Stumbleupon: Are Wiki pages Approriate for Stumble?.

This post exists to address an issue I was recently made aware of. It may seem trivial to some but to me SU represent a leap in technology as important to the internet as search engines.

SU is a human driven information sorting tool, a system of distributed processing designed to arrive at what I like.

This has implications across the human spectrum if one takes a moment to think about it in relation to the fact that humans learn about them selves largely from exterior reactions since self knowledge is subjective and therefor valueless in the scientific sense.

As a result Stumbleupon is extremely important for a huge number of reasons as varied as why search engines or the telephone are important.

Thanks gumbypiz, I appreciate it :)

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Innomen 10:06am http://gumbypiz.stumbleupon.com/review/14821327/

Bravo. There are a great many subjects where people need to get over the past, and have a nice tall glass of perspective.

But you're dead wrong about wiki pages (and Dark Knight) :)

Stumble is about discovery in general. I regularly get wiki pages in stumble that are fascinating.

Example: Lets say I find a crappy geocities page about a mine fire, or a massive sink hole or some other real world anomaly that interests me, but the page I find is garbage, it just a link and short subjective text, so I go get the wiki page instead and its far more detailed and complete, and I share this with a friend instead of the crappy original. Have I seriously harmed stumble upon? Clearly not.

Or maybe I hear about some bullshit new act being pushed through congress and the most detailed single page I can find on it is a wiki.

To make such a sweeping condemnation is just asking for trouble. It seems you misunderstand. Stumble is about discovery of information of interest, the form it takes is irrelevant. Wiki pages may disinterest you (all of them!?), but you obviously do not speak for stumblers generally.

The only thing that really hurts stumble upon are the spammers, and the neglect of the admins, imo.

gumbypiz 10:54pm

Thanks for the response, but I'm pretty fixed on my position.
No offense, each is entitled to their own opinion. I'm VERY adamant about Wiki pages not being SU worthy.
Specifically, I don't see how one person looking up a subject they like on Wiki is worth my time. ANYONE can go to and type in a movie or subject they like and stumble it, but that doesn't make it worth submitting on SU. Its lazy, its not imaginative, its not SU quality.
Again, can you imagine if every 12 year old went online to Wiki pages and looked up every video game, movie title and boy band they liked and submitted it on SU? I've seen the quality of stumbles on SU drop dramatically, and I truly believe we have to be more discerning of what gets placed here on SU or we ALL suffer. As long as Wiki pages have input from whoever the heck wants to put unsupported or unresearched "information" on there its not worth looking at in my SU queue. I can read the Star or the Enquirer and get just as useful or truthful reading...
And as you said, SU is about discovery, what is so special or "discovered" by someone typing in their favorite band or movie in the wiki search bar? Just because you searched for it through a database doesn't make it a discovery. Its "there" already to find. Thats not a discovery as much as someone submitting a listing of search hits through Google (although people do that annoying thing too). How about the next time I look through Websters and find a word I haven't seen before and list it as "discovered". Thats just as much what you do when you submit a wiki or IMDb page. Lets follow Columbus's idea of discovery like when he "discovered" the new world (as if it wasn't already there). Getting my point?

As far as sweeping statements, I've been making this one about both people stumbling Wiki and IMDb pages for some time, a couple years now on SU...and I'm most certainly NOT the only one with this strong dislike of stumbling them. Go back through my blog on SU that are Wiki pages and you will see by reading the reviews of them, without question I'm not the only one disliking Wiki pages as stumble material. Actually, among those who dislike these type of stumbles, I have to say I'm much more subtle in making my dislike clear. Some are a lot more unfriendly about it.
As far as Batman, well, really, unless you are a comic freak (as I once was) each release of a new comic based movie just gets me down. And you have to admit, Batman has not had a great run. How many of these films have to be made, doesn't the sheer # of these films kinda reveal that there is an inherent problem with translating the comic hero or Dark Knight to the screen? (And I'm NOT impressed by Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk, or the other lame attempts Hollywood has bombed at either).
Well, like I said, stick to your guns, and I'll keep thumbing down and expressing my dislike of bad and unworthy SU stuff like Wiki and IMDb.
Nice talking to you though.

Innomen 11:39pm Eh, that's cool.

Lazy is a loaded bullshit term.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/563565/In-Praise-of-Lazy

“ANYONE can go to and type in a movie or subject they like and stumble it...”

That would be the point?

"Again, can you imagine if every 12 year old went online to Wiki pages and looked up every video game, movie title and boy band they liked and submitted it on SU?"

Eh, yea and I'd never see any of them that didn't interest me thanks to the interest and tagging system. Again that's the point of stumble. I'd happily have the entire internet dumped into SU. You have a strange picture of what SU is, its not dig, its not some autocratic list of some guys faves, its an information sorting tool.

