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Hahaha, I’ve been quoted in the CMLife newspaper thrice in four weeks, and each time they got my hometown wrong. “Rachel Weisserman, sophomore, Farmington Hills,” says I, and “Rachel Weisserman, sophomore, Wixom,” says the paper. How do they do that? It’s weird. Maybe they’re looking at the official school records instead; most of them go to Dad, and he lives in Wixom now. I don’t want to be known as being from Wixom. It’s such a nasty little McMansion-filled industrial-park boondocks of the pioneer-spirited nouveau riche, the type of people who think that West Bloomfield is far too rough of a place to raise a child, and want to move out to the factory wastes of nowhere for some peace and quiet.
Anyway, the first article was about the “VOX Rocks!” concert in the Wesley Foundation (gay Commie punk church). It is here: VOX rocks to an all-female lineup. I just happened to be there, and the reporter just happened to like my quote. That was cool.
The second one was an article about Fiction Collective. It is here: A “collective” effort: Writing club has coffeehouse readings. Here,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
diraskyria sounds pleasant and welcoming, and I sound like some kind of snobby robot. Also, in the picture (inexplicably taken through an indoors window), you can see the smiling faces of Mike, some guy who turned in a script and then stopped coming to meetings, and Andy, then my hat, and then Skylie looking all serious. And the back of somebody’s head, not sure who. …it’s a great picture of my HAT.
I didn’t get a print copy of that one. Oh well.
The third one is about LARP. It is here: “Vampires” run amok: Members participate in role play game. This was cool. See, I keep getting people at the FC interested in LARPing; Skylie came to game as Christian the Arynethian bibliophile, Casey is thinking about coming, and Andy told his roommate about it and the roommate, who worked for CMLife, thought it would make a groovy article. So a couple of reporter-types came to the regional game and asked around for quotes.
In the print copy, my quote is picked out, right at the top. This is probably because it includes the words “anti-social,” “Cheeto-munching,” “gothic,” “obsessed,” “delusional,” and “nerds.” BUT IN A VERY AFFECTIONATE WAY. And also includes the word “dispel.” This is vitally important.
Here are some other articles I find interesting that aren’t about me, FC, LARP, or anything having to do with Central Michigan:
The Secret Cause of Flame Wars. Basically, a confirmation that yes, everyone has trouble telling whether an E-mail or LJ comment is sarcastic without the audio-verbal cues to go along with it. However, for some reason, people still think they can tell. Thus, the underlying tone of many flame wars: “But I wasn’t being sarcastic! :cries:” “YES YOU WERE YOU MEANIE.” Or the opposite: “Ha, I was being sarcastic, you dumb fuck.” “But…but…the Internet is serious business!”
fugaciouslover alerted me to this: PKD-bot is missing. See, a while back, some very clever people with a healthy appreciation for surreal irony decided to make a robot version of Philip K. Dick. And now, he seems to have escaped on the way to California.
I can only conclude that the ‘bot developed self-awareness and walked off, possibly to Berkeley. Seriously, if you were going to pick an android replica of anyone to develop sentience, who other than Phil? This is the man who wrote “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, and “The Electric Ant,” which is about a robot who realizes he’s a robot after thinking he’s human for years. This is the man whose work explored questions of sentience, empathy, and the nature of the self in a way that pretty much nobody had before.
From the article:
“Along with an eerie likeness to the author, the robot features award-winning artificial intelligence that mimics the writer's mannerisms and lifelike skin material to affect realistic expressions.
Top-of-the-line voice software loaded with data from Dick's vast body of writing allows the robot to carry on natural-sounding conversations, although it does come off as a bit doddering at times.
Biometric-identification software and advanced machine vision allows the robot to recognise people -- even in a crowd -- read their expressions and body language and talk to them sounding a lot like a normal, albeit slightly senile, author who likes to quote his own books when he gets confused.”
Being that Phil would have been about 78 right now, had he not expired in 1982 from a stroke brought on by not taking his blood-pressure medication, this sounds about right. Even if they find him somewhere and put him back in the Smithsonian where they want him, there is still a really good story in all this. Wonderful.
Anyway, the first article was about the “VOX Rocks!” concert in the Wesley Foundation (gay Commie punk church). It is here: VOX rocks to an all-female lineup. I just happened to be there, and the reporter just happened to like my quote. That was cool.
The second one was an article about Fiction Collective. It is here: A “collective” effort: Writing club has coffeehouse readings. Here,
diraskyria sounds pleasant and welcoming, and I sound like some kind of snobby robot. Also, in the picture (inexplicably taken through an indoors window), you can see the smiling faces of Mike, some guy who turned in a script and then stopped coming to meetings, and Andy, then my hat, and then Skylie looking all serious. And the back of somebody’s head, not sure who. …it’s a great picture of my HAT. I didn’t get a print copy of that one. Oh well.
The third one is about LARP. It is here: “Vampires” run amok: Members participate in role play game. This was cool. See, I keep getting people at the FC interested in LARPing; Skylie came to game as Christian the Arynethian bibliophile, Casey is thinking about coming, and Andy told his roommate about it and the roommate, who worked for CMLife, thought it would make a groovy article. So a couple of reporter-types came to the regional game and asked around for quotes.
In the print copy, my quote is picked out, right at the top. This is probably because it includes the words “anti-social,” “Cheeto-munching,” “gothic,” “obsessed,” “delusional,” and “nerds.” BUT IN A VERY AFFECTIONATE WAY. And also includes the word “dispel.” This is vitally important.
Here are some other articles I find interesting that aren’t about me, FC, LARP, or anything having to do with Central Michigan:
The Secret Cause of Flame Wars. Basically, a confirmation that yes, everyone has trouble telling whether an E-mail or LJ comment is sarcastic without the audio-verbal cues to go along with it. However, for some reason, people still think they can tell. Thus, the underlying tone of many flame wars: “But I wasn’t being sarcastic! :cries:” “YES YOU WERE YOU MEANIE.” Or the opposite: “Ha, I was being sarcastic, you dumb fuck.” “But…but…the Internet is serious business!”
fugaciouslover alerted me to this: PKD-bot is missing. See, a while back, some very clever people with a healthy appreciation for surreal irony decided to make a robot version of Philip K. Dick. And now, he seems to have escaped on the way to California. I can only conclude that the ‘bot developed self-awareness and walked off, possibly to Berkeley. Seriously, if you were going to pick an android replica of anyone to develop sentience, who other than Phil? This is the man who wrote “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, and “The Electric Ant,” which is about a robot who realizes he’s a robot after thinking he’s human for years. This is the man whose work explored questions of sentience, empathy, and the nature of the self in a way that pretty much nobody had before.
From the article:
“Along with an eerie likeness to the author, the robot features award-winning artificial intelligence that mimics the writer's mannerisms and lifelike skin material to affect realistic expressions.
Top-of-the-line voice software loaded with data from Dick's vast body of writing allows the robot to carry on natural-sounding conversations, although it does come off as a bit doddering at times.
Biometric-identification software and advanced machine vision allows the robot to recognise people -- even in a crowd -- read their expressions and body language and talk to them sounding a lot like a normal, albeit slightly senile, author who likes to quote his own books when he gets confused.”
Being that Phil would have been about 78 right now, had he not expired in 1982 from a stroke brought on by not taking his blood-pressure medication, this sounds about right. Even if they find him somewhere and put him back in the Smithsonian where they want him, there is still a really good story in all this. Wonderful.
