Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"The music companies were put on earth to make the video companies seem like visionaries." -- Michael Gartenberg, research director of JupiterResearch, as quoted in "The Pirates Can't Be Stopped", by Daniel Roth, Condé Nast Portfolio, February 2008

"The music companies were put on earth to make the video companies seem like visionaries." -- Michael Gartenberg, research director of JupiterResearch, as quoted in "The Pirates Can't Be Stopped", by Daniel Roth, Condé Nast Portfolio, February 2008

Is there a phenomenon akin to the 'uncanny valley' for cats, regarding the motion of toys and predictng which will be played with or pounced on and which will cause the cat to flee? (Note that if it does apply, it would have to apply to the motion more than to the toy itself, based on my observations of cats so far.)

All you other cat-owners out there: when your cat has caught the end of a string (between hir paws, under hir paws, or in hir teeth), and you gently tug on the string, do your cat's ears dip forward a few millimeters relative to hir head in time with your tugging? (And if so, isn't it cute?)

Do cats only have one word for "do not want" that has to serve for "that's not what I want right now" as well as "that's vile"? (Sometimes when I offer Perrine food -- her usual brand, from a recently-opened bag -- she'll signal, "this is crap," but then proceed to eat it apparently contentedly an hour or two later (usually after a session of catch-the-string or a prolonged scritching or brushing).)

Does Perrine's prediliction for sleeping pressed against my legs (which I frequently have to move during the night) instead of my torso (where I could disturb her less often when changing position) reflect a fear of being rolled over upon, a preference for sleeping farther from my face, or a preference for pressing herself against the parts of me that are approximately the same diameter as another cat?

How many of you have cats than can amuse themselves for quite a while with a toy but nonethless insist that you do something to start the play-session with them even if they're going to merrily play by themselves once you've helped them start? (I'm not talking about when they aren't thinking about playing until you move a toy; I mean when they beg and nag, insisting that you play with them.)

Has anyone documented tool-use in cats? (And no, I don't mean simply running off with a stolen wrench while the humans scream, "Wait, you can't use that! You don't have opposable thumbs!" -- though I wish I could find that story again.) I've watched a polydactyl kitten clutching a pencil and making loops on a sheet of paper, unfortunately with the eraser end (I really wish that kitten had survived to adulthood instead of succumbing to feline leukemia) but I'm not certain whether that counts or not because I don't know whether that was an attempt to effect a particular result, an attempt to mimic humans the kitten had observed, or randomly playing with a toy in a way that was very easy to anthropomorphize. More recently, while playing tug-the-string with Perrine (she seems to have invented a variant where we each take turns trying to draw more of the string to us; I wind it in slowly when she lets up on it, and she catches a section closer to me than what she's already got and drags it over to her pile) I saw her look around the room in the same way that I'll cast around for a tool within easy reach if I already have my hands in something I'm working on. This may have been (most likely) a random gaze around the room that I inappropriately mapped onto my own behaviour (As some of my friends were -- maybe still are -- fond of saying, "Anthropomorphizers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but Mister Dignity!"); she may have been merely mimicking something she'd seen me do (less likely but and interesting possibility); or she may have been genuinely seeking a tool (seems least likely given what I know so far but would be fascinating if it turns out to be the case).

Is there a phenomenon akin to the 'uncanny valley' for cats, regarding the motion of toys and predictng which will be played with or pounced on and which will cause the cat to flee? (Note that if it does apply, it would have to apply to the motion more than to the toy itself, based on my observations of cats so far.)

All you other cat-owners out there: when your cat has caught the end of a string (between hir paws, under hir paws, or in hir teeth), and you gently tug on the string, do your cat's ears dip forward a few millimeters relative to hir head in time with your tugging? (And if so, isn't it cute?)

Do cats only have one word for "do not want" that has to serve for "that's not what I want right now" as well as "that's vile"? (Sometimes when I offer Perrine food -- her usual brand, from a recently-opened bag -- she'll signal, "this is crap," but then proceed to eat it apparently contentedly an hour or two later (usually after a session of catch-the-string or a prolonged scritching or brushing).)

Does Perrine's prediliction for sleeping pressed against my legs (which I frequently have to move during the night) instead of my torso (where I could disturb her less often when changing position) reflect a fear of being rolled over upon, a preference for sleeping farther from my face, or a preference for pressing herself against the parts of me that are approximately the same diameter as another cat?

