StumbleUpon | arleas's comments & reviews

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/32918708/

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:46:57 -0700

EDITED: Well, it was difficult getting past SU addiction. Almost as bad as cigarettes. I found myself reaching for the stumble button QUITE OFTEN.

I'm not going to give you guys some bullshit story about how I've turned my life around, gotten my shit in order, and made millions of dollars since leaving SU.

However, the good news is, since I've stopped stumbling I've gotten back into doing some things I actually enjoy. Some of these things include: Playing Team Fortress 2, going outside, hanging out with friends...

Ok there's not that much to do, but it's more than I was doing while playing stumblemonkey on this thing. I've also lost weight since leaving SU (imagine that?)

I'm still going to clear this blog out, though I actually lost all the blog entries I had saved to my hard drive. I discovered I didn't care about it as much as I thought originally.

So anyway, still no auto-review-delete script, so I'm only showing up when the mood strikes me to remove a couple of pages worth at a time.

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/32918653/

Mon, 18 May 2009 17:38:51 -0700

It's not just you...it doesn't mean I hate you, it doesn't mean anything. I'm just slowly removing all content from this blog and I don't want anything to entice me to hit the stumble button any more.

I am done with this place. On a side-note: anyone know of a script to delete reviews? That'd make this go a lot faster.

arleass favorites - StumbleUpon

Sun, 10 May 2009 21:50:07 -0700

The end

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/32716912/

Sun, 10 May 2009 21:26:21 -0700

Well, I got my account unblocked, but alas, this is it. Five years of Stumbleupon and I believe I am done.

I have been told that the core demographic of Stumbleupon is changing. No longer can we be free to tell it like it is. Now we must be all happy happy, joy joy, rainbows and unicorns and all that bullshit. If you're anything but a li'l ray of sunshine, you get flagged as evil/mean/nasty and Heaven forbid if people have to actually work to figure out what you're saying.

Yes folks, I was mainly banned for being mean to a few people, but I was also banned for ROT13. Apparently, when you're posting a review, and again, if it's anything other than a "OMG I LOVE THIS THUMBS UP" review, people get paranoid and naturally assume that I'm posting in secret code to get around some kind of TOS or something, I don't know.

Oh and another thing: I told several people to block me if they don't like what I have to say. Apparently if enough people block you, that gives SU the right to ban you as well. I figured a block would just be a harmless way for some thin skinned people to avoid seeing anything that might not be 100% flattering to their internet personas...who knew?

Anyway, I was told that I could come back if I was nice and I pretty much told him that I couldn't guarantee that everyone would like what I had to say and so it'd be best if I just left instead. I am not going to "walk on eggshells" hoping that everyone would love everything I said, nor was I going to just deal with thumbs only so that the idiots I was thumbing down wouldn't know I thought they were idiots.

So this will be the last blog entry and I'm not going to use this for any more reviews. I'm going to do something I normally never do and thumb up my own blog entry so that everyone on my subscriber list sees it and knows to unsubscribe.

Also, I've had several people write me to say that I do all this for attention. Honestly I don't want to be ignored (nobody does) but I hate excessive amounts of attention. To me, this was pretty excessive:
That's more visitors in 10-12 days than I usually get in a month.

Anyway, I'm going to eventually totally gut this blog so seriously, abandon ship. Women and children first.

EDIT: I've saved off the last page of my blog to the hard drive. That part took me a couple of days because I didn't want to sit here and hit the right arrow key, ctrl S and enter over and over again.

Now I have to go through the same tedious process of deleting reviews. The Thumbs will remain, as will any plain blog posts. Just reviews are going bye-bye.

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/32313359/

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:07:33 -0700

I was just on a page that was titled "What Asian people like" and saw another one that was titled "What White people like". Well that got me to thinking of what I like and don't like.

