Castock! What a sweet tribute. I too am among the lost and the lame but it's nice to hear how it figures in a personal history. I still listen to music you shared.
Ahh I uhh really coulda been nicer, you know.
Oh JFC Lord Castock, I hadn't realized this was you in the recent threads. You've been much missed. Welcome back and I hope you will continue to comment.
It means a lot to me to hear from someone who enjoyed the endless arguments as much as I did. It seems harder to do that without bad feeling lately (not that there was never bad feeling in the past, of course) but when it was working well, I loved that part of this place.
Aw . . . This place really is special; that's a lovely tribute, and I was always read your comments with interest and thought you added value.
Ogged, if you ever do that podcast series, you need to invite Lord Castock.
This is a cool tribute.
I kind of hate the internet now and am probably going to use it way less post-pandemic, but I do credit my participation in one of the seminal pre-Web 2.0 English language internet communities with helping me a lot on my journey from being a miserable teenage edgelord in the Oughts to now being a healthy adult with an (I hope) normal amount of empathy and humility. Lurking here helped too.
One of the curious things about unfogged is that the "glory days" ran from roughly 2003-2009 (?), there was a period of massive personnel turnover, and it has now been around in nostalgic-epilogue mode for far longer than the glory days lasted. Maybe every community is like this?
2: Heh, me too. Miss you, bud.
5: Gayer than eight guys blowin' nine guys, as Patton Oswalt might put it.
8: Eh, I think there's a lot from the later-unfogged that's better than the "glory days" it just doesn't have the same energy.
It's like a band* that had a really good first couple of albums and then continues making good music, but doesn't attract the same attention because it isn't groundbreaking or era defining anymore.
* Let's take Joe Jackson. Here's a list of five "essential" Joe Jackson songs, 4 of which are from 1979, but my favorite album of his is this 1999 live album.
Cripes. Nick! With a pitch-perfect Nick post! See I knew was gonna forget people. Good to see you.
8: I'm actually amazed at how strong the blog has kept going. The "glory days" were fun and all but y'all are still having new ones, I think. Change happens.
1 makes me really happy. I think I miss the mixtape threads the most.
Thanks to everyone who has replied, really. (Hey, Barry!) I'll try not to clutter up the thread too much by specifically replying to everyone.
I'm sure thoughts differ on this, but the two things that have really made a difference for me have been meeting so many of you in person (the last big DC meetup, random meetups while traveling), and connecting with so many of you at the other place. I usually don't actually remember whose real name is attached to which 'nym, aside from people I've spent a lot of time with, but just knowing that I do have those off-blog relationships with many of you all adds a ton to my on-blog experience.
Relationships are nice and all, but if unfogged had gotten ahead of the pivot to video, it could have been huge, like Tik-tok.
Doctor Slack! I miss you and this is so lovely. Glad you're not dying.
Also, Unfogged has made me 1000% a better person. I now hear generic Unfogged arguments against what I'm about to write before I actually hit post, and then I don't write the most extremely dumb stuff.
I used to be funnier, and dumber stuff used to pass for funny. Our standards have gotten higher and I'm less often in a specific manic-joke-making vibrational statespace.
I'm not sure if I stopped posting because I got dumber or my standards got higher. I just sort of ran out of having thoughts that seemed worth typing up for the front page.
15:. Money has its uses, but you know what they say is the real treasure? I think you do.
Well, this is a lot nicer than the time Halford came back just to tell us how we nearly ruined his life.
Doctor Slack, now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.
Early on, I committed to a strict standard of posting impulsively and never making any sort of rule that might inhibit it, and it's really worked well.
It's actually weird: I'm incredibly inhibited about posting on FB or Instagram or Twitter. Like, I've attempted it, and I just work myself into a knot and stop doing it. Something about the chemistry with the audience when it's people I know from different walks of real life, versus here where people only know me as my interior monologue self.
