Topic: Re: Blog Thread IIIb : Look Who's Blogging Now (Read 246763 times)

pwhodges · « **Reply #1400 on:** 26 Oct 2011, 15:28 »

The thing is, there's not actually any reason for anyone new to come to these forums unless they are a QC fan - there're no other links to draw them in. I have removed all the stuff there used to be in the "welcome" threads that warned people not to come down to this part of the forum without taking care, and have made it clear that they are welcome to use the whole forum, but there's not a lot more I can do unless they are actually looking for a wider range of experience.

Unfortunately, past experiences, with QCD especially*, led Jeph to move the forum link on the QC home page from the main top menu to the bottom of the smallest side menu, so the rate at which new people arrive is in any case far less than might be expected from the popularity of the comic.

* For whatever reason, all the moderators for the whole forum were drawn from the group who have recently moved on, and so they took less interest in the QC discussion than it required (i.e. none) - in practice, until I took it on, it was effectively unmoderated, with unsurprising results. Maybe I should try pointing out to Jeph that not only is it no longer how it was, there is also no reason for it to return to that state, so he has no more need to hide it.

dr. nervioso · « **Reply #1401 on:** 26 Oct 2011, 16:30 »

PJ looks like my old social circle- Built out of old shit and drama and it is about to collapse. I could be wrong though, but large social circles with a lot f history tend collapse and fragment eventually. And with no neutral person there, then I am guessing the forum is going to go to hell along with the social scene.

It is truly sad that our forum's dark past has ruined its chances to get more people. Anyways, I think it will take a while for the stigma from the old forum dynasty to clear up. It is not directly there, but when you have leaders for a duration of years, there is going to e some stigma to clean up before progress can be made.

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1402 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 00:49 »

That makes it sound far worse than it was! There was a little bit of drama with a few new people - we did get some complete idiots arriving and going on and on about their (lack of) sex life all over the place, but getting angry when we tried to help and getting quite abusive. There was one guy who claimed to be allergic to sunlight. Oh, and another guy who said his friend was a werewolf, that was fun.

But yeah, I wouldn't say it's built of shit or anything. It's a group of friends who've known each other a long time and have similar interests and meet in real life a lot. There's a lot of trust and friendship that it's hard to tap into as a new person. This forum is still finding its feet in the new era but I'd say it'll head that way too as we get to know each other more. It's what happens when people tell each other stuff a lot!

pwhodges · « **Reply #1403 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 01:32 »

The real "dark past" of these forums was in the QCD that was, which was not anything to do with the PJ crowd. The behaviour in this part was generally quite tame in comparison, just friends joshing each other; with the single exception of some incidents of unreasonable baiting of new people, mainly, though not solely, those from QCD.

PJ might not really suit me, because it doesn't have the heterogeneous elements present in this forum. But each to their own - I wish them well in their new place, and it is not for us to criticise them here, not least because there are still some people with a presence in both forums.

Jimmy the Squid · « **Reply #1404 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 02:53 »

Quote from: Zingoleb on 26 Oct 2011, 10:16

On the other hand, I don't have people threatening me in my PM box anymore.

To be fair, this was due to you saying something incredibly offensive about one of the people that was a) a member, b) the wife of another member, and c) a good friend of a significant portion of the other members. I might also like to point out that since that incident you altered your behaviour and everyone stopped acting like pricks to you (for the most part. I certainly did).

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1405 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 03:18 »

Zing, you are a great example of someone who did manage to fit into the culture! A shining beacon of "how not to be NQG".

benji · « **Reply #1406 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 08:56 »

So that's what happened to all the old timers. Somehow I missed that. But yeah, I don't think things were ever that bad in the lower forums: there was some cliquish behavior, but I think that was simply the result of people being here for a long time.

Zingoleb · « **Reply #1407 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 13:08 »

Quote from: Jimmy the Squid on 27 Oct 2011, 02:53

Quote from: Zingoleb on 26 Oct 2011, 10:16
On the other hand, I don't have people threatening me in my PM box anymore.

To be fair, this was due to you saying something incredibly offensive about one of the people that was a) a member, b) the wife of another member, and c) a good friend of a significant portion of the other members. I might also like to point out that since that incident you altered your behaviour and everyone stopped acting like pricks to you (for the most part. I certainly did).

And I still feel bad about that! I can't really think of a single time you've been a cock to me (or to my face, anyways). I ended up reading an earlier post of mine the other day, and I'm not sure how I got there, but it made me realize how utterly fucking depressed I was for years, and how it's been really hard to get out of the situation and mindset that were informing my depression, and so it all came across pretty negatively.

Still, that incident pretty much fractured much chance of really being involved in the whole meebo/gabbly/whathaveyou group, which is a shame, but I can't really blame anyone for not wanting me in the group after that.

