Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who researched far and wide after she had bought an HTC Desire HD. Many sites did she visit and many were the geek oracles who proffered fragments of wisdom, none possessing the full knowledge of the way to free the phone from the constant internet connections and back-up attempts of system apps known to adventurers as bloatware. The foul creature known only as Plurk, the invisible Facebook whose cold breath sucks the details of your life and broadcasts them to hordes of marketers trawling the seas, the voracious Newsfeed which exists only to feast on your precious mobile data rations - she vowed to conquer them all or void her warranty in the attempt.
Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Ninafat rose and dressed herself. She bound her sandals on to her comely feet, girded her charger about her shoulder and left her room looking like an immortal god. She walked out of her house towards the HTC cavern to claim control of her lands and slay the beasts within.
She was accompanied by her three hounds, faithful and fearless - Superuser, VISIONary+ and Titanium Backup PRO. Each with a special skill, when banded together the three hounds had the power to drive the most insidious and wretched system apps from her lands.
The first hound was VISIONary+, who had the ability to give its master full access to the dark recesses of their device, known to the initiatied as the root. Our hero, aware of the risks of progressing into warranty-voiding territory without an escape, laid a temproot rope along her path before she was confident enough to plunge into the darkness of the permroot. She was afraid of the unknowable darkness which could descend at any moment and brick her phone.
She then called upon her second hound, Superuser, which had the power to give her other hounds access to power of the root. Once called upon, superuser sat quietly, ready to leap into action.
The last step in the preparation was the summoning of Titanium Backup PRO. Her last hound was no doubt her most powerful weapon against the beasts which lurked ahead. It had the power to slay any app in her path and ensure that it could never rise from the dead to haunt her with updates. She made sure that Superuser understood that Titanium Backup PRO's calls for root access must always be honoured, on pain of death.
With her hounds primed for battle, she advanced into the first cavern. She ordered Titanium Backup PRO to massacre Facebook and its evil widget. Her hound asked for root permission and Superuser launched it across the cave. Titanium Backup PRO hid, strapped to the belly of a backup/restore menu, and approached the Facebook unregarded. Looking through the eyes of her hound, she located the rolling eye of the Facebook and held her finger down. A menu appeared. She scrolled. She ordered Titanium Backup Pro to force remove the app. The red hot beam beam plunged deeply into the Facebook's eye, til the boiling blood bubbled all over it so that the steam from the burning eyeball scalded his eyelids and eyebrows and the roots of the eye spluttered.
Blackness dropped around her and she held her breath for the torch she carried to relight. It finally illuminated and she saw that the beast was slain. She repeated the process for the widget and advanced deeper into the cavern. With newfound confidence she slaughtered the Plurk, the Newsfeed, the celebrity gossip app whose name she can no longer remember. After each cave was cleared of Vietnamese and Thai keyboard information, she walked to the light, followed by her three faithful hounds.
At the mouth of the cavern she turned and surveyed the land she had retaken, remapped, now knew and understood. She wondered why she should have to research, battle, sweat and swear to control a domain which should have been, from the beginning, hers to do with as she pleased. But the will of the everlasting gods is not turned suddenly and HTC sat in his ergonomic desk-chair on Mount Olympus, fuming over the impertinence of our hero and plotting his revenge.
Monday, 21 March 2011
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Earthquakes and the Violence of News
There's a video on youtube of a woman being lifted from a collapsed building. She is screaming at the person filming her, demanding to know how they dare to stand there and film her pain, take her experiences and convert them into news. It's very confronting because she's also screaming at you, the happy consumer of her life. She screams, "How dare you?" I have found myself asking the same question over the past few days.
I was born in Christchurch, my mother was born there as well. I lived the first 24 years of my life there. My family lives there, but most of my friends have left and only come back for Christmas. I left because I thought it was boring and safe.
I wasn't there for any of the three big earthquakes. Each time I've been sitting on a perch far away, peering down at the smoke and rubble.
So how dare we? I don't remember when it became our right to peer into the lives of others at their darkest moments. I also don't remember when adopting that perspective became synonymous with being an informed member of society.
The term awareness gets used a lot. Awareness is a very good thing, apparently. The 24 hour news cycle is bringing us all closer to the goal of total awareness of all things at all times. But I find that I vacillate between depression and indifference when faced with the suffering of people I have no connection with.