Whoa: it occurs to me that I've been on Unfogged for over 1/3 of my life.
21: VTSOOBC, I got extremely mad at him at one point for that habit.
18: FWIW, I think you'd still got it. To be sure the parameters of comedy have shifted, mostly for the better outside a certain sphere, I think.
21: Oh shit. I hope *I* didn't specifically nearly ruin his life. I was actually kinda hoping he'd still be around. Along with Frowner he's one of the missing names on my list of absolute legends. (Teachable moment, I guess: don't commit yourself to lists. Never ends well.)
Something that might be worthy of discussion, or at least kinda bullshitting about: any of you find that people respond *very* differently to different 'nyms? I've long felt like one lesson of my Unfogged experience was "don't confer aristocracy on yourself in your 'nym." People seemed to me to take Lord Castock a *lot* differently than any other 'nym: it especially seemed to hit people *much* harder when Lord Castock was a dick, in ways that made me feel genuinely bad. Which was salutary, I guess, b/c the learning experience led me to being less persistently an online dick, but I don't know that I recommend it.
19: I feel like there's a lot less interesting to say about politics since it realigned around education. One side no longer even makes arguments.
Castock I know we had some big knockdown fight over religion, and I just want to say I've now found exvangelical podcasts and am a lot more relaxed about religious trauma.
27: Always thought you had the cleverest 'nym of the lot of us, bruv. I've chilled since on a lot of fronts, including that one, I have to admit. Good to see you.
DS, when the discussion turns to the people we wish hadn't moved on from the blog, your name always shows up prominently.
Unfogged added years to my foolish sense of internet triumphalism. The internet was going to allow people to connect with wise minds from across the globe. Everybody's tolerance, decency and intelligence would improve as a result.
Oh well. There's still Unfogged, anyway.
21: I knew I shouldn't have given read his home address.
This is a great post. Glad to hear you're not giving up on us entirely, LD.
This is a great post. Glad to hear you're not giving up on us entirely, LD.
29: There are so many people here I appreciate when I see the 'nym come up. You've always been one of them, thanks for... whatever the kids say now that means "putting me hip."
Fuck, "putting me hip" was archaic when *I* was 18, what a weird fucking critter I am. :D
I used to be funnier, and dumber stuff used to pass for funny.
I started getting _so_ cranky at _so_ many people, and I needed to stop that, so I went away. Before that I was funny. You know, probably. Sometimes.
It has been long enough that apparently I've forgotten how html works, so that tells you something.
36: I have to give it to you. It was at my expense and I was battling you about it? But your taking-the-piss-out-of-me post in THAT CONVERSATION was funny as fuck. I mean, it just was. It was like getting roasted by the Goth Bill Burr.
I was just pleased to acquit myself in such a manner that the whole room didn't turn against me at that point, and achieving *that* much was a salvage, honestly. I had to resort to posting goofy-assed pictures of me and bros from the Eighties. I don't know if there could've been any clearer signifier of "NO MAS!" than that.
(Oh, BTW, "Josh"? I do remember you. I always did. I affected not to do so b/c I was trolling Sifu at the time. I'm sorry for that.)
36: You were honing in on being funny.
"Funny" and "angry" are closely related things. That relationship is how the best comedy happens. It's also how otherwise-legendary comedians can wind up going wrong.
(On this, I'm [i]not[/i] being a blowhard. This is as much my story as it is anyone's.)
That and mixing cocaine with heroin.
44: Or cocaine and marijuana. Or cocaine and gunpowder. Not that I'd know anything about that...
I always thought I was being funny. I mean, sometimes I was likely actually funny! But being super fucking good at being biting when somebody is being subjectively tiresome isn't the world's best hobby.
(To be clear: NO I have not snorted cocaine and gunpowder and nor should anyone, that is a terrible idea. COMITY.)
Yeah, took me some time to learn that myself.
48 to 46. Fuck even *that* convention makes me nostalgic...
Injecting cocaine and gun powder seems worse.