How many of you have cats than can amuse themselves for quite a while with a toy but nonethless insist that you do something to start the play-session with them even if they're going to merrily play by themselves once you've helped them start? (I'm not talking about when they aren't thinking about playing until you move a toy; I mean when they beg and nag, insisting that you play with them.)

Has anyone documented tool-use in cats? (And no, I don't mean simply running off with a stolen wrench while the humans scream, "Wait, you can't use that! You don't have opposable thumbs!" -- though I wish I could find that story again.) I've watched a polydactyl kitten clutching a pencil and making loops on a sheet of paper, unfortunately with the eraser end (I really wish that kitten had survived to adulthood instead of succumbing to feline leukemia) but I'm not certain whether that counts or not because I don't know whether that was an attempt to effect a particular result, an attempt to mimic humans the kitten had observed, or randomly playing with a toy in a way that was very easy to anthropomorphize. More recently, while playing tug-the-string with Perrine (she seems to have invented a variant where we each take turns trying to draw more of the string to us; I wind it in slowly when she lets up on it, and she catches a section closer to me than what she's already got and drags it over to her pile) I saw her look around the room in the same way that I'll cast around for a tool within easy reach if I already have my hands in something I'm working on. This may have been (most likely) a random gaze around the room that I inappropriately mapped onto my own behaviour (As some of my friends were -- maybe still are -- fond of saying, "Anthropomorphizers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but Mister Dignity!"); she may have been merely mimicking something she'd seen me do (less likely but and interesting possibility); or she may have been genuinely seeking a tool (seems least likely given what I know so far but would be fascinating if it turns out to be the case).

Other than me, is anyone still using Clive to post journal entries? The stats page for Blurty only shows one Clive user (must be me), the stats pages for LiveJournal, Scribbld, and GreatestJournal don't report client info at all, and the stats pages for JournalFen, CrazyLife, CommieJournal, DeadJournal, and InsaneJournal report client-usage statistics but don't show any Clive users (not even me). There appear to be some reporting issues.

I'm in the process of hacking some useful modifications into the Clive 0.4.5 source (including one I'd meant to do a couple of years ago but kept putting off), and I'm trying to sort out whether I should try to make my additions as general as possible in case somebody else wants to use them, or I should just consider this a personal-use tool. I'm not even sure whether the author is still using it. I don't think there's been any activity on the project for several years.

(I'm using Clive both for automated posts -- my QotD script uses it, and my SMS entries are piped through it by Procmail -- and for all the posts I make by hand. Editing in my favourite editor and then posting the composed entry from the command line when I'm finished tweaking it, is the most comfortable way to work for me. Though I do have it configured to use the right editor if I invoke Clive in interactive mode as well, even though I never wound up using it that way.)

Hmm. That reminds me. I need plug-ins for Opera and Firefox that make them use vi commands in text-entry boxes on web forms. Switching back and forth between vi and the mimimalist built-ins has begun to really annoy me.

Other than me, is anyone still using Clive to post journal entries? The stats page for Blurty only shows one Clive user (must be me), the stats pages for LiveJournal, Scribbld, and GreatestJournal don't report client info at all, and the stats pages for JournalFen, CrazyLife, CommieJournal, DeadJournal, and InsaneJournal report client-usage statistics but don't show any Clive users (not even me). There appear to be some reporting issues.

I'm in the process of hacking some useful modifications into the Clive 0.4.5 source (including one I'd meant to do a couple of years ago but kept putting off), and I'm trying to sort out whether I should try to make my additions as general as possible in case somebody else wants to use them, or I should just consider this a personal-use tool. I'm not even sure whether the author is still using it. I don't think there's been any activity on the project for several years.

(I'm using Clive both for automated posts -- my QotD script uses it, and my SMS entries are piped through it by Procmail -- and for all the posts I make by hand. Editing in my favourite editor and then posting the composed entry from the command line when I'm finished tweaking it, is the most comfortable way to work for me. Though I do have it configured to use the right editor if I invoke Clive in interactive mode as well, even though I never wound up using it that way.)

Hmm. That reminds me. I need plug-ins for Opera and Firefox that make them use vi commands in text-entry boxes on web forms. Switching back and forth between vi and the mimimalist built-ins has begun to really annoy me.

