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People are going to pigpile on you b/c you are wrong about the longevity of the tech information and sarcastic remarks about women, etc.

I DO agree with the cringe-factor, though. I really didn't like watching her adjust her purple knit slippers, giggle and fluff her hair, etc.. It was like watching any other advertisement involving models which I don't like either and is one of the reasons I don't watch television.

I also didn't like her trying to increase the aura for her work by saying, "My country is also where Linux and IRC, etc." came from. There's probably a logical fallacy for that :)

Just like all bad art though, there is almost always information to be gained in the layer of meta-communication. Obviously, many people respond to this kind of stimulus. Perhaps it is because there isn't enough "cute" out there in the world already? It is my belief that cuteness and happy feelings should be more widely distributed, not just reserved for celebrities.

But even this morning on NPR (don't usually listen, was in a rush), I heard them announce the birthday of a celebrity.

We are in a celebrity culture that believes in foregoing our own happiness in exchange for concentrating wealth and happiness on certain other people. We are schizophrenic in that we pay money for impressions of the happiness that others experience. Is it made worse by the fact that we don't even care if celebrity's happiness is authentic or not, we still pay for the illusion.



> Perhaps it is because there isn't enough "cute" out there in the world already?

Exactly the opposite. There's plenty of "cute" and that's also the reason why: people buy it.


I have to disagree about the country part. I didn't hear her trying to halo at all (whether or not that's an effect) - I heard her saying that that's her culture, her influences, and her inspiration. Plus, you really cannot take anything away from the Nordic countries when it comes to innovative computer applications. I would add to her list the whole Demo Scene, which laid much of the technical foundation for the game industry boom of the late '90's and '00's. And of course, Minecraft, which is the biggest realistic, interactive, shared cellular automata world simulation that I'm aware of.




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