I like:

Grilled Cheese

Pork chops and Ham steaks

Whataburger

Red Wine

Free software

Open Source software

Partly cloudy days with a light breeze where the ambient temperature is no less than 80�F but no more than 85�F (27�C - 29�C)

Sitting on the back porch with a beer on a day as previously described

Things I don't like:

Cauliflower

Liver

Strange (unfamiliar) Restaurants

Really dry white wine

Commercial Software with a license agreement that nobody bothers to read because it sucks the life out of them, but that probably has a clause that gives Microsoft your eternal soul somewhere in it.

Proprietary ANYTHING.� If I can't replace a part or use a file without going through another of the aforementioned agreements, I don't really want it.� (But yes, I have Windows, and I actually paid for it once)

Windy and Rainy days where the ambient temperature is between 40�F and 60�F (5�C-16�C).

Doing anything anywhere on days like the aforementioned.

I also don't care much for programs that install updaters that run 24/7.� If your program doesn't need to update 24/7, your updater doesn't need to run 24/7.� If your program DOES need to update 24/7, I haven't got time to wait for you to finish so I can just use it for 5 minutes or whatever, not to mention all the features that suddenly break in the new version.

Another thing that really grinds my gears is when installers add a bunch of services to your computer, so now instead of only one program, you've got 4 more in the background for tasks that REALLY don't need a service.� Or how about when you find out that one of those services changes the way your computer operates and doesn't tell you.�

I had that experience two times lately:� one was my video capture card.� It apparently doesn't like Windows Media Player 11.� 10 is fine, but 11 breaks it.� Oh and if you updated to WMP 11 by mistake, tough noogies.� You can't go back.�� You may find yourself reinstalling windows JUST so you can get rid of WMP 11 (if you don't like it).�

The other time was when I installed the software and drivers for my HP inkjet printer.� Apparently there's a service in there that keeps your computer from EVER going into standby mode.� Why?� Fuck if I know, but nobody ever told me.� I was just pissed to find that it was no longer an option to set it so my computer went to standby if it was idle for more than 30 minutes.� Apparently Hewlett Packard felt that if you are in standby you might accidently want to print something and be all like "OH NOES I HAVE TO TAKE MY COMPUTER OUT OF STANDBY".�

Sheesh.

Anyway.� Nobody will ever read this, and I don't care.� It felt good to get that off my chest.

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/32155954/

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:15:02 -0700

Since I've gotten a few reviews about it questioning my motives for doing it, here is an explanation that I sent to someone.

"Ok, if you must know, originally I was doing the ROT13 thing as an April Fools joke (take note of the date on my sticky explaining it). I was going to do it for maybe 5-10 reviews, and then be all like "HA HA! Got ya!".

The thing is, I actually got a much more favorable response to it than I anticipated. What I expected was a few people removing me from their subscription list, a couple of "OMG I HAET U SOOO MUTCH!" emails, and that's it.

Instead I got the "I HAET U" reviews, and for each one of those I got 5 reviews stating that it was cool and/or awesome. That was unexpected. Suddenly I had to decide if I was going to continue this or just say "ha ha" like intended...

Here's the thing. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. It's just that few people do so in a way that is worth bothering with. For the most part, I leave the negative reviews of me up for all to see except in cases where I have blocked them. I only block people to prevent them from wasting my time with private messages (much as I am wasting your time now, feel free to block me even though this will be the only one).

The thing is, I rarely go out of my way to force my opinion on anyone, and some people act as if I'm forcing them to read my reviews, become upset that I don't share their views, and then contact me so that we may argue pointlessly about something totally subjective. Frequently I get messages telling me that nobody cares what I think so I should quit posting reviews.

THAT is why I figured the ROT13 thing would be a good idea. You can see I've thumbed something up or down, but being that it's all gibberish, you can easily choose to ignore that, OR if you're interested, the extension I linked to in that sticky post explains how to easily decode it. It's not an attempt to stop people from disagreeing with me. It's an attempt to stop people from saying "NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK SO SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY" or whatever.