So there's this "content strike" against LiveJournal planned for Good Friday (midnight to midnight GMT, so starting at 20:00 tomorrow here in EDT) While some of the language is strike-like, including a list of demands, it doesn't seem all that much like a strike to me. The plan is for folks to go back to using LJ as usual twenty-four hours later regardless of whether the demands are met, and the stated intent is to show a one-day dip in the logs that will serve as a visible mark of the power we users could wield if we were actually willing.

But even though I don't see how it'll be any more effective than a one day "don't buy gas strike" -- the blip in the logs will be there, but given how SUP's director of the blog division, Anton Nosik, has chosen to view all of us agitating against harm we see being done to LJ as enemies who want to destroy LJ (apparently if we disagree with him, then we are enemies rather than concerned netizens), and has trotted out the "don't negotiate with terrorists" mindset (not that phrasing, mind you, but the same reasoning -- not that the phrasing he did use wasn't bad enough), I can't see SUP acknowledging that they care -- ... Even though I don't see how it'll affect SUP strongly enough to feel they have to bend, I'm planning to participate in this protest just as a show of solidarity with other upset users.

(Seriously, if you haven't already done so, go read what he said to the media, right now.)

The point of the protest is to not post anything to LJ in that twenty four hours, and not read anything on LJ in that period either (though perhaps Basic, Paid, and Permanent users can still read, since they won't be generating any ad-view hits?), to show what LJ could lose if they continue to act in ways that drive us elsewhere.

It may be easier for me than for some folks, since I've already got my other journals to post to, even if my friends-lists are much smaller everywhere else (which, of course, is a major factor, other than inertia and a hopefulness-for-improvement that is becoming silly, in my still being on LJ at this point). I haven't decided whether my QotD should be a message about the strike and a link to the real entry elsewhere, for the sake of anyone not already aware of the protest at that point or choosing not to participate, or just not show up at all.

And hey, maybe I'll start getting more comments at the rest of my journals than I've been getting so far. (Hint to folks who want to stick to LJ: some of the other sites support OpenID, so you can post there using your LJ identity.)

Now let us be clear here: this is not just a bit of petulance about no longer being able to create Basic (free, no-ads) accounts any more, though that did surprise and upset many people. It's about larger patterns, about being treated as though we are just numbers to be sold to advertisers rather than being treated as a valuable resource, as users, participants, the LJ community. It's about being lied to when we're not merely being 'spun' or (even more often) ignored. It's about SUP / LJ Inc. making decisions we predict will harm LJ in the long run. It's about the company talking to the media without talking to us when we're clamoring for information. It's about SUP lying to others about who we, its users, are (we really don't know yet whether that was the intent of the filtering of the most-popular-interests page, but that was the effect -- and in the absence of any better explanation from SUP, it's getting harder and harder to believe it wasn't the intent; it looks as though they were embarrassed to have certain topics show up on that list). It's about SUP appearing to continue Six Apart's disastrous and offensive actions against fannish and sexual-minority interests and content.

Mostly, it's about dashed hope, the hope that when SUP took over from 6A, maybe, just maybe, they would either understand the community better (or value it, at least), or learn from 6A's gaffes. So far, we hear encouraging noises that are, with small exceptions, not backed up with good actions. We're still hearing that they struggle to "find the right tone" to communicate with us, when they barely communicate with us at all, and want to find a "tone" that will make us meekly accept their announcements when what we want is a conversation.

And finally, to Mr. Nosik, let me be especially clear: We want LiveJournal to succeed and thrive; we want our constructive criticism to be heard and acknowledged (that is, even if you don't take our advice, we want to know it was considered and why you chose a different course) and we want to preserve the aspects of LiveJournal that are valuable to us. Most of us who are protesting think SUP's present course will destroy what matters of LJ in the name of replacing reasonable and steady profits with all-you-can-get-this-quarter profits, and that as a result of that destruction the site will eventually become unprofitable entirely. We are hoping to prevent the destruction of LiveJournal.

I've got a longer post planned -- one postponed from the 6A days, because I'd hoped that SUP would make writing it moot -- about how I perceive the economics and the ethics of the relationships between users, advertisers, and site-owners. I'll try to get that posted before the protest, but I've got to run off and do other things at the moment.

So there's this "content strike" against LiveJournal planned for Good Friday (midnight to midnight GMT, so starting at 20:00 tomorrow here in EDT) While some of the language is strike-like, including a list of demands, it doesn't seem all that much like a strike to me. The plan is for folks to go back to using LJ as usual twenty-four hours later regardless of whether the demands are met, and the stated intent is to show a one-day dip in the logs that will serve as a visible mark of the power we users could wield if we were actually willing.

