We make big deals out of little ones, and let crooks off the hook. We haven’t started any real wars yet, but give us time, we’re just getting warmed up. And maybe if we are somewhat aware of this, we can try to offset it with a little bit of humanity. Maybe someone can speak up for the poor schnook who gets caught in the gears of the blogger’s fear.
(Sorry for the pun.)
Translation: “Please stick up for people when they’re attacked. Especially if it’s me. But not if it’s someone I don’t like. You’ll know that’s the case because I’ll be a part of the mob.”
Apropos of nothing take-away: Dave doesn’t know what a pun is.
Yeah, he’s a piece of work. He orchestrates these drive-by verbal shootings and then whines when the people he nicks return fire.
““Maybe someone can speak up for the poor schnook who gets caught in the gears of the blogger’s fear.”
That’s what friends are for: Character witnesses. Dave’s got a lot of people watching his back. But they often won’t “counter-attack” because they know it only makes it worse.
Feedback is OK when it’s controlled by someone like Jimi Hendrix but when it’s overloading the speakers at a public concert it’s a crime.
Asking for support shouldn’t be confused with a request to shout down a critic… that’s how feuds and wars are started out of simple conflicts.
Dave Winer is often asking for people to be nice. He just doesn’t ask in the nicest way and someone objects on a small detail and off we go down the slippery slope to rancor.
Jason Calacanis is a lightning rod for lively debate. He’s a master of audience manipulation for personal benefit. Dave wants to surround himself with more of a peaceful greek chorus of well wishers. Or at least have the right to get openly upset when he feels to mood.
If you gunny sack your feelings for too long they come bursting out preceeded by the exclamation “That’s It!…” The threshold for restraint has been exceeded. Dave probably finds conferences so annoying because he spends too much time gunny sacking and can’t let the steam out. And he pays for that privilege. Ouch.
It’s better to pay for massages and access to beautiful beaches. Then the whole gunny sack baggage just gets left behind on the table or the sand. :^)
I think in this case Dave’s sympathy is being brought on by the man’s appearance which is a lot like Dave’s (albeit sans a ratty beard and about 50 pounds). Dave’s thought process is very emotional and when he characterizes someone in a certain way he doesn’t let go of it easily.
So he gets a glimpse of a guy that he relates to (probably not even realizing it’s because of the resemblance) and he jumps to that guy’s defense. Doesn’t matter that the guy he’s defending could very well have caused the death of 9 people through unsafe business practices or that the guy is the living embodiment of the “corporate-types” that Dave rails against daily. He’s a belligerent bald fat guy being attacked and that’s all Dave can see.
I wrote this in the comments to a post a little while back and I think it hold true…
I can’t think of any better example of that thought process then Dave defending this guy.
btw, also found this hilarious. Dave posted this paragraph and asked readers to count the Fs…
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
This puzzle is pretty old and plays on the fact that the human brain tends to skip over words like are, of, the, etc…
Anyway, Dave’s response shows a lot about him. He only found 3 (as anyone would). But there was more to that story…
I found three. I went back and counted and recounted, and I was sure there were just three. So I wrote a script to see what was going on. It said there are six! Mystifying.
This, to me, explains Dave to a tee. He may very well have been an intelligent man at one time but now he’s so set in the mindset of “my first thought on a subject is right” that he has to design a script to count the Fs because he just can’t break his initial mindset.
The number of people that fail to count all 6 F’s is extremely high. Nothing odd about Dave in that sense.
I’ve heard it has to do with internalizing the sound of the F as well and the word size for the “of”… there’s no aural trigger foir those F’s since of is phonetically pronounced “Uu-ve” and not Awf.
Count the F’s in:
Frank found the fish to be a bit off and asked for a bit more of the beef.
Did you get 8? or less?
PS> How about the impact of all UPPER CASE:
FRANK FOUND THE FISH TO BE A BIT OFF AND ASKED FOR A BIT MORE OF THE BEEF.
Still getting 8? or less?
My point was that Dave “counted and recounted” and still couldn’t get it and then wrote a script on the assumption that his initial response just could not be wrong. Anyone who isn’t clinically narcissistic is going to realize they’re missing Fs after being given the real answer.
He’s got an SUV? Ugh, what a hypocrite.
Actually no. Its a 4 door sedan that gets 16 mpg believe it or not.
Tom,
Do you have any idea how it it might Dave Winer to write that script in UserTalk? I’d quess it could be less than a minute. He probably dreams in UserTalk after 10+ years of coding in it continually.
That’s why he wants Frontier ported to Linux… so he can program more stuff in HIS language. He probably also wanted others to see and think about how a computer evaluates text. If the reader points to every character and asks is this an “F” they also the right answer. It’s seeing and vocalizing in chunks that make us go awry.
When Dave said “here’s a fat, ugly, old man, being defensive” I thought he was talking about himself.
Dave also doesn’t know how to watch the news. The mine owner is being criticized by the media for lying about the cause of the accident — his own dangerous mining practices. He’s not some poor powerless schlub any more than Dave is.