Quote from: Barmymoo on 27 Oct 2011, 03:18

Zing, you are a great example of someone who did manage to fit into the culture! A shining beacon of "how not to be NQG".

This isn't all that hard - you mostly have to not post tentacle porn.

dr. nervioso · « **Reply #1408 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 13:45 »

Sorry I meant no offense. It just sounded like the situation I was in a few years bacx. Also I have heard more unflattering things about PJ than positive. Then again, I haven't heard much about it.

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1409 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 14:24 »

I have barely spent any time there at all, I don't think I have an account, but the people are generally lovely and any unpleasantness is usually a misunderstood joke (some quirky senses of humour, which I think is a good thing!).

So hey blog thread, I spilt pasta sauce on my passport. Do you think it's still valid if the pages are stuck together and smell like broccoli and cheese?

Carl-E · « **Reply #1410 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 15:43 »

Depends on how hungry the guards are feeling that day...

dr. nervioso · « **Reply #1411 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 20:42 »

Maybe if you change your name to Tommy Toesoz from the independent country of Broclichese

richlitt · « **Reply #1412 on:** 27 Oct 2011, 23:41 »

That might be mutilated. Costs the same as a lost/stolen passport to replace.

I just had to cancel a fully paid trip to Brussels for a hackathon, and one to portugal for the same reason, because I lost my passport. Serious shit.

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1413 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 01:53 »

Noooo I don't HAVE £78 to buy a new passport! And this one is valid for another seven years! NOOO

schimmy · « **Reply #1414 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 06:58 »

Questa mattina mi sono svegliato, and I was quite pleased that I could remember a little of the Italian that I got taught last night. My plan is to learn a line of Bella Ciao every day, so that in a couple of weeks I will (surely) be completely fluent. This is how learning languages works, right guys?

Carl-E · « **Reply #1415 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 09:23 »

Quote from: Barmymoo on 28 Oct 2011, 01:53

Noooo I don't HAVE £78 to buy a new passport! And this one is valid for another seven years! NOOO

The replacement fee is not usually the same as the cost for a new passport. They don't have all the verification paperwork to do - they already hunted down your next of kin and best friends - it's just the cost of remaking the thing.

Then again, maybe that is 78 Euros, but that seems pretty fucking exorbitant.

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1416 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 11:08 »

It definitely is £78 (pounds

), I had a look on the website. They also do "extensive enquiries".

Carl-E · « **Reply #1417 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 11:40 »

Definitely time for new glasses...

Lupercal · « **Reply #1418 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 14:39 »

Third year at University is definitely "Struggle with essays, but do lots of extra-curricular stuff" year.

As of today I'm the course rep for Stage 3 English Literature at my uni. Which is ...hundreds and hundreds of people that need to tell me things that they like/dislike about the course.

syrupykeyboard · « **Reply #1419 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 14:39 »

Hey everyone, long time no see. How's it going?

One month + with scabies.
I am now literally batshit insane.

LTK · « **Reply #1420 on:** 28 Oct 2011, 16:24 »

Quote from: Lupercal on 28 Oct 2011, 14:39

Third year at University is definitely "Struggle with essays, but do lots of extra-curricular stuff" year.

As of today I'm the course rep for Stage 3 English Literature at my uni. Which is ...hundreds and hundreds of people that need to tell me things that they like/dislike about the course.

Same for me, except so far it's more like "Procrastinate on essays, but do lots of extra-curricular stuff". I ended up submitting this paper on animal music 1.5 hours before deadline. Next week I'm starting work as a teaching assistant on a high school, and I need to remember to watch those AI class lectures...

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1421 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 02:02 »

Ugh, scabies sounds like the worst thing - a lingering and irritating illness that isn't really bad enough that you're not concious to know about it. My consolations.

And what, pray, is animal music, LTK?

Zingoleb · « **Reply #1422 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 03:19 »

Deerhoof.

Lupercal · « **Reply #1423 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 04:02 »

Gorillaz?

LTK · « **Reply #1424 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 04:06 »

I was basically talking about birdsong in the whole thing. There's some quarreling over whether or not you can call the sounds animals make 'music', just as there is about calling animal communication 'language'; certain criteria have to be met, etc. I was constrained to 1000 words, so I just explained how and why birdsong is musical. I could have written another 1000 words about humpback whales and creativity in songmaking, but that wasn't even necessary. There's a lot more information in this (10000 word) paper:

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/see/SEED/Vol5-1/Martinelli.htm

In unrelated news, I've been doing a lot of shopping around for second-hand furniture to move into my new apartment, and yesterday I picked up a nice desk. Then when I try to haul it out of the car after getting home, one of the planks gets stuck beneath the desktop and a corner breaks off. It was completely dark, so I couldn't see the bit that broke off anywhere. Now that it's light, it's still nowhere to be found. I turned the car upholstery inside out, combed out every inch where I carried the parts past, NOTHING. Now I ruined this perfectly good desk, and bits of it inexplicably disappear. This universe is not supposed to work this way, god damnit!

