I take comfort in the fact that it is too late to make this a Yuletide fandom, which has saved me.

[brown_betty]

You may remember Maciej Cegłowski from his much-linked post The Fans are all right, but if you've ever wondered, "Hey, what are his greatest hits?", this Metafilter post turns into a comment-based review of his greatest hits. (Some of his greatest hits are so geeky you will need a grounding in several different branches of software theory to

Comments

[kassia06]

Thank you for fantastic links! And for your helpful commentary (because I am not currently in the mood to be spoken to as if I were a het dude -- it's good to have these warnings!). The Facebook post is chicken soup for my geeky soul. Between the ascendancy of Facebook and the recent weird opposition to online anonymity, I have been getting nervous about trends in internet culture. I appreciate his critical optimism in that regard.

[brown_betty]

I was feeling pretty forgiving when I read, and I was a little irked, so I am pleased to have spared you the aggravation.

And yeah, Facebook getting thrashed is always soothing, eh?

o god

[marici]

"The time-tested way to overcome language problems - the approach I used to learn French in the first place - is of course to find a volatile girlfriend who is fluent in the language. There is nothing like hysterical weeping over the phone at 3 a.m. to really flex your listening comprehension."

I'm dying. I'll make a note for the next time I teach Japanese.

Re: o god

[brown_betty]

Given that my favourite way to learn a language is to watch a ton of anime dubbed into that language (limited vocabulary, bright colours, a pause button) it is evident that our approaches are pretty much diametrically opposed.