Subah Subah ki kich kich

You detected, and fell for the buzz!

You tried not to cringe on seeing supersize fonts (or maybe it was your own browser config) at their website!

You filled the "inform-me-when-it's-ready!" form!

You checked the site every third day, explored their 'web 2.0' presence, got bored, and forgot about it!You got news of flock's launch, by email or slashdot!

You downloaded a preview (an alpha build - tick off another item in the 'web 2.0' checklist) - their offering!

You thought the only really clever part were the "clear my privacy settings" button, and the ability to tag bookmarks!

You 'liked its look'!

You wondered what the fuck the whole affair was all about!

You saw 'flock sucks!' listed in a 'daily hawtness!!!' section, and wondered what the fuck that was all about!

You wondered what the fuck the whole affair was all about! (but I'm repeating myself.)

Time for a rant. Ok, once upon a time, in the days of my blog being a 'come one come all! get your juicy, tasty links here' (just links; no thoughts; sigh) I was surfing, and came across a blog titled "fucked with my pants on." (Intensely) disliking the name and the content, I posted/linked it as 'worst named'. Naturally, got reverse-flamed by its author, who called/likened me (to) a douchebag. ;-)

Lessons learnt: 1. Visitor trackers work. 2. (Can't think of anything else, actually.) Oh, and 3. One might get flamed, and feel bad for a little while... but it's quickly+easily forgetten.

Returning to the rant...
Go Flock Yourself's latest post is titled 'People before profits? Web 2.0 is communism'. Hmm. A juicy excerpt:

"Ladies and gentlemen, web 2.0 is communism. Clearly the ‘Innovation Age' is just a clever name for a new Bolshevik Revolution. If we don't stop it now, we'll soon be living in Siberia."

Buddy boy(/girl) was obviously asleep during (or didn't take) the 'the world, lots of social science, much of philosophy, and some political science has changed since Marx/Engels wrote and Lenin/Stalin/Mao etc etc. smote' lesson. This is the worst kind of ignorance. It's the type that conveniently and self-congratulatingly labels others as 'commie pinko bastards.' It peddles in (a fetishistic) narcissism.

And comments such as these often come from the likes of Bill Gates (who's in India right now, sucking up to GoI), who I think once likened advocates of open source to "a vast left wing conspiracy" (sic, paraphrasing, translating, alluding, all at the same time.)

What a turn around... You see, I used to love Bill Gates once upon a time. Actually, just his money, the billions in stock, and his underground e-Taj near Seattle. It wasn't the louhv. And, it was before reading Microserfs; well, before thinking beyond Microserfs. Anyway, college and university happened, and I became a commie pinko bastard (who denied it). To being a not-your-usual-commie-pinko-bastard (who doesn't really bother talking about it.)

Switching to some rhetoric... The deepest assumption (and I'm taking many leaps of logic here) - cleverly and secretly hidden inside - is that people want to live in Siberia . Yeah, you heard/read me right.

But are the suburbs any better? Definitely not Gurgaon! Not when they moan about how much they love to hate their malls. And how much they love to hate the non-Gurgaon 'crowd' that's taken over their malls. And how they know the malls are there, but they have never been to the malls themselves. Such crass monkey-want-monkey-do behaviour is left for those dirty uncultured fucks from Delhi to indulge in. (Yes, I've heard some of them say stuff like this.)

Coming back to the part about much-has-changed-since-Marx-and-Mao (and Basu)

Suggested Readings:

Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community (especially introduction and Chapter 1)

Jean-Luc Nancy, "What is to be Done?", p. 157-159, in ed. Simon Sparks, Retreating the Political.

Or maybe I just haven't bothered reading through the archives of FlockSucks... (bad boy)

Returning to the Flock Marketing messages:

You liked its look! (but went back to Firefox)

Now, GET THE FLOCKFOX THEME!!! (all offers valid till the craze remains a swarm)
_

Note to Self. File this under 'make-your-Firefox-better (seems a lot of people are doing it (making the list and posting the post) these days: Aardvark. See the demo to be dazzled.
_

Note to Self #2. File this under 'didn't-we-know-that-already?'

Violent Games De-sensitize Brain.
"A researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia, (MU) USA, has found that playing violent games changes a person's brain function and de-sensitizes chronic players to real world violence.

Bruce Bartholow, assistant professor - psychological sciences, MU, said, "Most of us naturally have a strong aversion to the sight of blood and gore. Surgeons and soldiers may need to overcome these reactions, in order to perform their duties. But, for most people, a diminished reaction to the effects of violence is not adaptive. It can reduce inhibitions against aggressive behavior and increase the possibility of inflicting violence on others."

[Read the rest, here]

Hmm. Here's a torrent that shows what happens when (Iraqi) snipers shoot (American/British) soldiers.

Statutory Warnings:
1. Soldiers get shot (usually to their head) in this video.
2. It's propaganda, and seems like it was made by the insurgents.
3. I don't know arabic, so I don't know what the background singing means.
4. The torrent contains a PDF that seems sourced from the BNP.
5. If you don't want to see it, don't see it. "It's a choice you're doing to have to make, Neo."
6. Yes, People Kill People - is interchangeable with - Yes, Guns Kill People. Now... People, let's kill Guns. Or maybe the answer lies beyond the problematic of 'kill' itself...