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1425 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 05:08 »

I have been working on an essay for a couple of days now - I think I started planning it on Thursday and I am determined to get it finished by 1.30 today (so I've got 25 minutes...). I had forgotten how tricky I find writing a really good essay. I know what my thoughts are, but I can't remember the things I read which justify and support them. I've been trying to keep track of what I'm thinking when I go to lectures etc, so that I can flick through my notes and find not only the lecture notes, but also my thoughts on the lecture notes, but it's hard. I wish I had more time to work on it! I could easily spend two weeks solid on this essay but it's only 1,500 words and it's due tomorrow. Plus I have another five subjects, one of which has an essay due at some point - not sure when, it's supposed to be due after the supervision has happened but the supervision has been moved three times and then cancelled. It should have been last Monday.

Lupercal · « **Reply #1426 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 05:46 »

Oh man, essays. I've been writing on a close-reading of Middlemarch by George Eliot for the best part of a week now and although I'm 2,193 words into a 2500 word essay, it is still like pulling teeth. How I'm supposed to work in the Reform Bill of 1832 into an essay that is talking about a very bland part of a very bland book (essentially a woman sits in a chair for a while, goes into a dark hall, her husband comes upstairs, they walk away together. ta dahhh).

On the other hand, having to cram the entire Cameron/Sarkozy/Eurozone thing into under 400 words is a bit of a problem.

Jace · « **Reply #1427 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 06:31 »

I have to write two research papers this semester and I'm probably gonna just do them the night before they are due.

Thomas Edison · « **Reply #1428 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 09:24 »

My dad just got back to the U.K after his high school reunion in Deniliquin, Australia and he came back with a bag full of goodies including a 900g tin of Milo, 5 different flavours of Tim Tams and a Canon 550D.

I am pretty much in heaven right now.

Carl-E · « **Reply #1429 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 12:13 »

Do all you students realize that we dread reading and grading your essays even more than you dread writing them?

And that the ones dashed off just before they're due are really obvious?

And that I'm putting off grading the ones from my class, so my comments will be dashed off the night before I return them...

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1430 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 14:55 »

I don't dread writing my essays, in fact there is an essay I really really want to write but I just don't have time. I keep waiting for my supervisor to set it, but I don't think it's likely - we only do four essays a year (for each of five courses) and the topic has been and gone. That sucker had better be on the exam.

nobo · « **Reply #1431 on:** 29 Oct 2011, 19:34 »

Quote from: dr. nervioso on 24 Oct 2011, 18:34

I have always wanted to go find another forum like this. Would anyone here tell me abut pocket jury r anther cool forum?

It is less of a forum and more of a discussion board, but I really like www.reddit.com. They have sub-board that cover almost every topic, so you have some very large communities focused on sharing photos, and some really small ones discussing particular scientific theories or board games. Much more anonymous than forum such as this one, but it is easy to make friends there as well.

Jace · « **Reply #1432 on:** 30 Oct 2011, 05:27 »

Quote from: Carl-E on 29 Oct 2011, 12:13

And that the ones dashed off just before they're due are really obvious?

Doesn't even matter to me, I hate english classes and writing essays so I put it off as long as I possibly can and shoot for a solid 70% on papers.

Carl-E · « **Reply #1433 on:** 30 Oct 2011, 12:19 »

Aim higher. There's a breeze...

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1434 on:** 01 Nov 2011, 07:28 »

Grrr I hate land law. It is SO BORING. And I never remember any of it, no matter how hard I study or how long I stare at the textbook, because I just don't care. Plus we take the statutes into the exam with us anyway! Why would I bother memorising hundreds of pages of legislation that I'll be carrying in with me? Can we please just have discussions about what it means, rather than trying to memorise what it is?

In other news, NaNoWriMo started today and I have been trying to get my writing support group sorted. I've been running it for five years and this year I decided to start a new thing - an interview series with the group members. It went great until last weekend, when I realised the person I'd scheduled hadn't actually got back to me in time, so I had to quickly move people around and run the following week's interview early.

They have now got their answers to me, in plenty of time for this weekend, but they are wrong! The interview is meant to be about the novel they will be writing this month. She has answered all the questions in reference to the one she wrote last year, which has been published and is on sale. That's great, but totally irrelevant to the interview. ARGH ARGH ARGH.

On the other hand, she's the first person I've had any kind of difficulty with at all. On the other other hand, I have another five/six interviews to go, and who knows which way they'll go?

LTK · « **Reply #1435 on:** 01 Nov 2011, 09:37 »

I've officially moved! This post is made a horizontal 41 km away from my previous post, and another 10m or so vertically. Got a bed, desk, laptop and mini-fridge. Good timing too, because tomorrow I start my new job right here in the city.