Indeed. Snorting OR injecting. Both bad ideas.
And failing to remember Cala gets me struck by the heavy might of the Calabat, obviously. Hi, Cala.
The other way in which this blog really saved me was my cancer year. Always having something new to read, a space for bitching and moaning, and the groundswell of support here helped that year from hell suck a little less.
My aunt is going through a (likely terminal but we're trying to be hopeful) cancer year right now. Sorry for your troubles, J. I can completely see how this blog would've been helpful, I hope even my misadventures helped distract you if I was around at the time.
I was going to say something nice, but you didn't mention me in the shout-out, so you are now dead to me.
Waves to Lacks Doctor.
I do miss the more argumentative Unfogged past, but I have to admit it's probably healthier for me to not get into internet arguments anymore. Basically because the world has gone to fuck in so many ways it's hard to have the energy to do anything.
There's a real art to provoking interesting arguments.
Wanna play the stupid question game?
Y'all are a fine group of shipmates when the weather gets heavy.
56: Walt! Hey, man. If it's any consolation, I would have mentioned you just before Stormcrow if I'd been thinking it through. Also, hey, Stormcrow. Hey, ttaM.
Since we're doing this, it's been a bit over four years since the kids and I woke up to find Roberta dead on the living room floor. I had already been kind of scarce around here by that point (and I went nearly hermetic for the next couple of years*), but the cards and food and gifts and messages just rained in from this place immediately. My mother couldn't quite make sense of the relationship, but was floored by the imaginary friend outpouring. I kept meaning to come back and write a thank you post, but that year in particular was one big blur of paperwork and trying to hold things together for two traumatized kids and then it felt like it had been too long etc. Anyhow, it's difficult to express how much that meant at the time, when suddenly nothing made any sense at all. So way too late: thank you. You're good and caring people and you made a much bigger difference than you probably realize while I was wandering around in shock, trying to get my feet under me and figure out just what the hell I was supposed to do next.
*which, as an aside, made the transition to the lockdown lifestyle much less difficult for me than for essentially everybody I knew.
Holy fuck. I wasn't around for that. Much-belated condolences, apo, that sounds... unimaginable.
Apo, I still think about your kids and hope they're doing okay. What a god-awful tragedy.
If we're doing this...I've always wondered what on earth happened? She had the flu maybe and then...? blood clot? heart attack? Do you guys have any answers?
70 is not supposed to be part of the game from 61-65.
Yeah, that January featured Trump's inauguration, that, and then landing in the ER sicker than I'd ever been with cellulitis in my neck of all the crazy places. The year ended with me spending the entire Christmas holiday at the pediatric ICU where Noah had severe (ie, life-threatening) ketoacidosis and a shiny new type 1 diabetes diagnosis. Unlike most people, 2020 was actually a really good year for me on multiple fronts, but 2017 is my bar to clear for "come on, how bad could it get?"
She had what we thought was mild flu for a week or two, but then she started feeling worse and so went to the doctor who diagnosed her with bilateral pneumonia and started her on antibiotics. Which should have been sufficient for an otherwise healthy person in their mid-40s. We didn't have an autopsy done, but the funeral home said that her lungs were full of blood, so there looks to have been some sort of pulmonary hemorrhage.
Jesus, what a nightmare of a year. (Thanks for shedding some light on what happened.)
Any support you got from this place, I'd think of in terms of "what goes around, comes around." You spent a long time here making people's lives pleasanter by being entertaining in a goodhearted and kind way, and I'm glad that it came back at you when it could help some.
Haven't read the comments just yet (next stop) but wow, this made me intensely nostalgic. Such a lovely post!
Yep, y'all are still funny.
Apo, still so sorry about your very bad year. I have a friend in a similar position this year and it's just .... heart-breaking. Glad that there was support available for you.
