Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2009 June 17

# (1) 17 Jun 2009, 12:00AM: Like Twitter, But All In One Handy Package: Recent out-of-context quotes, nearly all from my sent emails:

Zenophiliac: someone who never quite gets anything done.

Not just A men, but like 5 men to that.

They can't all be gems used in lasers.

I got typed during a party at WisCon and am probably an ENTJ, or possibly an ENTP, or ENFJ, WAIT THIS IS HOROSCOPES WITH 4 BONUS OPTIONS.

Obama saying cautious things that display our desire for free & fair elections, while preserving our ability to engage with Iran no matter who wins this fight: dictionary definition of diplomatic.

Bibimbap is like the Mahabharata -- everything's in there.

Regular vegetarians need to be able to point at PETA and say "well we're not THAT" in an Overton window-expanding way, like MLK was to Malcolm X.

[Re: Swine flu] I'm moving to Madagascar.

# (10) 17 Jun 2009, 09:25AM: Clothes Make The Man Feel Old: Reflection upon dressing this morning: I've owned these pants for nine years. I bought them in that church basement thrift shop on...Dana? Bowditch? in Berkeley. Huh. I think I've had that purple tee shirt for more than half my life.

How old is the oldest piece of clothing that you regularly wear?

# (5) 17 Jun 2009, 09:34AM: The Cool Old Rhetorical Technique That's Sweeping The Discourse: From yesterday's co-working session:

Toby was working on her novel. In one scene, she got stuck: she wanted to express one character's mental response to what another character said, but not actually state it out loud as "What she thought of what he had just said was blah blah blah."

I suggested paralipsis, perhaps in the form "she narrowly avoided saying [x]" or "'That's terrible,' she didn't say." Common examples of paralipsis: "I'm not going to say 'I told you so'" and the "I come to bury Caesar..." speech. I ended up bringing out A Perfect Vacuum by Lem as a reference.

It worked! Paralipsis: I don't have to tell you how great it is.