Now, a slight digression. Back when the internet was new (and I’m not entirely exaggerating with that), the Jargon File was created as a living encyclopedia of words, phrases, terms, and events common to the geek communities of the day. In that document are the original definitions for the term “troll” as used in the electronic world.

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase “trolling for newbies” which in turn comes from mainstream “trolling”, a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT.

2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, “Oh, ignore him, he’s just a troll.” Compare kook.

Where today, “troll” is almost universally understood as the second of the above quoted definitions — a person solely out to provoke annoyance — I’ve always preferred the first definition. In that sense, a properly constructed troll is something I’ve always respected.

The comments for yesterday evening’s io9 post about the Hobbit trailer contain a beautiful example of trolling in the old sense (“…a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”). This comment gave me a good laugh this morning:

Yawwwn, sequelitis strikes again.

Hey Hollywood, how long’d it take you to come up with yet another unnecessary backstory?! Do we really need to go with Frodo’s dad on his quest to find the ring?

I bet they’ll dumb it down and make it all kiddy too. Hard R or I ain’t watchin!

How much you wanna bet they’ll figure out a way to shoehorn half-a-dozen giant spiders to compete with the one they had in LOTR2.

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a troll is supposed to be done.

Part 2: The Spin

Gawker: ‘It’s a Food Product, Essentially’: Fox News Starts Spinning Pepper Spray Cops

“I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police,” O’Reilly says, “particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.” God forbid! We’d never want to question Lt. John Pike’s decision to generously and indifferently dust peacefully sitting protesters with pepper spray from only a few feet away. Especially given that Davis is, you know, a liberal campus! And, gosh, even if we were going to Monday-morning quarterback the police, shouldn’t we remember, as Megyn Kelly tells O’Reilly, that pepper spray is “a food product, essentially”?

Part 3: The Science

Scientific American: About Pepper Spray

…commercial grade pepper spray leaves even the most painful of natural peppers (the Himalayan ghost pepper) far behind. It’s listed at between 2 million and 5.3 million Scoville units. The lower number refers to the kind of pepper spray that you and I might be able to purchase for self-protective uses. And the higher number? It’s the kind of spray that police use, the super-high dose given in the orange-colored spray used at UC-Davis.

Part 4: The Humor

Product Reviews

Amazon: Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray

Accept no substitutes when casually repressing students: Whenever I need to breezily inflict discipline on unruly citizens, I know I can trust Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray to get the job done! The power of reason is no match for Defense Technology’s superior repression power. When I reach for my can of Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray, I know that even the mighty First Amendment doesn’t stand a chance against its many scovil units of civil rights suppression.

More than just pepper spray!!!: First, this baby has everything you would expect from Defense Technology brand pepper spray. It burns like hell. Whether you’re spraying directly into eyes or mouths - this will cause excruciating pain.

Second, and I know it’s not explicitly listed as one the uses on the can, but it’s also an amazing human arm de-linker. So if you have this gigantic public space and a dozen people are sitting there with their arms linked - this will really help in your effort to de-link those arms.

#MegynKellyEssentials

The #MegynKellyEssentials tag is worth watching on Twitter. It seems to have grown out of the comments to the Gawker post linked above. Some choice bits snagged from the Gawker comments:

Megyn Kelly on fire hoses: “It’s a sports beverage, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on rubber bullets: “It’s a pencil eraser, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on hand grenades: “It’s a Fourth of July firework, essentially! God bless America.”
Megyn Kelly on nightsticks: “It’s an olive branch, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on waterboarding: “It’s a Neti Pot, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on genital mutilation: “It’s a Brazilian wax, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on zip-tie handcuffs: “It’s a Livestrong bracelet, essentially.”
Megyn Kelly on HIV: “It’s a common cold, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on the rack: “It’s a chiropractor, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on mustard gas: “It’s a hot dog condiment, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on nuclear weapons: “It’s a microwave dinner, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on sound weapons: “It’s a boom box, essentially!”

I support the #occupy movement. But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that if every one of the #occupy protesters actually voted, there are a lot of races that wouldn’t be as close as they end up being. If every #occupy protester told their friends to vote — and not just, “you should vote,” but “no, seriously, YOU SHOULD VOTE, we’re going to the polls/filling out our ballots now,” a lot of races wouldn’t even be close.

