Posted by Eudaemonic Pie on Jan 25, 2002 at 14:33
pppa83-resalecarsoncity1-1r7409.dialinx.net (4.16.206.112)
Re: Venting my stolen spleen -- A Plea for Help! (maybe psychotherapy?) (bobbapink)
Dear Bobba The Pinkest,
For a few years, the University of Chicago hosted a truly interactive website for scientists who let down, expressed self doubt, and went into Founatainheadian modes of truly interactive non-turf-guarding, free thinking, and in formats of 2 page editorials to 30 page essays -- these lengthy posts were truly interactive and spontaneous.
I got addicted.
Alas, it's taken down.
For a host of personal reasons, that above kind of orientation (non-turf guarding self-doubt, expansion) and that kind of format (2 to 30 page interactive essay) is what I want. That's what I looking for.
See e.g., http://csmaclab-www.uchicago.edu/philosophyProject/philos.html.
But notice too how link to genetics and philosophy is taken down! Gone. Kaput.
So too is the link to the "Preprint Exchange" because sophomoric undergrads went and ripped off the good spontaneous preprint articles and plagiarized them as homework assignments (dumb-ass jerks didn't figure they'd be call to defend ‘em to irate professors before the full classroom – er, doh, a minor, miscalculation). But, alas, the preprint exchange is no more.
Otherwise, those sites were spam free, highly educated, and accordingly riotously irrational :).
Now, most of those websites like U. of C. have gone underground, private and closed. For instance, Pinker's hosting a similar forum now on innateness in linguistics. Other scientists are too. Santa Fe Institute gurus do so all the time But, it's mostly private-by-invitation mode. If you can get in, then the fora are still very much for those who want to let down, not guard turf, take a plunge into uncomfortable expansion, in more than barb and quip format, 2 to 30 page stuff.
I don't know of any truly open-to-the-public fora with all these ingredients anymore.
Do you?
Back to you.
I'm proud of ya, Bobba!
I'm proud of ya, forking over all that dough for the super HP calculator for your kid! 7x^2 + -x^3 + x^2 Hurray! Me, I've kept my slide rule as a souvenir, and tell my kids I found it on an archeological dig in Egypt, buried with an abacus. "What dad? – what the HELL is a slide rule? it's mechanical!" So I tell my 19 year-old math whiz son, "with put-downs on my slide rule like yours, son, I wish I would have stayed dating the mechanical blow up doll I had before I started dating their mother." So yeah, Bobba, I'm proud of ya buying little Junior Bobba the Pink a fancy HP! What it cost? Huh? Fess, up? Spill, I say! Just don't let him work for Arthur Anderson – there are limits to what money can buy :)>.
Rock on, Bobba. The Pink!
What a gas, and thanks for the reference, truly!
dude! bobbapink 25/1 18:57
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