This is a great post. You might have a career as a writer, kid.
Maybe find sime fora for music obsessives? It'll be a community for him.
I mean, if I had to choose between sending my anonymous concerns to a guy like him vs neb, it's pretty clear what the correct choice is.
The fora for music obsessives thing sounds brilliant.
Although -- I don't know how educable he is (you said he was very smart, but does he listen?), but maybe with you walking him through some 'social spaces on the Internet, how do they work?' 101. I'm not even dead sure what I mean, but just a backgrounder on how everyone's oversensitive because they can't see when you're being friendly but maybe a little brusque/sarcastic/whatever in a way that would be fine in person but doesn't come across online, and you're going to be oversensitive because you can't tell when people mean well either. And lots of people are just aggressively terrible in a way no one is in person.
Your friend sounds like a near cousin of the former Mr. Penny, with whom I'm still friends. I don't quite know how to say this, but if there's a tactful way that you can let him know in advance that beautiful women who approach him on the Internet may not be entirely real, you may save him some trouble and heartache and funds. I know he's brilliant, but having come out of a caring relationship he may not be quite prepared for what's out there. Loved this post, although my heart aches for him and his friends.
wtf, generic refs to music obsessives?
Mixcloud set from Joe Bussard's collection with good interview
You guys, I think we're supposed to say things like Mimi Smartypants.
5: I cannot imagine what will happen when he discovers real women out there. I doubt he will fal victim to any of the obvious scams. He is quite absurdly paranoid about revealing his own existence on the web or anywhere else. I am sworn to secrecy about his email address, and yesterday when I absentmindedly copied him into a funny story I was sending to my son I got a sniffy email straight back rebuking me for revealing it. The recipient is also his godson, to establish the full enormity of my crime.
On the other hand, he is also genuinely lovable (that's why no one has killed him yet) and if he ever does start participating somewhere literate there will be lonely clever women who fall for him. No doubt he will conclude that they are all Ukrainian mafiosi.
In the meantime, what should I put on his bookmarks?
This place, of course.
Have you considered leaving a stray infant by his front door?
LB, I have no idea how to give him a refresher course on social spaces anywhere and how they work.
Barry, he's not learning about this place until this entire conversation has been nuked to hell and gone. After that, yes
Metafilter, I thought, especially one or two of the users who post the most fantastic obscure music threads. I don't want to go for the obsessive music fora because part of the plan is (whisper this) contact with gurls, But mefi seems a good way to ease into the idea of sociability via particular interests.
Not CT -- too much dick swinging in the comments.
Youtube has proved such an immense success that when I suggested this morning he get a proper broadband connection, and he responded, "OK. I'll have broadband without the internet" I was able to ask him where the fuck, exactly, he thought Youtube was without him deciding to cancel the phone contract.
Metafilter is a nice place, as far as I can tell.
My father has been aware of the internet for a long time, and reads news and so forth, but only recently found YouTube, and is amazed and delighted that one site can feed him both academic lectures and videos of people playing with baby foxes.
Ian Nagoski's site He specializes in middle-eastern and ottoman music. There was a huge amount of music recorded in the middle east and Greece in the 20s and 30s, much of it is fantastic.
lw thanks so much for the prewar blues site, which has been passed on.
11: I understand that Thorn has one or two to spare. the number varies with their behaviour
YouTube has videos of people playing with baby foxes?
I didn't realize people kept foxes as pets in their apartments.
I don't know how to reconcile the goals of socialization and meeting the internet, they are pretty different. My dad is also basically a far off-center socializer (or not). Local groups centered on some of his interests have been how he meets people.
3quarksdaily is a literary-sh blog.
Languagelog is pretty interesting, consistently high-quality.
Terence Tao? Typotheque? NASA Images? Actually, the group reads here are pretty good, Capital and Tooze are both good big books. Wait two weeks and the present discussion will be unfindeable.
What's with all the allium named websites? If you made a site for parody videos you should call it LiveLeek.
5 touches on this, but you might as well explain that he need never pay for porn and that it is available in whatever flavor and format he might desire without providing contact info. A link to a general, relatively non-scammy site maybe wouldn't hurt? Not that I as, a gentleman, have a suggestion for an appropriate one.
A place called ILM (part of a place called ILE) might, just might, be of interest...
It's ok, we recall the last time you linked to Herpy.
31--Is there an indie band named that yet? I'm picturing, say, matching pageboy haircuts...
So just to check: if you don't pay for porn, as apparently only sad sacks do, is it a matter of indifference to the actors? Or is this like every other liberated-content industry where the content providers' livelihood is at the mercy of whoever does actually pay the bills? I recall a story a while ago that quoted a porn star saying something like "Ten years ago, I could have counted on one hand the number of actors with a side job as escorts; now pretty much everyone does it."
is it a matter of indifference to the actors
No.
I remember that same story, in fact.
This was AWB's beat, though, not mine. And I realize labor justice is a buzzkill.
Also the OP (and the heartrending linked article) is indeed great; I read it twice.
We're such bleeding hearts that now were supposed to feel bad for the underpaid lizards?
Will he be found like a Korean gamer, a mummified, emaciated corpse at the keyboard when finally the cops break down the door?
Maybe, but I'm not seeing a downside here. As pathetic as a dead Korean gamer looks, it sounds like more fun than most alternatives open to a 63-year-old Luddite with no living family and only two friends. Bookmark a beginner's guide to a free-to-play MMO and see what happens.
