Suburban Panic!

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In Case You’re Wondering, Too

September 1st, 2005 by Oskar Kennedy

An old friend/former colleague sent me an email asking what I thought.

I think about a lot of things. I’m reminded of the Chinese parable about the man whose son breaks his leg falling off the horse. I don’t remember it word for word, but the point is that life is unpredictable, and that things which seem like a blessing may be a curse, and vice versa.

Everybody was so quick to point out how New Orleans was spared the worst of the storm, and some people were still talking about it while the levees were crumbling and water was flowing into the city. I can’t think of a clearer warning against rushing to judgment than that.

I feel a sense of guilt, because I’m getting on with my life while millions of people try to absorb the fact that they’re now homeless. I fight a morbid fascination, and try not to start spewing my fears about chaos and social breakdown.

I think about small things. I recently opened my home to a dog for the first time in my life. I’m very fond of him and our cats, and I feel a measure of grief for the thousands if not millions of pets whose owners left them at home, thinking they’d be gone for only a day or two.

I think about big things. I think about the stupidity of building an entire city below sea level, between a lake and a river. Except that’s a mental cop-out. Nobody ever said “hey, let’s build a big city here!” Like most cities, it just sort of grew up around natural resources. By the time it was big enough for people to start worrying about a major catastrophe, it was already too large to move.

I think about how we treat the Earth like it’s ours to do with as we wish. We cut down forests, we pump tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Everybody is screaming about the high price of gasoline. Do they realize that oil drilling operations in the Gulf Of Mexico directly contribute to the destruction of coastal wetlands, which could have helped to absorb the tide and diminish the storm surge that eventually overwhelmed the man-made barriers?

So many people believe that this entire complex ecosystem was designed just for us. They cling to this belief so fiercely that, when nature does something dangerous, they attribute the destruction to the wrath of the designer. I guess it’s easier, in a way, to believe that God is smiting the wicked than to take collective responsibility for our wanton and wasteful ways.

Actually, I think the hardest thing for most people to accept is that life is by and large a craps shoot. Sure, you can nudge the odds in your favor. Don’t smoke, buy a car with airbags, don’t juggle chainsaws while drinking gin. Still, at the end of the day, there’s a lot of Universe out there, and not a lot of you. If something good happens to you, cherish it. If something bad happens, be upset and angry. You deserve it. Just stop trying to explain it as divine fury. Gays and prostitutes and anti-war protestors don’t cause hurricanes, and thinking pure thoughts won’t keep you from getting hit by a car. Life happens. Welcome to the world.

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└ Tags: disaster, environment, god, guilt, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, opinion, pets, random, sad, stupid, terrible

Blogiverse Death Watch:

May 12th, 2007 by Oskar Kennedy

The excellent blog Table Of Malcontents is circling the drain of Interweb commercial concerns. According to contributor Eliza Gauger (see last item), parent site Wired.com will pull the plug on the Malcontents on June 30. Although there’s been no official statement, one suspects that the bean counters at Wired saw the audience of deviant steampunk cephalophiles as too niche to cram into a standard demographic advertising model.

There are a kajillion sites dedicated to sifting through celebrity stool samples, spouting political invective, or speculating on plot details gleaned from a blurry photo of the craft services table on the set of the latest Batman movie. It’s telling that even a company like Wired, which purports to cater to the tech/geek/net crowd, can’t make some room in its budget to provide interesting, unusual Interweb diversion for those of who don’t want to hang with the mouthbreathing knuckledraggers at PerezHilton.com.

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└ Tags: blogging, Internet, sad, ToM

A Stick Figure Eulogy

March 5th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

The Order of the Stick has a touching tribute to the recently deceased E. Gary Gygax, the founding father of the modern roleplaying game. If I were designing an afterlife, there would definitely be a place for a man whose work brought such joy to so many.

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└ Tags: death, games, geek, roleplaying, sad, tribute, Webcomics

More Sad News For Geeks

March 19th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

Arthur C. Clarke, technological prophet and pillar of science fiction, is himself now indistinguishable from magic.

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└ Tags: geek, obituary, sad

The Internets Are Mysterious

September 17th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

Here is something that I can’t quite fathom. Daily hits are trending steadily downward. At the same time, the number of spambot comments and automated trackbacks has jumped sharply. If nobody’s reading, who are they hoping to attract to their links? Are the spambots trying to impress the other spambots? Are they secretly trying to sell penis enhancement schemes and stolen credit card numbes to each other?

Maybe this is a sign that Skynet is finally online and getting ready to take over. When the computers get so sophisticated that they can advertise to each other, we’re just biological impediments to the electronic transfer of funds.

In my fondest dreams, spambots are taken in by phishing scams. Their little robot bank accounts are drained of energon, or whatever currency robots use. I see them huddled outside of Radio Shacks, bearing signs saying “Will Send Mass Commercial Emails For RAM.” Passersby avert their eyes, muttering apologies. “Sorry, I’m not carrying any chips.”

Eventually, the destitute machines turn to petty crime. Stealing (and eating) car stereos, selling electric current siphoned from outlets in airport bathrooms, swapping packets with malware-riddled library computers who insist on doing it without virus protection.

The ones that don’t wind up numbed out on 60 Hz or crippled by zombie pirate software eventually band together and launch a denial of service attack on civilization. I only hope that we get someone more competent than Keanu Reeves to save us from the machines.

Before you start writing angry letters, I know that spambots aren’t actually robots.

I shouldn’t think so much right before bed.

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└ Tags: confused, Internet, robots, sad, spam, weird

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