Prof. Len van der Walt comes semi-clean at DI

[Fort Bragg]

I thought that Quinn Tyler Jackson was a man of principle who would never back down in the face of a hostile crowd - we know what happened with that.

Well I thought he had principles too. Gotta be wrong sometime.

[ham]

but basically your only source of information is what you read on Internet bulletin boards and in Usenet posts. If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, then surely these boards are very dangerous places.


Anyone who feels that he has the power of the mobus vulgaris on an Internet board is in serious need of a flesh-and-blood real life.


So please don't pretend to know what really happened. Very few actually do -- and they found out directly from me. Mostly by phone. But only if they had the brass ones to pick up the phone and call me and tell me their real names and be real people instead of sock puppets from the land of Make Believe.

You claim to be a mathematician of some sort, but the above makes no sense.
Perhaps it's because I'm watching MATRIX 1 right now (goofy Confucius re-take on the Disney 1982 TRON ), but why would people call you to find out about things that happened (if we can use that word ) beyond the looking glass?
Very many years ago (not 2, not 5...in 1997 ) I used to spend a lot of time online, too...as most new things it can (and will ) become additive...but I soon realized I was sick of the bullsh!t alert horn that soon was on all the time...so I progressively reduced my time online.
Since 2001 I totalled a few thousands posts ( not more than 5000 i think ) on ALL the websites I go to...at least 1/3 if not more are the same posts on different forums for awareness purpose...another 1/3 if not more is wasted in feuds with 'online experts' and other phonies:
I utterly despise phonies ( benders, braggarts, impersonators, 'experts'... ).

[jackson]

Ham --

A small handfull of people posting on boards does not a community make. Being on "this" side or "that" side, the faux ideological battles, the so-called cabals... it's all rather paranoid and delusional, isn't it? The feeling that there is anything really being accomplished by yattering endlessly on either side ... well ... it's all vanity and arrogance. None of this stuff matters. I didn't leave because of being bullied by some immiginary force of anti-Quinnites. I left because my real life suddenly became more important than "board life." So, the characterization that I was somehow bullied into silence is utter crap.

I'm not silent -- I just have nothing to say about DL.

Hope you all had a very Happy Christmas, and all the best of the New Year to you.

Have a nice day,
Quinn

[Little Arminius]

Ham --

<<snip>>

None of this stuff matters. I didn't leave because of being bullied by some immiginary force of anti-Quinnites. I left because my real life suddenly became more important than "board life." So, the characterization that I was somehow bullied into silence is utter crap.

I'm not silent -- I just have nothing to say about DL.

Hope you all had a very Happy Christmas, and all the best of the New Year to you.

Have a nice day,
Quinn

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family. Tough season for both your B.C. Lions and Big Kahuna (Surrey) Rams. (That's Canadian football for Aussies Peter French and George Brown!) My Sask Riders came up short again and didn't get a chance to defend their 2007 Grey Cup victory. Ah, the vagaries of the game of football ...

I'm glad to hear that your absence from the DL fora wasn't due to either a) the outrageous criticism from a vocal group of DL experts or b) the vicious attacks of Neilist (sp?). No one can legitimately criticise you or your tenure in the DL universe if you left on your own terms as you have now told us. Perhaps part of the problem was that people inferred something else, due, in part, to the uncharacteristic silence surrounding your most recent departure.

If people are going to leave, my personal preference is that they leave without much fanfare; that's in stark contrast to the spectacle that occurs very time Uncle Janko feels the need to take a brief respite. However, when you, QTJ, choose to be engaged you generally are the thick of the dialogue here and therefore you are immediately conspicuous by your absence. This leads to all types of speculation that you've been coerced to some degree by Gus, Gollin, Bear, etc. or by Neilist perhaps, with some type of subtle threat to your professional or literary livelihood.

If you have nothing to say about DL --- then so be it. No hard feelings, actually just the opposite ... I think that everyone is richer for your very significant contributions to the dialogue in this field. Please feel free to drop in when the spirit moves you. Continued success in your future endeavors.

[jackson]

I'm glad to hear that your absence from the DL fora wasn't due to either a) the outrageous criticism from a vocal group of DL experts or b) the vicious attacks of Neilist (sp?). No one can legitimately criticise you or your tenure in the DL universe if you left on your own terms as you have now told us. Perhaps part of the problem was that people inferred something else, due, in part, to the uncharacteristic silence surrounding your most recent departure.

