Re: Phase II

[arc!ken@apple.com]

In article <20830.8905200110@charon.unm.edu> you write:
>Really-From: Lazlo Nibble <cs1552ao%charon.unm.edu@ariel.unm.edu>
>
>arc!ken@apple.com (Ken Stuart) writes:
>> Normally, I might refrain from flaming someone's personal tastes, but
>> this bozo couldn't seem to figure out how to follow the instructions,
>> and sent 208 lines to hundreds of thousands of USENET-ers.  To add
>> insult to injury, while his tastes are not strictly mainstream, they
>> are nevertheless *dumb*.
>
>Ken, you're more than welcome to go fuck yourself.  Flaming someone for
>doing something wildly stupid is one thing . . . flaming them for their
>musical tastes just because you don't share them is obnoxious junior-
>high-school peenboy behavior.  

	I clearly said (it's even in your reply), "Normally, I might
refrain from flaming someone's personal tastes".  (I also said nothing
more flamey than "dumb".  In retrospect it would have been more subtle
to leave out that word and let the formula speak for itself.)

>You don't like Joy Division, New Order,
>Simple Minds, The Cure, and The Smiths?  Fine.  Send in your ballot
>voting for FZ, Cap'n B. and the Dead instead.  If you're going to slag
>people who *do* like them, at least have the balls to give some sort of
>coherent reason why you don't.  (Cute little SPY-Magazine-wannabe
>formulae don't cut it.)

        Actually, the coherent reason was in my posting, but I didn't
spell it out word for word; since some require that, here it is.  I am
getting tired of seeing a posture masquerading as "tastes".  Only a
posture, is reducible to a formula.  When Joy Division first came out,
I would read that sort of posturing frequently in NME.  The clue here
is not the 9s and 10s, it's the 0s and 1s ("zero means that you detest
the artist - you would rather have several of your appendages ripped
off than listen to them" - from Phase II instruction).  This posture
has as its essential elements that any older musicians are
automatically "dinosaurs", and that only the newer artists (who rip
off the older ones) are "cool".

        For example, Simple Minds are not bad artists (I have a few of
their albums), but they are not worthy of "worship... they can do
wrong".  Plus the band members a) probably have all the "0"s and "1"s
in their record collections, since they were influenced by all those
artists, and b) some of their albums were produced by Steve Hillage,
an old-fogey "dinosaur" who has been slagged in the media (ever seen
"The Young Ones"?) for being the "Grateful Dead" [="0"] of the UK.

        I think the Phase II compiler should throw out scores below 4;
being really opposed to some art form is either a posture or it means
that you don't really understand it.  [4 is what you might give
something that you thoroughly understand, but find mediocre (given the
implications for one's appendages of a zero!).]

In article <106140@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> you write:
>In article <8905221806.AA09916@xuucp.ch.apollo.com>, Mike Machnik 
>     <mike_m@apollo.com> writes:
>> 
>> [amusing series of insults between himself and Ken Stuart (arc!ken@apple.com)
>>  presented mathematically: deleted here but enjoyed, no doubt, by all...]

	At least someone understood it without it being spelled out.

>>
>> >Reply to : apple!arc!ken         \ Disclaimer: All the above is solely
>> >	   sun!apple!arc!ken      \          the opinion of the author
>>    
>>       Oh, Sun...that *would* explain it.  Try sending your messages
>>       via a different route next time.  :-)
>> 
>
>Mike,
>
>What does Sun have to do with this?

	Because being "anti-Sun" is the "posture" of this Apollo employee.

	[This is not a flame; I am writing this on an Apollo DN-3000.
I just wanted to point out this posturing which, in general, is based
more on being opposed than being in favor of anything positive.]