I will say this...

 As part of trying to put my YouTube content into Playlists, I started listening to "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill.

Now I will grant that Mill's stance on most things was one a Christian of his time would have taken.  But ya know, I listen to his arguments for listening to those who disagree and realize I'm not listening.

And then...

I counter to myself that my objection is not to disagreement with me. My argument is with listening to those who are not at all interested in disagreeing with me, because that might result in me disagreeing with them.  They don't want to dispute, they want to insult.  In their inflamed eyes, I am not wrong because of what I believe, I am wrong because I am stupid,  I must be because I don't immediately agree, and bow down to their indisputable superiority.

If you're looking to explain why you think I'm wrong, I'm likely to listen.

If you looking to explain how I'm a stupid POS for having the nerve to have a belief other than yours, thank you and the horse you rode in on and everything you stand for.

And your mother, and your mother's Army boots.  And your father, not that you know his name...

A great number of people disagree with me, and they are quite often correct.  

 On the other hand, I learned about bullying in Kindergarten, and my "zero tolerance for bullying" is a bit more radical than any school with a "Zero Tolerance For Bullying" policy, but has not zero bullying.  Gave me a whole 'nother attitude toward bullies.

I'm all about free speech.  But (a) your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose, and (b) your freedom to attempt to insult me ends at the end of your nose, if'n ya know wudda mean.

Let's talk.  (grin)

Griz

YouTube -- people seem interested, but do I have the skills?

 As it happens, for many of my podcasts over on grizzlysgrowls.com there are corresponding copies in automatically created video form over on YouTube.com. Basically it's a "card" of the cover graphic for the audio version with the audio attached.

Some folks have asked if I could turn those copies into playlists, and that isn't very hard if all the files actually made the trip to YouTube.  Where they didn't I'd have to find a way to either get the rest over or manually create these half-baked YouTube videos.  Or, I could re-record them with me in talking-head mode, thus making them more (or less) acceptable in YouTube.

One whole book (Eugenics) is now a playlist there, because I had all the files.

Everlasting Man is very popular, but not all the files are on the YouTube side.

There may be others I can turn into playlists successfully, but we'll see.

Really don't feel comfortable trying to do live or recorded videos.  Might be a lack of enthusiasm for my own appearance, might be an Autistic thing, might be a current lack of capacity to edit video.  Used to have a program for video editing, but that was when I was in broadcasting school, and that's long gone for whatever reason.

So... guess I'll do what I can, and scratch my head over the rest?

 

UPDATE:  I've now created playlists of five of the books I've recorded on my podcast.  Still have several to do.  In one, I wasn't able to include one chapter because I couldn't get Libsyn to resend the file, so I couldn't include it.

So possible, yes.  Easy, not so much.

Google-splaining

 So, two things:

Since I don't have Twitter anymore, I don't have a place to drop short bon mots I think are clever -- if they're not clever, they're not bon mots.

Other thing, Kewl Term from the "It's a Thing" podcast, namely: Google-splaining.  (Punctuation my own, choose your own.)  Somewhat derived from the term man-splaining, which same term annoys the heck out of me. But I digress.

Basically, when someone did a Google search or two ("my own research") and then feels they can explain the details of something to everyone, including people who actually understand the subject, they're Google-splaining.  They may have used any of the search engines, but it's Google-splaining.

I like the term for a number of reasons, especially that when you hear or see it you instantly know what it means.

Didn't ya?

Something nice

 Was being let through a bunch of YouTube shows about Star Trek, and ended up in "Star Trek Continues," a fan fiction collection of episodes intended to follow ST:TOS in the same style, with the same characters, albeit different actors.

Nice to see that Grant Imahara got to play Sulu.  I'm sure he was thrilled to have the opportunity, or so it seems to me.  Died a while back, but got to live some dreams.

Live your dreams while you're young enough, strong enough and healthy enough. You won't get more later, of any of the four.

Something stupid

 So, I made one really horrible pun on Twitter and got a big response.

Then I said something impulsive and in extremely bad taste and got a big response.  Most of it angry, and rightfully so, it was a terrible thing to say.

So I deleted the post and deactivated the account, and 30 days from now my account will be deleted, as long as I keep my hands off of it.

I don't want to be that guy, and I don't want to be in a place that makes me feel that way, so I am liable to just let it die.  Already quit Facebook months ago, I honestly forget how long.

Social media is not media, and neither is it particularly social.  So barring major changes, I'm done with it.

I apologize.  That was hideous.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lay dog

Well his is awkward.  Wanted to do a gadget video for the 

Gi Wi show.  I was going to show all three, well four, of my bluetooth keyboards, including this new iClever keyboard I really like.  When it works.

My third one was an iClever keyboard, foldy thing, lovely form factor.  Had to stop using that one when the D key stopped working. iClever keyboards are tri-fold, and it happened the D key is right on a fold, so I figured that was why it failed, so I got another of the same kind.  Worked fine, until the one letter key stopped working, not on a fold.  Can"t directly tell you which key stopped working, because I can"t type that one.  But okay, alphabet, X, then Y, and then... yeah, that one.