Yes, protests are important. Yes, we need to make our voices heard. But we also need to remember that shouting in the streets isn’t the only way to make our voices heard. Fill out your ballot. Put it in the mail. Put it in a drop box. If you don’t live somewhere where you can vote by mail, then take the hour out of your day to go to the polls.

But don’t ignore your right to vote, then bitch because nothing ever changes.

And don’t whine that “my vote doesn’t make a difference,” or “it’s just one vote.” Over the past couple decades, we’ve seen too many elections, national and local, where recounts were triggered because the final tally was so close. A few more votes — those tiny, insignificant, single votes — all of a sudden aren’t so minuscule.

#occupythevote

On September 20, 2011, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” will officially become past tense. More: Washington Post. Here’s the document (PDF) memorializing the transition.

We get a lot of sexist narratives about love, but none of them are more pernicious and subtle than this: The Frog Prince story. You could call it “Beauty and the Beast,” too. Or you could call it “Twilight,” or “Knocked Up,” or “Rory Williams Won’t Stop Whining;” it’s always the same story, anyway. Girl meets guy. On the surface, this guy is unappealing! Because he’s a frog! Or he’s not sexually attractive to her, or he treats her badly, or he’s immature, or he’s Rory Williams and he won’t stop whining; all of these are frog-like states, generally considered unkissable. But only a bitch would think that frogs don’t deserve our sweet, sweet kisses, so the woman doesn’t leave. Instead, she looks for the guy’s good qualities. She lowers her standards; she changes her expectations. She gives up on her silly little “ideas” about “attractiveness” or “compatible lifestyles” or “having fun with her partner.” Finally, she loses touch with her own desires to the point that she winds up making out with a fucking frog. At which point he becomes a prince. Or a loving husband, or a responsible person, or a whiny little Roman Centurion; the point is, in these stories, once you give up on wanting things from men, men magically become what you want.

Here’s the secret, though, if you are the girl in this particular story: That guy never became a prince. At all. He’s still the same guy; he still possesses all those qualities you initially found unappealing, for all sorts of valid reasons. People don’t go from frog to mammal overnight, and they particularly don’t do so because you ask less of them; you are still making out with a frog, in the long run. The only reason he looks like a prince nowadays is that you lowered your standards to the point that you literally could not tell the difference between frog and mammal. It’s not that you got what you wanted; it’s that you settled for wanting what you got. And that is the precise opposite of a happy ending.

The Shining: Spatial Awareness and Set Design Part One:

The Shining: Spatial Awareness and Set Design Part Two:

(via Daring Fireball)

February 28th and August 8th look like especially good days to me.

Well, you can’t keep a good thing down — we’re now also featured in the Awkward Family Photos game!

Based on a popular website, Awkward Family Photos will be your new favorite party game! Combines classic and never- seen-before Awkward Family Photos with probing, open ended questions for a memorable game night full of laughter and creative discussion. Simply flip over an Awkward Family Photos featuring uncomfortable moments from weddings, vacations, and holidays and read aloud the open ended questions. Your hilarious answers guarantee a night of awkward fun…. and if you know your fellow players well enough, and impress them with your answers, you’ll get the last laugh.

Here’s the sales pitch, courtesy of AFP co-founder Mike Bender’s grandparents:

The advocates of ID, who are arguing that their belief should be included in science classes in Texas, Tennessee and other states, say that if a living organism has a design that cannot be explained by the theory of natural selection, it is proof of an Intelligent Designer. If you consider a Camaro, for example, wouldn’t it obviously have had a Designer? Could its parts have been assembled by a hurricane (or a trillion hurricanes) blowing through a junkyard?

Certainly not. Therefore, this is proof that Autobots were not assembled on Cybertron by hurricanes or any other means envisioned by Darwin, and were Intelligently Designed. That makes the Transformers series a compelling parable for ID, and I expect several of this year’s Republican presidential candidates to recommend the movies on that basis alone.

Roger Ebert, making the case for Intelligent Design…at least within the universe of the Transformers.