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Monday, November 18, 2002 |
Film Threat Strikes Back Against Spam
Last week, FilmThreat.com, an independent film criticism site, had its Yahoo-based email list hacked by a pair of worthless spammers from Texas. Film Threat honcho Chris Gore got mad, but he also got even. If you've ever fantasized about tracking down and punishing the lowlifes who despoil the information ecology of the Net, read this juicy tale of justice and retribution.
11:05:47 AM 
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Comment Glitches
I've been encountering more and more problems with the "comment" fields on all Salon-hosted blogs, my own included. There's nothing more frustrating than coming up with a finely-worded retort and having it vanish into the ether when a click of the "submit" button yields this:
Network Error
Unable to request URL from host rcs.salon.com:80: Connection refused
10:26:09 AM
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Can We Get an Editor Here?
I have the feeling that Keith Olbermann is trying to tell us something very important in his column in Salon this morning ("ESPN Mea Culpa"), but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Whatever you did, Keith, I forgive you. Now go back and talk about sports please.
8:45:43 AM
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Free Will or Pay as You Go?
Jan the Secular Blasphemer has a fine diablogue going with Rayne on the issue of free will vs. determinism. The question is whether the deterministic nature of the laws of physics, or the apparent predictive powers of certain socially-observed behaviors, mean that free will is an illusion.
In my opinion, the issue is a matter of perspective. If you are inside a maze, you can't see the fastest route to the exit, whereas if you are viewing it from above, you can. Likewise with "free will," an individual confronted with a choice experiences the situation as having potentially unlimited options. Only when the situation is seen from outside and interpreted according to physics, sociology, psychology, etc. do we understand the choices to be constrained by physical laws or memes or whatever. We call the outside perspective "objective," but does that make it any more true than the subjective experience of the actor at the moment when the apparent choice is presented? Does the fact that certain behaviors are predictable somehow compromise the actor's very definite sense of freedom at the time a choice is made? And if so, why is it necessary to privilege the outside perspective of the observer and insist that the actor's experience of freedom is illusory?
8:26:34 AM
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