Hard to write an email to the GisWis without that key doncha know.  (sigh)

A bit of copy-and-paste from Twitter, because I can.

Was chatting with @jangles on Twitter and decided much of my post-by-post on twitter should be a longer-form article. And this ain't it, but this was easier.

 

 Funny, as you'd of course, know, we at #SecondLife have "owned the term" #metaverse for a long while now.

 I'm often struck by the similarity between the current "story" and GK Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man," where the character of The Church keeps coming back with "we've been doing that for ages now..."

 I am an expert on absolutely nothing, but I'd be happy to come on FIR and rant outrageously on the ongoing missed bet of #SecondLife. I'm sure @LindenLab wouldn't want me to. Not that they can apparently be bothered. (Heck, you've been on -my- podcast...)

 I shall have to skip ahead a bit then, I'm about a year behind on one of my podcatchers, not quite as far on the other, but I follow the FIR podcasts on both. So you and I are publicizing #SecondLife. Where's @LindenLab ? Didn't they used to have @EdelmanPR ??

 Stop by and say hi to Grizzly Silversmith sometime you're in the neighborhood. (grin) If they listened to me (they don't), @LindenLab would have you lead their PR efforts.

 "Including the community." The community is not virtual (checks) yep, I'm still a real person, all of us are. As for SL being "too fringe," well by definition if it does achieve mainstream adoption it's not "too fringe." And as for that technobump, all of them have one.

 Every online service has a "learning curve," a bump to get over to understand it enough to live there. The Wild West was supposed to be the theme, but the Rail Barons made an uglier and more industrial foundation, till it was no longer wild.

 Another often forgotten aspect of the Snowcrash Metaverse. SL tried to create the Metaverse and then bring businesses in. In Snowcrash, the businesses created their own connections, -then- everyone else came. Why and how is a good question. Check out M. Darusha Wehm 's series.

 Darusha's series creates imagery of a society built around a 3D immersive online reality, true. But the interactions of most are very pragmatic -- it's where you work, and on top of that it's a place to live. And life there can be as intense as anywhere else. Anyway...

So many of the obstacles of the Metaverse have already been faced, and to an extent overcome, well or badly. So many we haven't resolved are dealt with by the VR wannabes with vague waving of hands. Wanna see how AR does and doesn't work? Come to SL.  

Wanna see what happens when you open up your society to all comers, nice or not so much? " Ich bin ein Berliner." We've already been there, and we didn't find a great solution, but I suspect neither will They. But we will "pay any price, bear any burden..." We've proved that.

 So "I for one welcome our new Metaverse Overlords." Yeah, right. I ran a BBS back in the 1990s, and along came the Web with their so-much-better alternative, which doesn't work near as well, and sometimes not at all. I'm not skeptical, I'm realistic, because I live the reality.

 So, yeah, Metaverse guys, bring it on. But don't bring something lesser or something phony. Bring something better, or don't waste my time.

 I note that, sure, the VR Metaverse wannabes sometimes might produce a "butterflies and flowers" loving and cozy environment. But that's what you get if the only people who -can-come have to afford an expensive 3D headset. We've got "regular folks." Many are nice, not all are.

 If you want a snide comparison, the founders of the US created a noble society "where all men are created equal." In a society where all MEN were also land owners and often slave owners. Easier to be noble when you own someone else who does the work, and they're not included.

 Ditto for what the US actually became. Easy to say if you give folks all the truth they'll make wise decisions. But many won't, many will be manipulable, and some of those fooled will be the loudest voices when the news is circulated. And then there's news.

 I have a half-assed theory. Human societies always depended on our storytellers to inform us what is normal and righteous in our tribe. In the '60s our storytellers were TV fiction and TV/newspaper news. Now our storytellers are algorhythms, in particular Facebook and YouTube.

 But those algorhythms are -not- at all focused on providing with truth, righteousness or what should be. They search for engagement. And getting y'all pissed off is more engaging. So I suspect we're taught our truths are all about being pissed off. Anger and indignation are News.

 So my suspicion, my theory if you want to go that far, is that we're being taught our societal truth, our normal, is anger and rage and hate. We may, to save ourselves, need to kill the messenger. We need our storytellers back.

 I don't think you can kick off the bad behavers, because the algorhythms are telling them that hate and rage are anger are our social norms. So the behavers aren't going to stop, because they're being told by our Storytellers that -this- is Normal and Right.

 The part about convincing Managers to convince employees to support righteous behavior assumes that Our Glorious Leaders at the top actually want employees to actually -have- opinions, rather than wanting them to shut up and not say anything negative about the company.

 I saw with my last employers on the one hand create several mechanisms for employee communications -- and then make sure that "regular" employees never say anything they weren't told to say by the Bosses. Communication is both ways, or is non-existent.

 I understand why, I don't know I'd do better as a Boss, it's unlikely I would. But if you're unwilling to ask, you can't complain when you don't get answers. And when you get a Potemkin workplace, you get what you asked for, worthless as it is.

 And no, I understand exactly why I'm mostly unemployable. Might be another Autistic thing. I will tend to give an honest answer. And I tend to be utterly baffled by less-than-honest questions.