"I truly believe we have to be more discerning of what gets placed here on SU or we ALL suffer"

hehe exactly wrong, that's why SU is cool because we don't have to know anything more than our own interests and yet it works. That's its genius.

"I can read the Star or the Enquirer and get just as useful or truthful reading..."

Wow you really are an authoritarian aren't you. I'll not debate the veracity of consensus and crowd sourcing with you, but allow me to link you to what generally would be my response to that entire idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes

"Just because you searched for it through a database doesn't make it a discovery. Its "there" already to find."

By that logic Google obviates SU. The whole point is so you don't have to go looking it finds you.

"How about the next time I look through Websters and find a word I haven't seen before and list it as "discovered". Thats just as much what you do when you submit a wiki or IMDb page."

I wouldn't have a problem with that, in fact I was subscribed to the dictionary.com word of the day for about two years. If you did it to every word eventually only the interesting ones would reach me unless you mistagged and mislabeled them which is not what we are talking about.

"...and I'm most certainly NOT the only one with this strong dislike of stumbling them."

That's extremely ironic coming from the guy that thinks authority trumps consensus. :P

"unless you are a comic freak"

That's like saying "unless you are a book freak". Comic books are book with pictures. Sure some are puerile and childish but others are serious works with real idea. Go read Sandman or Transmetropolitcan for example. (edit: or The Walking Dead)

"How many of these films have to be made"

As many as people like? Its not for you to censor the world of all things you dislike :) You seem to think of your opinion as objective, that's a big logical pit you're leaping into. And yes the batman movies by and large suck, but others disagree and if it makes them happy, without harm, well I don't see the harm. :)

Nice talking to you also. :) I stick to my guns so long as they shoot straight. :) I don't debate with a closed mind. *shrugs*

Mind if I post this conversation to my blog? If the wiki debate is common, (you're the first I've met and I've been here for two years), I'd like to make my position public.

SU is important to me.

Innomen 1:05am "Lazy, a bullshit term, but you did understand my meaning so it does have its impact."

Completely. Did you read my essay?

"And despite you faith in the system, despite the tagging and interest system, I STILL get this stuff in my SU queue."

That's a technical issue and will improve with time, but that's not the complaint you made. Otherwise you'd be attacking SU's administration, not the users choice of input.

"So I think I can have my say and voice my views on the people that submit the stuff I don't want to see after having used every method on SU to not have it brought my way."

Obviously you have the right to say anything, imo. But your argument for is somewhat like saying its ok to murder the guy you dislike because you've exhausted all legal recourse.

"So what is YOUR point here?"

I debate logical inconsistency for fun, ultimately I have no point, but then again ultimately life has no point :)

"you are going to make me feel uninformed or label me because you don't agree? (etc)"

My intention is not to cause you suffering. I can't make you feel anything. If I could make people feel things it would be a general non local love for all humans. If you;'re angry maybe its because I have a point? I "know" I'm right, so I'm not even remotely annoyed.

"Have you really looked at my blog of SU? If you did, or you've been on SU for as long as you say you have you'd see I'm not in anyway exaggerating about the number of others who do not appreciate Wiki pages on SU."

The burden of proof problem of demanding that I research your claim not withstanding, go look at my join date, I've been here two years. I'm sorry your pet peeve never crossed my path, but its a huge internet out there. *shrugs*

eBay bought SU a year ago. And again your logic has issues, because google doesn't buy rival search engines they buy new services to add diverse functions, so google clearly agree with me that google does not make SU pointless.

You're obviously getting angry. I'll just drop it.

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Having just learned that eBay owns stumble I feel nauseous. :(

Prostitution, and Taco Bell

A friend of mine inspired an explanation that I'd like to make public.

"I'm not ready to throw away romantic notions of a perfect companion."

Me either, I just know it can't be human. Humans can not act selflessly. It's like asking a wasp to be non-violent. It's a genetic impossibility. Selfish gene, breeds a selfish organism.

I want a mate that wants me happy first and foremost. We all do, as is evidenced by all the absurd claims of selfless love made in romantic comedies, shows, dramas, and songs, but if that were really the case, why would monogamy exist?

Because its a lie meant to assuage insecurity. They want you to think they're selfless for you, but if they really were they'd share you at times. From the male perspective an example is easy to find.

Picture this.

Couple in bed, guy wants sex, girl does not. Now normally the guy just has to jerk off or go without. I envision a world where the guy says, “Well, I'm going down to the love hotel, cool? (I love the Japanese) and the girl is like, “Right on just be quiet when you come back I gotta get up early.”

In the future his option instead of the hotel will be his sex bot.

Now before you think that's outlandish, here's a similar situation with a different animal need.