I've lurked on and off for, god, over 15 years and am here now just to say what a remarkable community this has been to observe from a short-to-moderate distance. I was never a regular commenter but even so I have learned a great deal and gotten a lot of joy from knowing you all all this time, and it is heartwarming to see such lovely a testimonial about what the place has meant.
I also missed apo's loss when it happened and want to add my much-too-late condolences. What an unbelievable nightmare.
I've commented fairly regularly, but I feel like I've missed out on a lot over the years. I'm not sure I realized Lacks Doctor had actually left, as opposed to just kept changing pseudonyms. Sorry. Also, sorry apo, just in case I didn't say it at the time.
Apo, condolences. (Also: man, cellulitis. I think my bout with it, also in 2017, was also the sickest I've ever been.) Not that this matters at all, but was there ever any kind of announcement on the blog, or was it all on FB? That might have been during one of my periodic short absences, because I feel like I wouldn't have missed it...
I do wish I could just chill out and enjoy myself here. There's some kind of fundamental, existential beef between the blog and my superego. That is not the fault of any of you lovely people, however, and you've been super welcoming.
There wasn't any announcement here. I did feel conflicted about whether or not to say something, and asked wiser people than I, who recommended that I not post anything on Apo's behalf (nor to pester him obv about it.)
Nice to hear from the multipseudonymous one and to know there's no hard feelings. Yes, the sense of community here is great.
For whatever it's worth, I found this place to be a godsend during the rough last couple of years of my marriage. I usually avoid extended debate or attempts at humor because it seems like context is everything for those, and "haha here's what's wrong with how you think about the world you lame-o" is just better said when everyone's smilinig and agreed that there's no hard feelings than written. Probably come off kind of wooden as a consequence.
I had no idea about Apo's loss. My sincere if belated sympathy. What an awful thing to happen.
I've been a lot less active here since the new job started, mostly because I simply haven't had time, but I am not quitting either. Good to hear from Castock.
That's heartbreaking, Apo. I had no idea, and am so sorry. I'm glad you shared today.
heartily seconding 75. Very belated commiserations.
I'm so sorry, Apo. This is the first I've heard about it. Thirding the sentiments in 75.
Sir Kraab told me there was a post I should read on Unfogged, and by golly, she was right! Nice to hear from you, DS, and to do some nostalgic waxing about the old days of Unfogged.
I too think I learned a lot here that made me a better, nicer person (eventually). I'm thankful to everyone who shared their opinions and experiences here despite the risks of doing so.
Although I don't hang around much these days, it makes me very happy knowing that Unfogged is still here and that so many great people are still an active part of it. And let me be the first to praise the admins for putting in all the work to keep it going. They should definitely get fruit baskets.
84-90 roughly: I was enough of an ass to ask if he'd gotten divorced when he mentioned his girlfriend. Only to find out that his wife had died.
Once again, really sorry for your loss. I can't imagine what the experience of finding someone suddenly dead like that would be.
One of the saddest COVID stories (that was written up in the medical literature) I heard was about a woman who had given birth a couple of months earlier, had a basically asymptomatic case of COVID, went to lie down for a nap, and when her husband went to look in on her she was dead. Somehow the COVID had led to a heart arrhythmia in an otherwise healthy young woman in the postpartum period. I just can't imagine what that would be like.
As always, I am late and less clever than everyone else, but it's so nice to see you, Slacks Doctor. This 'nym makes a commercial jingle for the "Glass Doctor" play in my head, so it hope its rotation is shorter than your others. I enjoy reading you and am always pleased when you drop by.
I'm a bit like lw, hesitant to joke and almost certainly appear a bit dull, but I enjoy reading everyone here. I'm also buried in work pretty much all the time, so I miss tons of moments where I might have more to say.
92.1: If it helps, I actually laughed at that at the time.
I was slightly horrified because one of my fears is getting caught in a real-life Mr. Bean sketch and that was too close.
I feel like the sketch where Mr. Bean gets his head lodged in a turkey is something that could actually f'reals happen to me. Matter of time, really.
