Not quite as entertaining as The Office.
Hey guys.
I’m moving out! I mean that in a dual sense of the phrase. I’m moving out of my house, and I also renewed my hosting with Bluehost, in continuity with my current online identity, Pragmanic.
Therefore, the prag blog will be moved to http://www.pragmanic.net.
SEE YOU THERE!
Here’s a good one.
The lot of you who know me know that I love my thrill rides and roller coasters. It was with this in mind that I trekked to Paramount’s King’s Dominion yesterday for the first time in several years, with Tommy, my 11-year-old brother, for some classic thrill ride adventure.
Since being bought out by Cedar Fair (they own Cedar Point, think Millenium Force) a couple of years ago, I’ve heard mixed reports of the park being classed up a little bit. Part of my goal today, ladies and gentlemen, is to put to rest any lingering questions you may have about the social integrity of this establishment.
To say the park is not enjoyable would be untrue, but comparing it to Virginia’s other premier theme park, Busch Gardens, is difficult (we’ll see what InBev does to it). I’m a Busch Gardens (BG) person myself, but King’s Dominion (KD) does offer some significant advantages. For example, the price an advance ticket to KD costs $39 as opposed to $56 for BG, although I remember parking at BG being $6 or $8 compared to KD’s $10. KD boasts 14 roller coasters, while BG has 5 (and none of them are wooden), the food and drinks are cheaper (you can get an unlimited refill wristband for $4, and KD has Chik-Fil-A, although this was N/A as we went on a Sunday) and BG is about 35-40 minutes farther away.
As the old adage, goes, however, you get what you pay for. The yellow paint on the once-striking Volcano has faded considerably. The wood on the Rebel Yell (which you can no longer ride backwards on, I’m pissed) has cracked and splayed, and the forechamber to the Flight of Fear smelled of….bad. The Anaconda is wobblier than ever, my head and back started to hurt after the second inversion. The power problems which have plagued the launch coasters for the better part of 10 years still exist (we waited for 10 minutes strapped inside the Flight of Fear before they let it go, and neither Tommy, the other riders, nor the ride operators found my rendition of “Margaritaville” amusing) and the burgers are still awful. To say that it wasn’t fun would be erroneous, KD still has the best pneumatic launch electromagnetic launch (thanks Brad) roller coasters in the country (Volcano still holds the record) but age and years of neglect from Paramount have taken a toll; in short, Cedar Fair still has a lot of work to do.
Ridiculous Story Starts Here
And something else I noticed as soon as I got into the park was the stark contrast of patronage between King’s Dominion and Busch Gardens. Take a look around Busch Gardens when you walk in. What do you see? Smiling faces, happy children, and young couples. Busch Gardens, the epitome of American Belgian family fun. Let the kids go watch Emerald Beat while you sit in the pub with a Budweiser Select(tm). Cross the bridge of the Armed Forces, walk proud while listening to the brass-band sounds Anchors Aweigh. Yes, you’ve entered Alpha territory, land of the defense contractors, yuppies, and other white-collar types, with their young wives and large discretionary incomes. “Recession is a dirty word,” one of them, white, 30s, will say as they go up the steep slope of Apollo’s Chariot, “there’s nothing to worry about, I mean right now we’re riding up to the heavens.” He says it with a wink, his young, attractive wife to his left, his son, Marcus, on the right. And as you reach the towering summit, right before the drop, you see him anxiously glance at his BlackBerry.
*Stock Image
Meanwhile, head north 40 miles to Doswell, Virginia, in Hanover County. If Busch Gardens is the New York City of theme parks, King’s Dominion is the Pittsburgh. Nice place, but a little rough around the edges. Walk through the metal detectors at the front gate, no false moves here. Take another look around. Wifebeaters, XXXL t-shirts on people who need them, and people who don’t. The good old boys. Richmonders, a very ethnically diverse patronage. Bikini tops, good and bad. Homies, eses, bruthas, hicks, Obamas and McCains. Facial hair. People you wouldn’t want to mess with. People I wouldn’t want to mess with. The true urbanites, the ones who see it all, but everyone comes to this place, this Pittsburgh, this Mos Eisley, to have a good time, from the “sup niggas” to the “yee-haws,” and everything in between, it is in many ways a demonstration of the universality of entertainment. Forget your differences, for a moment, and get on the rides, go eat some funnel cakes, bad hamburgers, and cotton candy. Everyone just wants to have fun, just like the cantina. Go about it your own way, and don’t mess with anyone.