Same couple in bed, guy wants food, girl doesn't feel like cooking. Now the guy has to get food himself or go without. We live in a world where the guy's like, “Well, I'm going down to the Taco Bell, cool? (I love beef and potato burritos, no red sauce, grilled) and the girl is like, “Right on just be quiet when you come back I gotta get up early.”

Now don't tell me monogamy is about avoiding contagion, because eating out is just the same. Regulate it if you must, make it safe, sure, but saying prostitution should be illegal because it spreads disease is the same as saying eating out should be illegal because of e-coli and salmonella.

Now I am sure there are female equivalents. I won't speak to them because I'm not female.

But honestly, making it so you can only have sex with one person or you don't 'love' them is as stupid as saying you can only eat one person's cooking, and making a sandwich for yourself means you're a loser. Sex is hunger without the need for other life forms. Defending monogamy by saying you won't die from lack of sex, is like saying “Well a person can live on rice water and vitamins, so lets make all other kinds of food illegal.”

It's not about living, its about the enjoyment of life. It's about the freedom to choose what love is, and how to seek it. It's about Freedom. And no argument to my mind attacking freedom can stand in this context.

Nude Photography is not Art

Sorry for some nude stumbles i have been stumbling this week, actually i like it as an ART.

I recently fished this gem off a Stumbleupon page of a person with like 600 fans claiming to be a single woman from England. Naturally, her avatar photo looks like a 15 year old leaving for the mall.

Now I don't know this woman, never even spoke to her, or even read her blog other than her profile page, she may actually be what she claims to be, and may not be selling an image to promote various online enterprises, she may also be the most compassionate intelligent woman on the face of the earth. Though I must admit a measure of doubt.

But she's just the straw that broke the camel's back on a subject I've been meaning to speak about. I love a little hottie as much as the rest of you, in fact when I build my robot lover, I'll use photos lifted from 'nude art' blogs as a base for her construction I'm sure.

But I really need to make a point clear here about erotic photography claimed as art. The women may be attractive but you need to understand why. They are not beautiful like a sunset is beautiful. Consider, if it were nude 400 pound flabby hairy men?That's just as much a miracle of biology. Hell even more so. A healthy young woman doesn't inspire any question other than "How best could I sell my soul as her slave to acquire a millisecond of sexual service?" Flabby behemoths are far more interesting, you find yourself thinking "How does it even walk?"

Sex is not art.

I love hearing people try to say artsy things about nude photos. "Look how the light catches her smooth rounded breasts." That would so not work if the subject was a new york truck driver."Look how the light catches his lumpy asymmetrical frontbutt."

Sex is sex and there's nothing wrong with it. After all, I'm the guy that wants to deregulate prostitution, eliminate age limits in favor of a true maturity/inteligence based citizenship test, populate the world with thinking feeling, loving, AI driven or grown sex dolls, and annihilate all sex/relationship/marriage/love law beyond overt harm such as rape, privacy invasion, assault, etc. Flaunt it if ya got it I say, but don't try to make us fight over it. Because people get hurt that way. If you're gunna show off your cookies, be ready to share, or at least sell for a fair price.

Point is, I'm no prude. But confusing sex with art is dishonest. We live in a world that is grossly sexually oppressed. Sex has come to equal art because religion has made sex dirty, corporations have made sex costly, and government has made sex a crime, so we say that our porn is art to keep our girlfriends, wallets, and freedom.

It's REALLY pissing me off.

We say beautiful when we mean fuckable. We say fresh when we mean fuckable. We say adorable when we mean fuckable. And we say Art when we mean porn. Along with all the other advertising and lyrical euphemisms for sex and sexual service. There's virtually no compliment you can pay a girl these days that can't be easily translated or doubled into some sex reference. And calling porn art does not bloody well help. Now don't get me wrong, there are forms of erotic art, The Story of O, I bow before that books greatness for example, but paying a hottie to squirm on the hood of a 300k$ car is not it.

99.99999999999999999% of erotic photographers are closet Johns. (and Janes?)

Bullshit Photographer: “I'm not paying for a sexual favor, I'm making ART, yea thats it, ART. Now here Britney, grip this riding crop in your teeth, squish your tits together, arch your back, and crawl for me.”

Every popular musician has turned into a strip tease artist, singing what amount to one way phone sex into cd's and selling it. I didn't choose the name Britney by chance. Everyone loves a school girl in a short skirt asking “Hit me baby one more time.” Come on, a whole generation of people wanted to pretend they had a spanking fetish like me for 30 seconds when they first saw that video. Girls to, because they saw the effect it was havering on the guys. “You mean I can sport a plaid mini skirt, white panties, with little girl pigtails, and get whatever I want from half the population? Where do I sign up?”

Ticketmaster and Tower Records apparently. And now fucking Stumbleupon as well.