Let's imagine that a poster with the following text got put up in a number of public places last week:
You are never going to feel the way those people feel about what happened. And even if you could, how would that help them? And even if you did, for every disaster in every country, you would be paralysed by grief, unable to function.
I don't hate the media or the journalistic profession. But the job of journalists, as I see it, is to go out and find out new things, reveal hidden truths, bring injustices to light. To keep the bastards honest. When a woman is being lifted from a collapsed building and you're standing there shooting her, is that journalism? Is she one of the bastards you're keeping honest? How about when you throw that footage into a montage of teenagers crying and people bleeding from the head and running from crumbling buildings?
If you screen it, people will watch it. I did. When we drive past a car crash, most people look. It's a very human reflex. Whether this reflex should be nurtured, providing audiences with the ability to rubber-neck every car crash on every street is a question I don't think is being asked enough. It's a question of where the line is, where you move from the facts about a situation to shamelessly mining tragedy for minutes of television and inches of newspaper copy.
Let's see a building or two from the air. I'm fine with watching the press conferences held by public officials. But the process of converting human tragedy into news is a violent act. I don't know when it became so unthinkable that someone somewhere might be suffering without a camera in their face.
I was born in Christchurch, my mother was born there as well. I lived the first 24 years of my life there. My family lives there, but most of my friends have left and only come back for Christmas. I left because I thought it was boring and safe.
I wasn't there for any of the three big earthquakes. Each time I've been sitting on a perch far away, peering down at the smoke and rubble.
So how dare we? I don't remember when it became our right to peer into the lives of others at their darkest moments. I also don't remember when adopting that perspective became synonymous with being an informed member of society.
The term awareness gets used a lot. Awareness is a very good thing, apparently. The 24 hour news cycle is bringing us all closer to the goal of total awareness of all things at all times. But I find that I vacillate between depression and indifference when faced with the suffering of people I have no connection with.
Let's imagine that a poster with the following text got put up in a number of public places last week:
Earthquake in Christchurch today
It's bad
Lots of people killed and more trapped in buildings
Send money and call the people you love
You read it, or someone told you about it. That would be enough to make you aware of the situation.
You are never going to feel the way those people feel about what happened. And even if you could, how would that help them? And even if you did, for every disaster in every country, you would be paralysed by grief, unable to function.
I don't hate the media or the journalistic profession. But the job of journalists, as I see it, is to go out and find out new things, reveal hidden truths, bring injustices to light. To keep the bastards honest. When a woman is being lifted from a collapsed building and you're standing there shooting her, is that journalism? Is she one of the bastards you're keeping honest? How about when you throw that footage into a montage of teenagers crying and people bleeding from the head and running from crumbling buildings?
If you screen it, people will watch it. I did. When we drive past a car crash, most people look. It's a very human reflex. Whether this reflex should be nurtured, providing audiences with the ability to rubber-neck every car crash on every street is a question I don't think is being asked enough. It's a question of where the line is, where you move from the facts about a situation to shamelessly mining tragedy for minutes of television and inches of newspaper copy.
Let's see a building or two from the air. I'm fine with watching the press conferences held by public officials. But the process of converting human tragedy into news is a violent act. I don't know when it became so unthinkable that someone somewhere might be suffering without a camera in their face.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Dear Australia,
I don't give a fuck about your children. Leave the internet alone. It's full of bomb recipes, midget porn and subversive organisations and that's just the way I like it.
Of course, you don't get any of this content unless you're looking for it. So is it the fact that the internet is so bad that upsets you poor, put-upon parents, or is it the fact that you have reared stubby deviants who seek out filth and depravity wherever it may be?
You did the same, only in the reference section of the library, where the dirtiest things you could find were the colour illustrations in The Human Body. You laughed, you drew delicate drops of cum shooting out of bits and pieces, then you got on with your life.
What about predators? Your kid is still more likely to be raped by someone you know and trust. Some psychologists studied and published some interesting findings. For those who are too lazy to click, they basically say you're idiots and should stop watching ACA.
Here's a solution which could save everyone a lot of money, time and frustration - put the computer in the living room. But your 9 year old has a laptop? Your 9 year old is a spoilt little shithead and nothing they see on the internet could ruin them as comprehensively as you already have. So rest easy!