*Copyright 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm Ltd. Illustrative/nondestructive/low-res fair use.
Except for this one older (around sixty) white guy with a Maryland Terps hat.
King’s Dominion does have Boardwalk Fries. I love Boardwalk fries, especially with that season-all salt stuff. Oh God. Anyway, to preface this, I know I can occasionally exaggerate my tellings, but I’d swear on a holy book that this is exactly what happened yesterday. Around 2:30, I really wanted some boardwalk fries and lemonade, so I proceeded towards the nearest stand, of which there are several. Tommy said he was going to sit on a bench in the shade and rest his feet, which was fine. I proceeded to the stand behind a family of four and contemplated exactly how I was going to ensure adequate distribution of season-all, when this gentleman came up in front of me.
“Sir,” I said, “are you in line?” He responded gruffly, glancing at the woman behind the fry stand.
“I’m just waiting for her.”
I sat there and determined that this did not answer my question in any way, shape, or form. Was he waiting to talk to her? Was he with the other family? Was he picking her up to go home? Why didn’t he just say “yes” or “no.” At any rate, I was there before he was. As the other family walked away, I walked up to the fry goddess and began ordering, when the man said “What are you doing? I was here before you were.” The fry queen heard this, and looked at me, and then gazed at the older gentleman with bewilderment. I was not about to let this pass, as I hate it when people cut in line (there’s no social capitalism here, I don’t care if you’re 200 years old or sick or you have lyme disease or if you’re the ghost of Elvis you can wait like everyone else) so I replied “I’m sorry, I believe you weren’t.”
At this, the man began to get indignant. “I don’t have time for this, and I was here first.” He then began to order, to which I said “I’m sorry, but” and was cut off with a “I don’t have to deal with you,” to which I began to become indignant. “Well fine,” I said “if you’re going to be a complete asshole about it.”
As I began walking away, he actually turned, looked at me, and exclaimed the following with burning, wretched eyes:
“Hey, you want to fuck with me?!”
The french fry girl had backed away from the cart, and two people stopped to look at what was going on. Tommy was oblivious. As much as I did, in fact, want to continue to call him out on his Boo Radley elitism, I did not want to get ejected from the park, nor did I want to cause a scene in a family atmosphere that already had enough rough-looking people in it said, almost laughing, “no, no I do not,” backed away three steps, turned around and said “OK Tom, we’re going.”
“But where are your french fries?” he asked, again, oblivious.
“They were all out, there’s another one right over there.”
All out of integrity. Oh well. It was fun.
That was longer than I thought it was going to be. Good lord. I feel like crap from yesterday. Theme parks are good in small doses, no way I could do that every day. Achy, stiff, and sore. It’s Monday. Half day Friday, Jenn is coming to visit from DE. I have not seen her in a month, I’m very excited.
Updates as we get ‘em.
PS, I’m going to add links to this post, I just wanted to get it out there for today. I’ll copy edit it later. I have stuff I actually should be doing right now.
Being a scatterbrained, spontaneous, ADHD-type, there are very few websites that I visit regularly. Cut through the fog, however, and there are two that come to mind. I visit Fark and Digg between 6-8 times a day, although, as of late, Digg has lost much of its luster for me, and I know I am not alone in saying so.
I suppose it makes sense to begin at the beginning, and for anyone not in the know, Digg touts itself as a social networking site, whereupon its users can “digg,” or submit, stories they find on other sites. As a submission garners more and more diggs, it rises to the top of the Digg Top 10 links. Simultaneously, users are permitted to “Bury” stories they find uninteresting or irrelevant. Site moderation is (allegedly) minimal, giving Digg users near-complete control over the site’s content. Digg is described by Wikipedia, inaccurately, as a “social democracy.” Since its inception in the Fall of 2004, it has become a social disaster, a bastion of sensationalism, redundancy, and irrelevance. And as for democracy? At best, Digg is a bastardized off-product thereof.