If I had the money I would hire a professional photographer to do nudes of myself styled after each and every one of these so called art pages, white are always full of black and white child like nude models or shaven muscle bound metrosexuals, and see how many people still call it art when it's my flat hairy behind pressed up against the windshield.

Art is something you create, something from your mind and hands. Good photography is an art because of what it takes to get that shot and set construction timing etc. Nude photography is not art. Any funded jack ass can pay a hottie to strip somewhere and squirm around on something while he takes 10,000 photos and pick out the one where she stopped looking like a pill head with ruined dreams of nursing long enough for the shutter to click.

I see living barbie girl #345,836,385 squirming in the sand in front of a beautiful sunset, and I think, I wish that greedy vapid bitch would go get a job that involves actual work and move so I can see that sunset better. And I wish that asshole with the money for a 12mp camera and a trip to Tahiti would take pictures of something without breasts that I can make my back ground without turning my computer into the equivalent of a sticky centerfold scotch taped to the wall in a 15 year old's closet.

Any of my regular readers notice my complete lack of compunction with regard to the personal and subjective tone of this piece? That right. Expect more of this because like is said before.

I'm fucking done.

Know Thyself

A friend of mine started a great little discussion and gave me permission to repost it. So here it is! I've grammar checked her, so any mistakes are mine, not hers.

At the risk of getting in over my head - I've read your debates on your blog - but I completely do not agree with 'You don't know yourself as well as those outside you can know you.' how is that possible?

Awww, what a sweet thing to say.

This one is easy. What I meant is that perfect introspection is a doomed process, or put another way as the truism says, knowing yourself is the hardest thing a person can do.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fjbWr3ODbAo

He explains it better than I, but just so you don't accuse me of copping out I'll give it a stab.

You can't know your mind because you are infinity bias, and you're infinitely close to the problem.

I think you can know your own mind better than anyone else and that is it possible to have unbiased introspection. sure you probably can't have it all the time but I think it's possible to have moments. why else do people change aspects of themselves that they don't like or seek to better themselves? I know you'll probably say it's because of societal pressures or something like that and maybe I'm way too naive but I do believe that I know myself better than anyone else. mostly because I live here inside my own head.

what about Buddhism and enlightenment? the way to nirvana is through perfect self-knowledge. I seriously do not want to get into a debate with you - mostly because you'll kick my arse. I'm really curious about what you think

"sure you probably can't have it all the time but I think it's possible to have moments."

But that's the perennial question isn't it. How do you know those moments when they come, from delusion? The only way you actually can know is through evidence, and for evidence you need a control group or some objective reference and since your mind and perspective are unique and infinitely subjective, that will be a tough find. Without evidence your opinion becomes faith, or philosophy, which is fine, but you also surrender any right to say "I'm objectively correct."

It's like rolling dice and guessing what comes up, sure you're gunna be right sometimes, but knowing when isn't possible, unless you're psychic of course, at which point knowing would merely be a different way of seeing and thus wouldn't be a guess at all.

"why else do people change aspects of themselves that they don't like or seek to better themselves?"

As you predicted, I say largely because of the information they glean from others' reactions to them. However. How much of that self knowledge is truly self derived? We spend our lives surrounded by other people. That said, just because you have accurate self data, does not mean it originated with you. Perhaps someone told you something about yourself and you just later found it to be true via exterior evidence.

Or of course maybe its not true at all and you're laboring under a false assumption in the first place, that something about you needs to be changed. Just because you think you should do something doesn't mean you actually should, even with regard to your own goals.

The question is how do you know? And the answer is always outside yourself. And before you ask, how I know is by logic and inference. In much the same way as I may not know what the 60 billionth digit of pie is, but I know it's a positive number between 0 and 9.

"what about Buddhism and enlightenment? the way to nirvana is through perfect self-knowledge."

Much like people misunderstand the light speed barrier, people misunderstand what is meant there by "self knowledge". Consider, Buddhism also teaches us that all things are one, and thus what we call the outside (outside of our body, not outside the universe) is merely a part of a greater singularity. In that context yes one could have perfect self knowledge without the aid of an "outside", but only because from a Buddhist perspective outside is inside, or put another way there is no "outside".

Thank you for your time and simulation :)

What about those moments when you realize that something you're doing or have been doing for a long time just doesn't 'feel' right anymore? is that feeling influenced by the 'outside' world or by others' input? You seem to understand a lot more about Buddhism than do most western people I know. That makes me happy

Only in so far as their reactions to you influence your perception of yourself. My intention is not to invalidate anyone's emotions. What you feel is genuine, but it also does not exist independent of the world. Relationship is by definition mutual impact, but granted that impact can have wide variety in terms of degree. Analogy: The nail also effects the hammer.

"You seem to understand a lot more about Buddhism than do most western people I know. that makes me happy"

Heheh you'll love this.

http://innomen.blogspot.com/2008/04/American-buddha.html

The End.