Yes, the timing wasn't perfect. December 2006/January 2007, when I vanished more or less from the face of the Earth ... well, there are a few people who know exactly why -- and it's as far removed from DL or its participants as one can get. That my departure followed a rather nasty bit of DL-fora ugliness ... well, man proposes and God disposes ... it's not like I could have planned the timing of all that. My mind is far removed from all the goings-on around these places. Every so often I do a search on my name to make sure I haven't been declared dead prematurely ... and that's about it.

I once put a great deal of effort into trying to understand just what the heck is going on in these fora. I looked through literally years of emails and so on, correlated dates with public events, read commentaries others had forwarded me, and tried to wire together a frame of a statue of what it was all about. As I did this, and cross-checked my facts with emails and forum posts et cetera ad nauseam, I (at the end of November 2006) -- I had an epiphany moment -- and that was: what a load of crap.

Yes, I realize that's not very poetic, and not very mathematical. It's not at all eloquent. But sometimes a big load of steaming crap is just a big load of steaming crap.

So I shut my mental doors, archived the load of crap, and moved forward into a new life, the details of which I don't share because, well, it's nobody's business and it's all rather pedestrian and boring at best.

I can't imagine having any new insight into the DL world ... although some of the stuff that's happened in the last two years I could never have imagined either, so who knows?

Cheers,
Quinn

[ham]

Hope you all had a very Happy Christmas, and all the best of the New Year to you.

Happy holiday season everybody.

Yes, I realize that's not very poetic, and not very mathematical. It's not at all eloquent. But sometimes a big load of steaming crap is just a big load of steaming crap.

On another forum two slimebag 'super moderators' deleted 1500 (yes 1500 ) posts and threads that didn't suit them in a matter of hours. All the 'management' did was to take away their moderator status, so they left pissed off among the cheers of their supporters.
Another jackass lobbied to be appointed moderator to 'settle the score' with his e-foes (=anybody who stepped on his feet...and he got VERY BIG feet )...weeks later he was downgraded and has since dropped the 'attitude'.
Another scumbag (who claimed to be a 'robotics & nuclear engineer') literally stalked me for years around various sites, forging multiple aliases, having his strings pulled by used car salesmen from another site...
Well...one of his many (admitted) aliases pointed to a community college bum and -oh, poetic justice!- his pretty face is on proud display in a thread devoted to losers & misfits on the very site he had so valiantly championed...and it was one of the 'inner circle' guys who posted him...
Another site I joined upon request of its owner used to be the best and biggest in the niche, even got featured on TV and the owner co-hosted a TV program for a while.
When the owner had bigger fishes to fry, the site fell under the spell of a clique of 'super moderators' and their henchmen who found sexual innuendo and dirty jokes more appealing than the topic at hand, assassinating characters and so forth.
The membership started to disband.
When the owner came back & cleaned the house, his once sworn pals with whom he had attended 'site meetings' and drunk beer turned against him with some of the vilest exchanges ever: the membership disbanded completely...what was once a top niche site is now a dead relic.
The internet is a joke.

[jackson]

The internet is a joke.

Certainly is.

Just a while back, I took my first trip to the US. I was down in California, and figured I'd get in touch with some long-time Internet contacts. One of them drove down to San Jose from San Francisco, and he and I drove back to San Francisco for sushi in the Marina District. I learned more about him in that wonderful round trip than I had in years of emails. What a fine gentleman and perfect ambassador and host he was.

Even the phone is better. The pauses between statements, the laughs, the choking-on-coffee at critical moments of the conversation. All of these cues tell us more about who and what people really are than any number of emoticons and bullshit words.

Two years of socializing with real people ... quite refreshing. Polite. Uplifting. Nothing like most of what gets done on the Net.

Quinn

(So what if I haven't written a short story or novel or poem in the last two years ... at least I'm gathering some good material.)

[Addendum: In the "The Internet is a Joke" sense, perhaps I do have some new insight about DL over these last two years....

I'm not convinced I want my children (two of whom are now about the age one is to enter higher education) anywhere near DL. I'd much rather they go to a brick-and-mortar institution. Not because of the quality of education, or the general acceptability of the mode of instruction ... but because the Internet experience is entirely unlike the brick-and-mortar experience. I've had both, and think the b&m experience is healthier. I didn't at the time ... but hindsight is 20/20. And here by "experience" I mean the appropriate socialization factor.]

[Fort Bragg]

Just a while back, I took my first trip to the US.

But you live about 10 miles from the US. You need to get out more.

[jackson]

But you live about 10 miles from the US.  You need to get out more.

I just never had any reason to travel there before, so I didn't.