So, the great question is, how does a respectable techno-news hub transform into The National Enquirer of the Internet, or at least, the New York Post? Digg users have moved from a variety of tech and entertainment-based content to (largely) politically charged, agenda-based reporting. And while the Technology section brazenly displays itself as the first link on the top of the site, I feel as though it has fallen to “back-burner” status. To prove my point, follow this link to the list of the top Dugg sites in the past year. They are almost exclusively political. http://digg.com/all/popular/365days
Over the past six months, I have noticed the development of disturbing trends seen in the top 10 Articles on Digg, and how these trends have become largely political, both in the content submitted and in the context of the site itself.
At the height of Internet Ronmania, there would often be three or more links in the top 10 about the former Republican candidate for presidency. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Digg, its “no-moderation” principles, and the community it generated would overwhelmingly support a libertarian. Consequently, Dr. Paul never had to lift a finger to run his greatest asset: his Internet (financial) juggernaut. The Digg politicos had one name, and one leader. If you supported another candidate, your voice would not be heard. Of course, when Digg (and I mean its users, as they power the site) was hit with the hammer of reality, that Ron Paul, America’s only hope, stood no chance of winning the presidency, they re-organized their groupthink to support Barack Obama (a surprising and ironic choice in the wake of the Ron Paul craze), now favorite among techies and Young Americans.
Hillary Clinton supporter? Don’t even bother submitting a story. Fan of the current administration? Don’t even go near the site. John McCain? Generally disliked by Digg, surprisingly, as McCain has been outspoken in judicial appointments strongly enforcing the ideals in the US Constitution, whereas Obama presents himself as a candidate in favor of a stronger government.
And out of this political discourse comes the purportion that Digg is a social democracy, which is absurd. The notion of “everyone has control,” or “everyone has a voice” is especially paradoxical (that is: if everyone has control, noone has control) in a system that is inherently flawed in two ways.
1. The Universal Ability to Submit Stories is Heavily Abused
In a true democracy, everyone has the same access to power; that is, anyone can get themselves in the coveted top 10 if they submit a story. Although this is still technically true, greed, corruption, and groupthink are quick to repress those who do not follow the herd.
For example, headlines often have sensationalist twists, as they are re-worded, inaccurately, by the submitter. I recall many examples where the submitter’s “interpretation” of the article does not match their titling of the submission. There is a policing option in place, users may report the article content as inaccurate, but by the time the link hits the front page, the damage has already been done.
Submitters of certain viewpoints not only are not seen by the front page, but their submissions, as well as their comments are “buried,” sent to Digg Hell by other submitters who don’t feel that everyone has the right to be heard, another contradiction of basic democracy; Digg is its own Gestapo, mockingly called by some as the “bury brigade.”
In fact, I wouldn’t even bother submitting a story to Digg unless it meets one of the following criteria:
- Praises Ron Paul
- Praises Barack Obama
- Criticizes Hillary Clinton
- Criticizes George W Bush
- Criticizes John McCain
- Criticizes or Praises Apple (depending on what day it is)
- Praises Net Neutrality
- Criticizes Comcast
- Praises The Pirate Bay
- Involves Video Games
- Has “Impeach” and “Bush” in the submission headline
- Involves Health, Fitness, or Nutrition
- Criticizes Fox News (eh, well, who doesn’t)
- Be From Cracked (Stolen From http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/07/16/digg-this-7-cheats-for-hitting-the-front-page-of-digg/ – I highly recommend you read this, as it came out the same time I was writing this post)
If your post has anything else in it, you won’t see it on the front page. Ever. Don’t even try.
2. Comments are Squashed
And unfortunately, the right to the voice is even further complicated in the Digg discussions, where individual comments can be “Dugg” or buried. Again, here, the amazing capacity of groupthink squashes those who do not follow the majority. To prove my point, I present a challenge: open any submission on the front page of Digg, and look at the top comments. They will be in complete agreement with the submission. Now look at the buried comments.
In this, Digg is not a democracy, but an anarcho-regime. It’s the Digg way or the highway. Get in line or get out, and don’t dare question the “Digg integrity.” You can digg, or vote, all you want, as long as you’re voting for the right submission.
Digg is simply too large of a community for the level of moderation it has, Dunbar would argue, and I would agree. It’s gone deep into mob mentality territory, and I guarantee the content of the site will continue to decline unless the site changes the way it is managed. It can be done effectively, and moderation need not undermine Democracy. I hope Kevin Rose reads this.