Of course, you don't get any of this content unless you're looking for it. So is it the fact that the internet is so bad that upsets you poor, put-upon parents, or is it the fact that you have reared stubby deviants who seek out filth and depravity wherever it may be?
You did the same, only in the reference section of the library, where the dirtiest things you could find were the colour illustrations in The Human Body. You laughed, you drew delicate drops of cum shooting out of bits and pieces, then you got on with your life.
What about predators? Your kid is still more likely to be raped by someone you know and trust. Some psychologists studied and published some interesting findings. For those who are too lazy to click, they basically say you're idiots and should stop watching ACA.
Here's a solution which could save everyone a lot of money, time and frustration - put the computer in the living room. But your 9 year old has a laptop? Your 9 year old is a spoilt little shithead and nothing they see on the internet could ruin them as comprehensively as you already have. So rest easy!
We fucked each other up
When I had my first psychologist appointment, I spent most of it talking about my sister. A few months later I told her this on the phone, and she laughed and said, "So did I." Touche.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
ninafat - the creation myth
The title of this blog is slightly deceiving, in that my name is Nina but I'm not actually fat. Not on the outside, at least. A sports physiology tester at the University of Swinburne described me as 'skinny fat', where a person looks normal but actually has a low lean muscle mass and high body fat percentage. Her calipers said I was practically obese. I told the calipers their mother was a monkey wrench and that they were just glorified nutcrackers. The calipers got so upset they had to take the rest of the day off. I recommend fitness testing at the University of Swinburne to those who want to be pinched, insulted and poorer.
However, the term skinny-fat actually describes me quite well. As a child I was chubby, and as a teenager I was fat. This fatness coincided with the time of your life where you establish your adult personality and sense of self. So no matter how thin I am on the outside, I am a fat person inside.
The fat person inside me still remembers what it was like to be fat. I felt sexless, unattractive and invisible and I was treated accordingly. There are fat people who wear it with panache but I was not one of them. I tended to overcompensate by being loud, mean or trying to be funny. That's still my default setting when I'm feeling a bit miserable.
When I lost a lot of weight in a short period of time I was suddenly visible. People came up to talk to me at parties. People looked at me more during group conversations. I didn't need to be funny or loud to get people to notice me. Anyone who doubts that people who look better get treated differently is on another planet. They say, "Oh, but you felt better about yourself, that's why people reacted to you differently." That's bullshit. As soon as I stepped away from the mirror I would forget that I had lost weight. I spent years as a thin person sitting with my arms crossed to prevent an imaginary stomach avalanche.
I compare peoples' behaviour towards me with my baseline of standard behaviour formed when I was fat. The difference is most marked with new acquaintances, and really doesn't register with people who have known me for years. I take note of all disparities with the fat standard and judge the offenders quite severely.
In this sense I am, and will always be, ninafat. A nickname which was coined by my highschool friend's particularly unimaginative little brother, but which somehow describes me perfectly.
However, the term skinny-fat actually describes me quite well. As a child I was chubby, and as a teenager I was fat. This fatness coincided with the time of your life where you establish your adult personality and sense of self. So no matter how thin I am on the outside, I am a fat person inside.
The fat person inside me still remembers what it was like to be fat. I felt sexless, unattractive and invisible and I was treated accordingly. There are fat people who wear it with panache but I was not one of them. I tended to overcompensate by being loud, mean or trying to be funny. That's still my default setting when I'm feeling a bit miserable.
When I lost a lot of weight in a short period of time I was suddenly visible. People came up to talk to me at parties. People looked at me more during group conversations. I didn't need to be funny or loud to get people to notice me. Anyone who doubts that people who look better get treated differently is on another planet. They say, "Oh, but you felt better about yourself, that's why people reacted to you differently." That's bullshit. As soon as I stepped away from the mirror I would forget that I had lost weight. I spent years as a thin person sitting with my arms crossed to prevent an imaginary stomach avalanche.
I compare peoples' behaviour towards me with my baseline of standard behaviour formed when I was fat. The difference is most marked with new acquaintances, and really doesn't register with people who have known me for years. I take note of all disparities with the fat standard and judge the offenders quite severely.
In this sense I am, and will always be, ninafat. A nickname which was coined by my highschool friend's particularly unimaginative little brother, but which somehow describes me perfectly.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
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