But even though I don't see how it'll be any more effective than a one day "don't buy gas strike" -- the blip in the logs will be there, but given how SUP's director of the blog division, Anton Nosik, has chosen to view all of us agitating against harm we see being done to LJ as enemies who want to destroy LJ (apparently if we disagree with him, then we are enemies rather than concerned netizens), and has trotted out the "don't negotiate with terrorists" mindset (not that phrasing, mind you, but the same reasoning -- not that the phrasing he did use wasn't bad enough), I can't see SUP acknowledging that they care -- ... Even though I don't see how it'll affect SUP strongly enough to feel they have to bend, I'm planning to participate in this protest just as a show of solidarity with other upset users.

(Seriously, if you haven't already done so, go read what he said to the media, right now.)

The point of the protest is to not post anything to LJ in that twenty four hours, and not read anything on LJ in that period either (though perhaps Basic, Paid, and Permanent users can still read, since they won't be generating any ad-view hits?), to show what LJ could lose if they continue to act in ways that drive us elsewhere.

It may be easier for me than for some folks, since I've already got my other journals to post to, even if my friends-lists are much smaller everywhere else (which, of course, is a major factor, other than inertia and a hopefulness-for-improvement that is becoming silly, in my still being on LJ at this point). I haven't decided whether my QotD should be a message about the strike and a link to the real entry elsewhere, for the sake of anyone not already aware of the protest at that point or choosing not to participate, or just not show up at all.

And hey, maybe I'll start getting more comments at the rest of my journals than I've been getting so far. (Hint to folks who want to stick to LJ: some of the other sites support OpenID, so you can post there using your LJ identity.)

Now let us be clear here: this is not just a bit of petulance about no longer being able to create Basic (free, no-ads) accounts any more, though that did surprise and upset many people. It's about larger patterns, about being treated as though we are just numbers to be sold to advertisers rather than being treated as a valuable resource, as users, participants, the LJ community. It's about being lied to when we're not merely being 'spun' or (even more often) ignored. It's about SUP / LJ Inc. making decisions we predict will harm LJ in the long run. It's about the company talking to the media without talking to us when we're clamoring for information. It's about SUP lying to others about who we, its users, are (we really don't know yet whether that was the intent of the filtering of the most-popular-interests page, but that was the effect -- and in the absence of any better explanation from SUP, it's getting harder and harder to believe it wasn't the intent; it looks as though they were embarrassed to have certain topics show up on that list). It's about SUP appearing to continue Six Apart's disastrous and offensive actions against fannish and sexual-minority interests and content.

Mostly, it's about dashed hope, the hope that when SUP took over from 6A, maybe, just maybe, they would either understand the community better (or value it, at least), or learn from 6A's gaffes. So far, we hear encouraging noises that are, with small exceptions, not backed up with good actions. We're still hearing that they struggle to "find the right tone" to communicate with us, when they barely communicate with us at all, and want to find a "tone" that will make us meekly accept their announcements when what we want is a conversation.

And finally, to Mr. Nosik, let me be especially clear: We want LiveJournal to succeed and thrive; we want our constructive criticism to be heard and acknowledged (that is, even if you don't take our advice, we want to know it was considered and why you chose a different course) and we want to preserve the aspects of LiveJournal that are valuable to us. Most of us who are protesting think SUP's present course will destroy what matters of LJ in the name of replacing reasonable and steady profits with all-you-can-get-this-quarter profits, and that as a result of that destruction the site will eventually become unprofitable entirely. We are hoping to prevent the destruction of LiveJournal.

I've got a longer post planned -- one postponed from the 6A days, because I'd hoped that SUP would make writing it moot -- about how I perceive the economics and the ethics of the relationships between users, advertisers, and site-owners. I'll try to get that posted before the protest, but I've got to run off and do other things at the moment.

Being a goy, I am inadequately exposed to opportunities to consume hamentashen. Especially the poppy-seed ones.

[makes starving-puppy eyes]

[This would be the usage of the word 'subtle' in which one deliberately overpronounces the 'b'.]

Being a goy, I am inadequately exposed to opportunities to consume hamentashen. Especially the poppy-seed ones.

[makes starving-puppy eyes]

[This would be the usage of the word 'subtle' in which one deliberately overpronounces the 'b'.]