Hello, Everybody Else who has chimed in. Good to see you all. It kind of saddens me to see some of the people who were reticent to join in on the Comedic Shenanigans back in the day describe themselves as "dull": I promise you that you weren't, and you're not.
That's awful apo, my belated condolences
apo, that is honestly absolutely terrifying. i'm so deeply sorry.
apo, I am so sorry for you and your children.
FYI: I know not everyone digs FB, or wants to connect their Mineshaft membership with their real name, or wants to receive a bajillion notifications from a group chat, BUT: if you get invited to join a FB Messenger group by someone on here, IME it's typically for a rally-round-the-Unfogged-person situation. As a past beneficiary who really treasured the support, I've found that being able to respond in kind has been super meaningful to me.
Also, forgot to say: welcome back, Castock! I had been hoping you were well!
Much respect and love to all of you. Lurking here has helped me stay relatively sane in difficult times. Perfectionism usually keeps me from joining in the banter here, much like in regular life.
A) perfectionism shouldn't hold anyone back, this place is a mess, but B) if, emboldened by having said something once, you continue to pipe up, and you keep using any variant of that pseud, I will cut you. "Random lurker" is tied for worst possible pseud with all the other ones I object to.
She can't actually cut you, Random. She is trapped inside your screen and it isn't wide enough for a knife. Don't let LB scare you.
Good to see you, Lacks Doctor. Apo, my sympathies for your loss.
103: Let me be the first to suggest Wry Cooter. AIHMB, I lurked for some months, intimidated by the quality of the discussion and resolving to only contribute when I could say something that would improve the median level of comments. I abandoned that resolution almost immediately.
I can't even be happy that Gordon Liddy is dead. Fucker lived for a prosperous 90 years.
I am at a baseball game for 10 year olds. Or as I like to call it, Walk Walk Walk Walk Walk.
I hope you shouted that at the pitcher. How else will they ever get better?
"Hey pitcher! Get better at throwing he ball!"
102: Hey J, cheers. I'm reasonably well. Hey Megan, Random.
104: What are all the other ones you object to, out of curiosity?
107: Is it still wrong if you're masturbating to the death rather than the deceased?
Oh, dear me. I was too late. My answer for 113 would've been yes? But I think the rule has a Gordon Liddy exemption.
What we need is some canonical formula for pseuds, or possibly a tradition like going presidential, where you have to adopt the name of an 80s movie star, a character from a children's book, etc., in order to comment for the first time.
By "canonical" I mean "absurd and non-binding," and by "have to" I mean "can."
112.2: There's a post way back in the archives -- it comes down to anything that I'm not going to successfully remember and keep track of. Variants of "Lurker" are bad; so are short initialisms like 'lrn' or something; and common names followed by an initial are awful. We've got a DaveL, and then another DaveL showed up, and it was the worst.
I read Liddy's memoir, Will, when I was a young teenager. There was a floridly weird, weird man.
120: Or, as we used to say back in the day, "RTFA!"
I saw Liddy decades ago in one of his campus tours -- even got in line for the microphone and asked him a question (about his desire, when he had influence over such things, to have Jack Anderson killed). In the moment, I thought he was an extremist, and that I was a normal American. Hah!
121: I remember reading excerpts from it back in, say, high school. Probably in Time magazine, or maybe Reader's Digest? Didn't he tie himself up in a tree during a thunderstorm to overcome his fear of lightning? And show off to others by holding his hand over a lighter until they could smell burning flesh?
104: What are all the other ones you object to, out of curiosity?
LB would recall them if they weren't impossible to remember. I can't help it though, this is the name my mother gave me, at birth.
a character from a children's book
I call 'Hungry Caterpillar.'
122: Ahhhh, that takes me back...
In general I get it, but memorable initials are different.