Now let's hope my housemates are not a nightmare.

Hm, I think I forgot to bring paper. The kind you write on. So there's another use for my e-reader: an electronic shopping list!

Zingoleb · « **Reply #1436 on:** 03 Nov 2011, 03:07 »

Good news: I have a job and income.

Bad news: I'm being evicted for being late on rent despite the fact that I now have a job and income.

Zingoleb · « **Reply #1437 on:** 06 Nov 2011, 00:58 »

Except my landlady's a dumbass because if she evicts me, she doesn't get rent. She didn't realize that until today.

Also, I coined the phrase 'fag haggis' tonight. Not sure if that's been said before - and I'm also not sure what it means - but I resolve to use this word more often in future conversations.

snalin · « **Reply #1438 on:** 06 Nov 2011, 04:39 »

It's obvious what it is, but what is it a metaphor for? Gay, intestine-based food doesn't really ring any bells right off the bat.

So, my sister has tapeworm. She probably picked it up back in the orphanage she used to live in half a year ago, but we still have to be checked. I really, really hope I don't have small, living, parasitic worms living inside my guts. eeech.

I also have to send shit to the doctors to get checked, so there's that.

Carl-E · « **Reply #1439 on:** 06 Nov 2011, 05:37 »

Through the post?

Jimor · « **Reply #1440 on:** 07 Nov 2011, 00:09 »

Having a tapeworm means you have a legitimate excuse to go around using the first person plural pronoun!

It appears I may get a chance to shoot/direct a music video for a fairly big blues artist, Shane Dwight. However, "big" is relative, and for some reason, his manager asked a classmate of mine, who does DJ work in the region and has connections with various clubs and artists, if he could come up with a music video in fairly short order for Shane's new single, Call Me. My friend contacted me and we talked about it, but I was very ambivalent about it for various reasons. Mostly because I don't like getting into situations where the expectations aren't clear, and I don't have the authority to uphold my part of it.

So I thought it over. It's a reasonable chance to get something out there that might draw attention to what I really want to do. At this point, I'm not concerned about the money, and I have a solid concept that won't cost anything to make. But control is an issue. I can happily be a minion, or I can be in charge, I can't work somewhere in the middle. So I said yes under the condition that if the artist is agreeable to the concept and the plan, it's my shoot, and my edit. Period. The way I figure it, by NOT paying, they forfeit the ability to try to stick their fingers into the details of the process and make it a pain. They'll either like the final product and use it, or they won't. I'm fine with either outcome.

So now we see if this actually comes together over the next couple of weeks.

pwhodges · « **Reply #1441 on:** 07 Nov 2011, 05:54 »

So I've just ordered an upgrade of my ADSL broadband connection to FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet). This should roughly double both download and upload speeds to something between 32Mbps and 40Mbps down with 2Mbps up (I could select 10Mbps up, but that adds 50% to the cost!). I currently have 18Mbps down and 1.1Mbps up.

Because BT (British Telecom) supply the modem for this service, and my present modem is in the loft where I guess they won't go (and I'd rather they didn't), I need to get some extra Ethernet wiring in place before they come to install it (and less urgently a mains cable from my UPS).

Carl-E · « **Reply #1442 on:** 07 Nov 2011, 07:11 »

Wiring party at Paul's house!

The Seldom Killer · « **Reply #1443 on:** 09 Nov 2011, 23:09 »

Woo Hoo, off on a two day training course in Oxford. I'll combine that with a two evening course in swanning around Oxford drinking tasty beer.

pwhodges · « **Reply #1444 on:** 09 Nov 2011, 23:39 »

We've got plenty of good pubs for you, anyway.

LTK · « **Reply #1445 on:** 10 Nov 2011, 07:51 »

I saw a genuine hipster stereotype today. Glasses with black rims, quicksilver cap, fixed-gear bike, the whole shebang. Amazing!

Carl-E · « **Reply #1446 on:** 10 Nov 2011, 08:03 »

Retro will always be in style.

Wait, is it too soon for hipsterism to be retro?

Barmymoo · « **Reply #1447 on:** 10 Nov 2011, 08:39 »

I was at a choir rehearsal with a bunch of other choirs and the girl standing in front of me was wearing hideous, big round glasses.

Without any glass in them.

What.

Carl-E · « **Reply #1448 on:** 10 Nov 2011, 10:27 »

Blinders?

The Seldom Killer · « **Reply #1449 on:** 10 Nov 2011, 10:47 »

Quote from: pwhodges on 09 Nov 2011, 23:39

We've got plenty of good pubs for you, anyway.

Yeah, I've been missing the ales of the south west. Can I buy you a pint?

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Author Topic: Re: Blog Thread IIIb : Look Who's Blogging Now (Read 246763 times)

Zingoleb

Zingoleb

Zingoleb

Zingoleb