1: Submissions Should Be Screened
Digg needs a committee of moderators, and a clear administration system. Headlines can be screened to match the content of their articles. It creates more work for the site, yes. Tough nuggets; I have little sympathy for people who probably don’t need to do terribly much to keep Digg running on a day-to-day basis. An algorithm could help.
If someone’s submission is screened out of the queue, that user, the submission, and a listing of why they were refused should be publicly available. If SomethingAwful can do it, so can Digg.
2. Repeat Articles Should Be Pulled
That means you, Ron Paul. Having repeat articles (it happens more than it should) prevents other users from getting their new content up.
3. Overhaul the Comment System
Comments should not be dugg upwards or buried downwards, they should list in the order that they are posted. Period. Comments should still be able to be dugg or buried, but it should not affect the order of the comment. If a comment is inappropriate, it can be flagged, screened, and erased.
There is a preference you can change that does this. My bad. Yay Digg! Thanks Edwin.
4. Control Groupthink
List the top 10 buried submissions on the front page, right next to the top 10 most dugg (digged, whatever).
I read Fark because everyone can submit an article to Fark, the articles are screened, the good ones go up after being reviewed by their moderators, and everyone can make comments. It’s not tech news, no, but if I want tech, I can go to Slashdot, and they follow a similar process. And here’s a bonus: Fark and Slashdot don’t tout themselves as social networking websites, which they are not. Neither is Digg. There’s nothing “magical” about it. Everyone has a shot, everyone has a say, and the content on Fark hasn’t dropped an ounce in the past 6 years, despite the crappy Photoshop contests.
PS DIGG THIS BLOG POST LOL
Not that I’m neglecting (another) blog, there just hasn’t been a lot going on. I don’t want to send another blog to the graveyard.
I’ve been working for the past couple of days on fixing an email disaster. I can’t say much of it, other than it has been frustrating and it has taken up a lot of my time. In my spare time at work, I’m looking into setting up Moodle on my personal web space (as soon as I get it, at any rate, gotta get paid first). I know “open corporate e-learning” can be a scary thought, but I’m willing to test the waters. If it gets off the ground, there’s going to have to be a major overhaul of some of the software, and it would need its own (hardcore) servers, to deal with potentially several thousand concurrent users. From what I read on the Moodle forums, it’s doable.
I’m pulling for Bluehost again for hosting, I think, if anyone is curious.
I found out today that there are at least 3 other Mary Washington graduates working at my company, which is really cool. Northern Virginia seemed to be THE PLACE TO GO.
At any rate, in terms of a LIFE UPDATE, there’s not a whole lot going on. Most of you know I work at CEB. I like it, the company treats us employees pretty well, and I can wear what I want to work. I help manage their in-house LMS, and I like to say I’m trying to bring some DTLT into the place. I’m working on getting a house or apartment up in Northern Virginia, hopefully around the Alexandria area. I like it up there.
That’s about it. As a bonus, stuff is going really well with the girlfriend, so, in general, no complaints. Except the damn commute, but I’ll get over that soon enough.
During some free time at work today, I decided to pull a classic one out of Youtube, and I watched “Don’t Copy That Floppy,” a classic 1992 anti-piracy…I don’t want to call it an advertisement, so I’ll just say “thing,” as it doesn’t really deserve much more of a title than that.
What I find interesting about this video (aside from the usual “what’s a floppy?” reaction) is the stark contrast to today’s anti-piracy media. While “Don’t Copy” is cheeky, fun, and very tongue-in-cheek (I think the “rapper” in this video is about as effective as Steve Ballmer selling Windows 1.0), the 21st Century Pirate is depicted as older, more sophisticated, and inherently criminal.
While I could go on for about the absurdist, asinine comparison of BitTorrent users to car thieves, as well as the ethos of BitTorrent and “downloading,” I’ll save it. It’s the same idea in both ads, although the context of each sends a very different message.
Ad #1 takes us on a PBS-que kids show adventure through the magical land of computer piracy, while Ad #2 takes the innocent, game-playing children from the first ad and gainfully turns them into felons. There’s no logical explanation, either, no “why” or “how” or “here’s what happens when you download a song from the Internet;” it slams you into the wall by your shirt collar, and says “If you download that Simple Plan song, I swear to God, you’re going straight to Federal prison.” If nothing else, I have to question the credibility of the organization which tells, instead of explains, in a grotesquely Orwellian fashion.