104, 120: despite my long years of lurking I somehow missed the many discussions of the blog rules for pseuds when I took the plunge and started posting. Then, once I'd been posting periodically for a while it became clear that I was in serious violation of those rules, and I feel bad about it every time I post.
Totally open to changing the pseud. I don't really want to get cut.
104, 120: despite my long years of lurking I somehow missed the many discussions of the blog rules for pseuds when I took the plunge and started posting. Then, once I'd been posting periodically for a while it became clear that I was in serious violation of those rules, and I feel bad about it every time I post.
Totally open to changing the pseud. I don't really want to get cut.
128: I am in retrospect a little surprised that nobody ever complained about "DS," which could easily have been confused with "dsquared" who was also a regular at the time. But I suppose it was a helpful clarification that he never posted under an abbreviated nick and that our views and personalities were so obviously different.
It is true that I've never felt confused about who "lw" was, come to think of it, hey there.
Lord Castock (that's how I still think of you), it's lovely to see you back, albeit briefly. Thank you for your post.
apo, I had grasped that Roberta had passed away a few years ago, but didn't know any of the details. Holding you and your family in my thoughts. What a horrific experience to go through.
The (previously explicitly stated) corollary to all of the rules about pseudonyms is that no one actually listens to me about them.
Just write the letters out phonetically.
120. I'd be perfectly happy to change my pseud if you insist. I have this image of you grumping about it ever since I first posted. I promise I won't pick "Wry Cooter."
It helps that dsquared and DS have as different of capitalization as they possibly could. I would have complained a lot more about ds than DS.
139: You can change your pseud, but it would entertain me if you and DaveLHI did so in symmetric ways.
Numbers make it easier to remember.
Are we prioritizing them for vaccines?
What Walt said in 56. No, but seriously, hi LC, missed you!
Actually, Lurid's 80 is totally me:
There's some kind of fundamental, existential beef between the blog and my superego. That is not the fault of any of you lovely people, however, and you've been super welcoming.
The period when I was spending the most time on Unfogged was a time when I was filled with self-loathing centered around my inability to get stuff (esp. dissertation, but really, anything) done. And because Unfogged was probably where I spent the most time not getting stuff done, there's a lot of that self-loathing tied up with my feelings towards it.
Aside from that, being overly proud of "mental whateverness", of being smart online, is something I kind of hate about myself -- or rather, I think the degree to which my identity is wrapped up in "being smart" has done a lot of damage to my life-chances and overall happiness -- and so there's that: X. Trapnel was kind of me at my worst. Not to mention the excessive drinking and constant, publicly-documented bad decision-making!
On the other hand, the community itself was and is great. I'm eternally grateful to Halford giving Fury and me the tickets to that Veronica Mars meet-the-cast VIP screening. And of course it's how I met Grumbles and got affordable housing for awhile in SF at a time when I desperately needed it.
Covid variants make good pseuds: 1.1.56.137, for example. Also, Da Velma, which is weird and gender-bending.
144. Sorry HBGB, it's too late. I got my second shot yesterday.
I'm eternally grateful to Halford giving Fury and me the tickets to that Veronica Mars meet-the-cast VIP screening.
WAIT. Did we go to the same event and not realize it?! I even had dinner with Halford on that trip! I went with Airedale, a lurker here.
Are you talking about the premier of the movie?
Chiming in to offer belated condolences to Apo. Holy shit that's awful.
On pseuds, I suppose I could go back to using Not Prince Hamlet, but that amused Heebie too much, and ANNPH (Also Not Neal Patrick Harris) is just wrong, plus probably violates LB's rules. Maybe a small twist on Apo's advice and use where I grew up, so we'd have DaveLMA and DaveLWA?
No. We used an Estonian costume rental place.
Wait, what?!
If I admit that I didn't know DaveLHI and Not Prince Hamlet are the same person, is this as bad as the same time I didn't know Chet wasn't white? PEEP! DO I KNOW THIS ALREADY?
It's really just the remembering that I can't do. I bet I knew it when it happened. It's like the reservations in the seinfeld episode.
