annual credit reports from the Federal Trade Commission. And ditch the jerk with the Fender.

I shall like to read from you

Latest spam over the transom. I’ve highlighted the most incomprehensible sentence, if you can call it that.

Hello ! You probably will be very much surprised to my letter.
And where I could find your electronic address. One of these days I
was registered a dating site . And today to me from him there
has come the reference with your address. In it it was spoken, that we
with you harmonious pair. And I have decided to write to you this
letter. My name Michelle, me of 27 years. My growth of 170 sm, my
weight of 53 kg. I live in Russia, in city Zvenigovo. I like to travel
various places. I was in such countries of Europe, as Finland, Poland,
Latvia. I traveled as the tourist. You should not have excitement be
relative that we not beside. I am woman, that if I shall like man for
a meeting i shall reach him. Besides in our days it is not a problem
to travel. I don’t worry about it and I can do it, it is possible to
have relations with the person of other part of the world. It is very
interesting – other culture, thinking, traditions i like new places.
Probably you can learn Russian woman. I hope you will not be
frightened also we shall continue our acquaintance? I the quiet,
romantic girl. I want to meet in the life the present love. In my
opinion, At all a variety of nationalities occupying our planet. In
the world there is that unique person, With which I can find happiness
and family rest. My dream, it to create family, To leave in marriage
for remarkable the man, to give birth to children. And together with
the favourite person To aspire to bring up ours with it children that
they became the most remarkable people. Actually I very modest girls
and vulnerable. To me to not like, when people to face speak one, And
behind a back another is completely. And I think, that from the very
beginning of ours with you of acquaintance. We should be fair with
each other. I have no enclosed picture of me in this letter. I shall
send you a picture of me in the following letter.

If you are interested, write to my e mail: [redacted]

And you as well as I want to meet the present love in the life. That I
think to us with you it is necessary to begin ours with you
acquaintance. Who knows, it is possible we are really harmonious with
you. Also we shall create the best in the world a pair. I hope I shall
not stay without your attention. I wait for your answer, Michelle.

Leta says that this would be a great cold reading exercise at auditions. It’s less intelligible than “Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.”

A project of mutual benefit

Spammers don’t even make sense when you talk to them on the phone. Daniel Cressey makes a telephone call to “Robert Pasteiner” about a claimed affiliation with the University of London.

My name is Daniel and I’m a journalist at the magazine Nature.

Daniel, or journalist, or whatever. You should have to learn how to approach someone. OK? How do you mean that I’m claiming to be? I am the person that is talking to you and you’re telling me I’m claiming to be. You should have some courtesy before you call someone on the phone.

Briefly noted

…in last week’s Economist:

  • “Nauruan” is probably the only proper adjective that is also a palindrome.
  • Dubai is selling the naming rights to some of its metro stations and its two lines.

    Dubai Metro Naming Rights offers you unmatched impact and visibility to take your brand to new levels of saliency and success. What’s more, it is an immersive marketing opportunity that allows you to communicate and interact with your consumers at various touch points spread across the station/Metro network.

  • A panmictic population is one in which all individuals are potential partners.

Some links: 17

Via kottke.org, Wikigroaning is the dubious pastime of comparing the length and quality of a Wikipedia article on a general-interest topic (say, Knight) to a similarly-titled one on some wisp of useless fanfluff (Jedi Knight). For instance, while the article on Trail of Tears runs to 7 screens, the one for Tears for Fears runs to 13.

Extra points, I suppose, if you’ve never even heard of the pop-culture half of your article pair.