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My computer's better! I did that Applecare thing, and they replaced the heat sink and fan, which didn't seem to help much, since it turned out to just be a RAM problem. Friggin' RAM.
This would have been an extended rant about how awful Apple is, but my fury has subsided with time (and with the discovery that a third party component was actually to blame for once).
Perhaps in part because I didn't have much to do during this time (and perhaps also in part because I was recently introduced to the wonders of Nintendo DS multiplayer) I've been playing a fair amount of video games lately. It started with "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine," (part of the Sonic collection for the PS2) which I'm embarrassed to admit that I completely love, hopelessly derivative though it may be. Then I got sidetracked by Geometry Wars DS, which is pretty good too. The different maps are interesting, and I'm liking the drone more than I thought I would, which allows both for advancement and for a certain small amount of strategy. Also I was playing some Democracy on my old computer, and eagerly await the Mac port of the sequel.
Lastly, I'm beginning to reconsider this "not eating meat" thing. I've been at it, arguably, for a little more than six months, and it's been an interesting exercise, but one I feel somewhat less than entirely motivated to keep at. For starters, as I've discussed before, it's not clear that not eating meat necessarily results in fewer animal deaths (which would be my main motivation for vegetarianism). Moreover, I have concerns that drawing the line at not allowing animal parts or their derivatives to go in one's mouth has little to do with the actual material consequences of one's choices, and that the vegetarian identity more generally serves to create artificial moral boundaries, particularly when taken to extremes...for example, when one refuses to use a meaty spoon to stir one's sauce. It seems like that sort of thing betrays little more than an unmotivatedly absolutist stance, and one that that, by its nature, very likely encourages a certain complacent indifference to the real issues in favor of nitpicky distinctions. I've already started to notice these changes in myself, and they're not terribly attractive.
I've learned a fair amount about cooking and meat alternatives and such, and don't expect I'll be guzzling whole cows or anything, but of all the decisions I make from day to day, I feel like "which flavor of Ramen should I eat" is pretty low on the scale of alleviating animal suffering.
This would have been an extended rant about how awful Apple is, but my fury has subsided with time (and with the discovery that a third party component was actually to blame for once).
Perhaps in part because I didn't have much to do during this time (and perhaps also in part because I was recently introduced to the wonders of Nintendo DS multiplayer) I've been playing a fair amount of video games lately. It started with "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine," (part of the Sonic collection for the PS2) which I'm embarrassed to admit that I completely love, hopelessly derivative though it may be. Then I got sidetracked by Geometry Wars DS, which is pretty good too. The different maps are interesting, and I'm liking the drone more than I thought I would, which allows both for advancement and for a certain small amount of strategy. Also I was playing some Democracy on my old computer, and eagerly await the Mac port of the sequel.
Lastly, I'm beginning to reconsider this "not eating meat" thing. I've been at it, arguably, for a little more than six months, and it's been an interesting exercise, but one I feel somewhat less than entirely motivated to keep at. For starters, as I've discussed before, it's not clear that not eating meat necessarily results in fewer animal deaths (which would be my main motivation for vegetarianism). Moreover, I have concerns that drawing the line at not allowing animal parts or their derivatives to go in one's mouth has little to do with the actual material consequences of one's choices, and that the vegetarian identity more generally serves to create artificial moral boundaries, particularly when taken to extremes...for example, when one refuses to use a meaty spoon to stir one's sauce. It seems like that sort of thing betrays little more than an unmotivatedly absolutist stance, and one that that, by its nature, very likely encourages a certain complacent indifference to the real issues in favor of nitpicky distinctions. I've already started to notice these changes in myself, and they're not terribly attractive.
I've learned a fair amount about cooking and meat alternatives and such, and don't expect I'll be guzzling whole cows or anything, but of all the decisions I make from day to day, I feel like "which flavor of Ramen should I eat" is pretty low on the scale of alleviating animal suffering.
posted by Evan at 12:16 PM
3 Comments:
Glad that you're planning on being part of the revival of XRG! I expect you to help me recall glorious anecdotes of the "good old days" with which we shall regale the newbies.
:-)
For me, it's also been a question of balancing guilts. If I don't buy a steak at the grocery store, that doesn't bring the cow back to life. Either somebody else is going to buy it, or it'll get thrown away. If that happens, food has been wasted! What good does that do? I ashk ye. [grizzled_prospector_tobacco_spit.mov]
The idea may partly be that not buying the meat can ultimately lead to a future decrease in production when they notice that the demand for steak has gone down by one person. It's a little hard to motivate the notion that one can individually save very many (or necessarily any) cows this way, but I guess it's the same principle behind boycotts. Or voting, for that matter.
Alternatively, people might just not want to conduct business with an "unethical" industry, regardless of whether doing do has any practical consequences. I am not infrequently sympathetic to this view, though I have trouble coming up with a principled justification for it.
KI: I'll try to think of some anecdotes, but most of the ones I have so far are just about making really bad puns
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