154: I figured it out slowly, but in some ways he seemed like a slight
Y different character with the old pseud.
154: DaveL first, then NPH for a while when I was more worried about anonymity, then back to the original briefly until it became clear that there were two of us.
155: Aren't we all slightly different characters than we were years ago? If nothing else, I have a much better idea what sorts of arguments aren't likely to go anywhere good.
Variants of "Lurker" are bad
:(
I only figured out that it was DaveL + HI and not Dave + LHI about a year ago. Before then, I had trouble seperating the Daves.
I had a hand in the LHI/LMA thing! I suggested the DaveLMA be DaveLRH because he was on the right hand when I look at a map and DaveLHI be DaveLLH because he's on my left. Except I think it was somehow even dumber than that. It didn't take.
My recollection of that is that we had the "oh shit, there's two of us" realization one afternoon, I thought overnight about adding the state abbreviation, and then came in the next morning and saw that my eastern counterpart had already arrived at the same fix.
I know we would have had a hard time knowing there are two DaveLs, but it's kind of funny you guys also didn't know. It would be especially nice if you could unwittingly appear to be arguing with yourself.
"Stop heebsplaining DaveLism!" is my favorite comment from that thread, and one of my favorites of all time. I think it was Sifu who said it.
Actually it was snarkout. My mistake.
That thread is funny! I specifically remembered this comment by Beefo Meaty:
Wait it's so not-confusing that I just got confused. DaveLB is west and DaveLA is east, obviously. And DaveTeo and DaveGuatemala are south and north, respectively.
(Except in my memory, I also misattributed it to Sifu!)
That was my actual suggestion: Label them A,B following the path of the sun.
Except in my memory, I also misattributed it to Sifu!
Happens all the time.
I think I was a bit testy on that thread, perhaps because my boss at the time was also a David L. Folks in the building had started disambiguating us by as DLa and DLo, saddling me with a nickname that I haven't yet managed to shed in some circles.
So, 159 is obviously wrong. I knew and forgot.
I think we should have some recognition for the fact that, despite the horrific events recounted in 68, Apo STILL has the capacity to be the funniest motherfucker in the room. I laughed a LONG time at 113 & 114. Salute.
154.2: I guess you did know this, heebie. It seems I did too.
There are times when Unfogged seems like a novel with too many characters, but then there have been other times that it seems like a party where nobody showed up, and I'm just talking to myself.
Russian novels are the worst for that.
171: I remember a Russian history professor lamenting the Russian royal family's lack of imagination in regards to names. If they had more than two boys there was a good chance two of them would be named Ivan.
So, my dad and three of his siblings had kids. Two of them had only one girl. All four families have a daughter with the same name.
173: It seems I've read several advice column questions that center around huge family fights concerning one sibling "stealing" the name that the other sibling had planned for their child. I'm glad your family doesn't seem to have that hangup.
The common front against the Bolsheviks keeps us together.
173: Did you ever have any difficulty telling one Cousin Mary from another? I' guessing you probably were ok with identifying your sister.
176: +m. A new kind of typo for me, I think!
Not Mary. Kathleen. Never had any trouble because I rarely saw more than one at a time.
|| So, if you're wondering what the US Supreme Court did this morning, here's the quick summary. Three cases: (1) They finally let the FCC get rid of some (but not all) ownership restrictions, which will lead to further consolidation. An issue had been whether this was going to limit ownership opportunities for women and minorities. Kavanaugh joined by 7 justices said that the FCC had done a good enough job showing it wouldn't matter, based on the record before it. Thomas wrote separately to complaint that anyone was doing this analysis at all. (2) They found that Facebook had broken the robocall law when it kept sending a guy notifications that someone was trying to log into his non-existent account. This turned on a narrow question of applicability of the statute, and prompted Alito to concur with a 4 page discussion of how 'series qualifier' constructions can/should be understood in English. (3) They ruled against Florida in its case against Georgia for stealing all the water in a panhandle river system and killing the oysters. No, says Georgia (and Barrett for the Court) you killed those oysters yourself by overfishing and not re-shelling enough. Also, seemingly, climate change. Ultimately, insufficient proof that Georgia was harming Florida. |>
Facebook had *not* broken the law!