41: someone's got to draw their food and vitamins.
A paradise for music obsessives is rateyourmusic.com . If he has any opinions on, say, a specific privately-pressed English folk record from the mid-70s, he will find its fellow connoisseurs there. It has thriving forums as well, and many of the participants have a deep sense of music history. I might also suggest the message boards at waxidermy.com. Combine these informational resources with Youtube, and the sonic past is victorious over this sterile present.
Youtube desperately needs a standardized objective rating system, and a standardized thumbnail with an objective description. I'm not saying the person who invents this will become a zillionaire, but I not saying she won't either.
So just to check: if you don't pay for porn, as apparently only sad sacks do, is it a matter of indifference to the actors?
It's a matter of people being fucking awful and lacking in any solidarity with other human beings so free content of course takes precedent over someone actually getting paid well for their work.
37: If you pay for porn you get better variety, more control, a curated stream, and material tailored to your interests. It's worth dropping a few bucks.
OTOH, if you're satisfied with lower quality and a more gonzo look generally there is s shit-ton amateur porn of wildly varying quality, so you can whack off without ripping off anyone.
OP should buy his friend a subscription to one of the bigger sites (one with lots of variety).
Also endorse 46.
I think the way to go for paying porn actors is product placement in porn.
For example, instead of just 'the cable guy has an unexpectedly productive service call,' get Comcast to pay up in exchange for public awareness.
A paradise for music obsessives is rateyourmusic.com . If he has any opinions on, say, a specific privately-pressed English folk record from the mid-70s, he will find its fellow connoisseurs there.
So I decided to try this and the first album (a mid-90s british CD) doesn't have any comments about it. So then I looked up a Butch Hancock album, and again not much activity. So then I looked up an exciting (if minor) debut album released this year and, again, not seeing much.
Is the real action somewhere other than the album pages? (I'm not that invested, I'm not expecting to spend a lot of time on the site, but was curious).
I can recommend Mudcat.org for fans of traditional music and text-based forums. Excellent source.
I would also see "reverse product placement" working. That is, you pay to have your competitor's products placed in the porn. Maybe McDonald's pays to have the enema scene set in a KFC or something.
51 is good and I think we should extend the idea to sports. Say defensive golf, where like in croquet instead of taking a shot you get to hit the opponent's ball (the golf ball) into water hazards or whatever.
The direction this is going I feel like OP needs to apply for IRB approval.
I really can't believe that an increased frequency of actual masturbation will improve a life already so full of emptiness. No porn. If he wants, he can find it for himself but I think I will drop a few stories of virtual herpes caught by just lifting the virtual toilet seat.
Ah Stovepipe no 1. He has a track on the Paul Oliver compilation "Blues fell this morning" which I've been looking for since 1963
Honest to god I don't even understand the words in 45. I guess that means I'm not destined to be a zillionaire.
42.2: Dwarf Fortress.
45: to the AI mines! Or mimes. Or mimesis.
Reading this post is like reading the screenplay synopsis for a quirky British indie film. You know, one of those bittersweet comedies with loads of dark humour, but with some genuinely tender and affecting moments too. I would definitely watch this film. Who plays Disraeli?
60 Yes, best screenplay since Withnail and I .
59: what has it got in its mimesis?
60: Disraeli- Ian McKellen; Palmerston - Patrick Stewart.
When you search for a song, and get 15 choices, you can't tell without clicking which one have video, and which of those have quality video, which have shitty audio, etc
Check out the Jerry Garcia Maria Muldaur version of I'll be with Thee.
Disraeli: Graham Norton. Palmerston: Idriss Elba, or maybe Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren is pretty good. Possibly she could also play the role of urple. Luc Besson would design the kitchen set.
He is quite absurdly paranoid about revealing his own existence on the web or anywhere else.
I know a disturbing number of people like that. One of them had a near meltdown when his email address was inadvertently included in a CC list. (We will not even mention his cell phone number.) This may have something to do with knowing a lot of people in the cyber security world. Their idea of a fun anecdote is how they hacked into their brother's IoT baby monitor and broadcast the video feed as a shaming ("Do better!") methodology.
What a great read. What about Pandora or Google Play or similar? He can create stations based on musicians he likes and then enjoy having it find similar artists : either truly enjoy finding new things, or even better, rail at its incompetence for thinking A and B are remotely similar.
Would it be too mean to run a test and see if he can detect fake news from real?
Google Play costs money, at least for the unlimited version; but the real hassle at the moment is that it turns out a ca 2004 Mac mini with 512mb of memory and a 1.25ghz PPC processor can't actually cope with Youtube when running debian. Click on a video, any video, and the CPU meter just pegs and stays there. So that's no use for anything but reading and writing, which no one seems to do on the internet any more.
re: 70
Not read scrollback but is there any reason why a Mac mini would be running Debian, rather than OS X?
70: paranoia, really. None of the OSX PPC software has been updated for years and years. You can't get up to date versions of any browsers so presumably what is still there is full of holes. So, given that Disraeli was so frightened of being hacked, and given that I just like fiddling with things ...
I suppose there is that, yeah.
(oh, and the other important thing, which I had forgotten since it was so long since I had tried that machine seriously. There isn't any adblocking software for ppc based macs. Can't put Disraeli on the naked internet.)