The first ad, by contrast, at least tried to set the record straight.
The revelation to me is that the “War on Piracy” is really only as bad as whatever XXAA dictates it is. From what I understand about the statistics of sales of software, music, and films, the impact of piracy on the entertainment industry has been negligible.
In a lot of ways, I think the industry benefits. The price of CDs has fallen significantly over the past couple of years, which means I’m going to go out and buy the CD (which I usually do anyway) instead of pirate it. I don’t mind spending $10-$13 on a band I think is worth paying for.
I was allowed home at 3:00pm yesterday, it was pretty rad. I took the VRE home after taking the Metro from Rosslyn to Crystal City. I think they jazzed up the Crystal City Shops a little bit, too, although I wouldn’t quite put it in “worth checking out” territory, yet. It was definitely a holiday weekend on Metrorail.
Public Transportation
Speaking of images, it’s a little hobby of mine to take pictures of signs that amuse me with my cell phone camera. Here’s another one (found inside a Metro station) that makes me proud to be an American, and I mean that both truthfully and cynically.
In Europe they have advertisements of half-naked women adorning bus stops and billboards, in the United States, defense contractors are more than happy to tell the public about their ability to blow stuff up. When the adverts feature Jessica Alba pulling the trigger, we’ll know we’ve hit the big time.
USA! USA! USA!
This is my third day up in Rosslyn, and people often ask me, “where are you from?” To which I reply that I am from Stafford County, to which I hear “you commute all the way from Stafford? How do you get here?” They jump into an excitable frenzy. Clearly I’m crazy, I’ve sold out. My soul now belongs to the (angry) God of my checking account. Like it didn’t before I started coming up here.
When I explain to people that I live in North Stafford, and I get here by slugging, I raise more questions than I answer. Usually the conversation goes like this:
“Slugging?”
“Yep. It’s like hitchhiking.”
“As in hitchhiking? Like, you get a ride with a stranger? Like, it’s hitchhiking. Really?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you going to lose a kidney?”
“I only need one.”
I’m surprised, actually, about how many people don’t know about this, and also why more people don’t do it. Slugging is a semi-organized, free way to get from Northern Virginia (as far south as Fredericksburg) to the DC area. The term’s origin? According to Wikipedia:
“The term slug (used as both a noun and a verb) came from bus drivers who had to determine if there were genuine passengers at their stop or just people wanting a free lift, in the same way that they look out for fake coins—or “slugs”—being thrown into the fare-collection box.”
As an introduction: there are High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes that run from just beyond Quantico to the District in the morning, and back from the District in the afternoon (the lanes are controlled by gates and Virginia State PD, who make the switch). When they are in “HOV-Mode,” only cars with three or more passengers can legally drive on them. The lanes were created in response to the perpetual disaster that is I95/I395, and to encourage commuters to carpool.
Which is why, every morning, I drive a whopping 5 miles to the commuter parking lot, and join a line of hitchhikers, or sluggers, who are trying to provide a service (the ability to drive in HOV lanes) while getting a benefit themselves (free ride). Drivers stop at the front of the line, and call out where they are going, e.g., Crystal City, Pentagon, or Rosslyn, and people proceed to get into the car. It’s not perfect, this morning I got tired of waiting, got into a Crystal City car, and took the Metro the rest of the way, but generally the supply and demand seems to be in a fascinating equilibrium. The drivers typically stop next to the Metro Station nearest the destination, which, fortunately for me, is hardly two blocks away.
It works well, and let me tell you, sailing by the people who are not in the HOV lanes, stuck in the spasmodic Hell of morning volume, is schadenfreude at its best.
Why don’t more people do it? Why drive when you can get to DC for free? I have no idea. Dignity, maybe. Who knows, but they’re missing out.
As gas prices continue to rise, there have been talks on the unofficial slugging website (http://slug-lines.com) to being driver tipping, but the general consensus is that the system is not broken, and should not be fixed, as well as concerns about income reporting for tax purposes, (only the government employees would bring this up, I suspect) and that the relativity of gas prices for all drivers (HOV or not) doesn’t break down the supply and demand. That is, the drivers would have to get up to DC anyway, and the incentive of driving in the HOV lanes as opposed to being stuck in regular volume (read: wasting even more gas) is still too great.
It’s cool stuff.