It's really hard to prove you didn't fuck up all on your own if you are Florida.
The question in the Facebook case was whether the system Facebook was using is an 'auto-dialer.' Answer: no.
181 Especially when you own witnesses say you did. Florida was afraid that that huge oil spill was going to contaminate the oyster beds, so they let everyone run wild.
I'll be interested to hear what Megan thinks of that one. The Court has, I think, set a pretty high bar here. What is the obligation of upstream states to help mitigate the effects of climate change? They decided not to frame the case that way at all.
Russian novels are the worst for that.
Russion nested novels are even more impossible for this.
182: I don't understand what Facebook was doing.
Comments about Russian nested novels are even more impossible for this.
185
Petitioner Facebook, Inc., maintains a social media platform with an optional security feature that sends users "login notification" text messages when an attempt is made to access their Facebook account from an unknown device or browser. If necessary, the user can then log into Facebook and take action to secure the account. To opt in to this service, the user must provide and verify a cell phone number to which Facebook can send messages.
In 2014, respondent Noah Duguid received several login notification text messages from Facebook, alerting him that someone had attempted to access the Facebook account associated with his phone number from an unknown browser. But Duguid has never had a Facebook account and never gave Facebook his phone number. Unable to stop the notifications, Duguid brought a putative class action against Facebook. He alleged that Facebook violated the TCPA by maintaining a database that stored phone numbers and programming its equipment to send automated text messages to those numbers each time the associated account was accessed by an unrecognized device or web browser.
Facebook moved to dismiss the suit, arguing primarily that Duguid failed to allege that Facebook used an autodialer because he did not claim Facebook sent text messages to numbers that were randomly or sequentially generated. Rather, Facebook argued, Duguid alleged that Facebook sent targeted, individualized texts to numbers linked to specific accounts.
The supposition is that a prior holder of the phone number had a Facebook account, and had signed up for the notification service.
188: I thought they were spamming him to try to make a new account.
189: They weren't intentionally spamming, but if they had been, that would be legal under this ruling. Expect more spam texts and phone calls going forward.
Although there are many holes yet to be litigated. The decision notes that "prerecorded" calls are still illegal, but doesn't consider whether a text message that was presumably composed years earlier is "preprecorded."
189: They weren't intentionally spamming, but if they had been, that would be legal under this ruling. Expect more spam texts and phone calls going forward.
Although there are many holes yet to be litigated. The decision notes that "prerecorded" calls are still illegal, but doesn't consider whether a text message that was presumably composed years earlier is "preprecorded."
189: They weren't intentionally spamming, but if they had been, that would be legal under this ruling. Expect more spam texts and phone calls going forward.
Although there are many holes yet to be litigated. The decision notes that "prerecorded" calls are still illegal, but doesn't consider whether a text message that was presumably composed years earlier is "preprecorded."
So sometimes sending extra communication is unintentional?
190-192: As a test case, I'm going to sue you for these comments. Please send me your address for service of process.
161. DaveLHI: I was the first mover on disambiguation because you had been the resident DaveL and deserved to own it. I'm nearly 100% sure I didn't see your DaveL pseud between when I first posted and when LB noticed me and was confused.
167. There are DaveLs all over the internet. It's an infestation. Obviously a lot of parents with no imagination, not just the Russian Royal Family. I don't think David isn't as popular a name as it was when I was born, though.
When I was in kindergarten, there were two Daves in the class (not two DaveLs but two Daves). My teacher made me use a different name because my last name came later in the alphabet. (At one job I had, there were six Daves in a company that only had 20 people.)