But again, it's originally a big joke and I wasn't going to keep it going this long, and yet, so many people are upset over something they can easily ignore (again, block me and I vanish from your sight) that it's providing a small measure of amusement for me.

Sorry for long-winded explanation, but I felt you had given a thoughtful review and deserved the explanation. Have a good day."

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/31703463/

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:52:27 -0700

(sigh) I actually expected a huge backlash on my decision, so it's no real surprise, but the fact is that DTP (as I will refer to him) doesn't get it.

Actually I can understand how someone might expect this was a bid for attention. It's actually my bid to get idiots to leave me alone, but it backfired since anything they don't understand is dangerous.

It's not a "please tell me you care" shtick. It was intended to remove the kind of "NOBODY CARES ABOUT UR OPINYUNS SO QUIT TELLIN US" trolls.

I am not writing (nor have I ever really written) for anyone but myself. If all you care about is the links, you still get them. The only difference is now if you want to flame me for my opinion, you have to work for it. MOST idiots on the internet don't want to work for it, and DTP is a perfect example of the new flames I expect to get.

Perhaps I should just make it so nobody can see the blog at all? Nah, that would be more like giving them what they want.

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/31605048/

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:58:27 -0700

I think I'm going to start posting my reviews in ROT13. If you don't know what that is, you can easily find out.

The idea is simple. Most people don't care what I think, or they like to profess that they don't care what I think, yet they are disturbed by the fact that I have an opinion and care to express it.

The great thing about ROT13 is that it would take a small amount of effort to decode it and yet it's easily more effort than someone who truly didn't care would go through.

If anyone cared enough to decipher it and then wanted to send me a nasty email or leave a nasty review stating that they don't care about my opinion, I could easily tell them "bullshit" on the grounds that they had to care enough to decode it.

There's an extension on Firefox that I'd use to make it that can also be used to decode it.

I'm not asking anyone to go get this extension, I've already stated that I review mostly for myself. I'm just telling you so that if you're curious you can satisfy that curiousity.

Oh and for all the people who are apparently mad that I'm using ROT13. Go fuck yourself, and when you're done with that, block/ignore me. Was that so hard?

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/30280166/

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:06:33 -0800

I'm sure someone is bound to come in and see all the thumbs down and say "My, this arleas chap is all bent out of shape! I daresay he must hate EVERYTHING! Tut tut! Cheerio!"

The truth is, I'm just very picky. I'm not writing to be famous; I am not writing to impress. I'm writing for myself...You just happen to be able to see it. Go ahead though and write me a nasty review. I don't care.

Keep in mind that I skip over most of the stumbles, and only bother to thumb it down if I hate it. I also only write a review if I've got something to say, and I only thumb it up if I actually like it, or feel it's important enough to pass on.

Look at the stats over there. It currently reads "4356 favorites, 14321 reviews". That means almost 10000 sites that suck or aren't worth a thumb up.

I am just very picky about what I like, and why shouldn't I be? If everyone was as picky, you could find a lot of good people to subscribe to and get some half-decent stumbles. Instead, most of you hope not to offend anyone with your opinions and as a result you cheapen the whole system.

I'm not saying I wouldn't feel a bit bad for thumbing someone's page down if I was friends with them, but I'd do it anyway (or I'd urge my friend to fix/remove the page first). Better to be honest about such things than to lie and hope they just go away or get better on their own.

Oh and I nearly forgot... 69345 stumbles total in 5 years... so that's only around 38 stumbles a day (on average) and out of those 69345 stumbles, I thumbed down 5197 of them... That's like only a 7% chance I'm going to hit a page that totally blows, a 6% chance I'm going to see a page I like, and I'm still literally skipping completely over 80% of my stumbles and only reviewing 20% of them.

I think if I hated everything there'd be much higher numbers involved.

http://arleas.stumbleupon.com/review/29283656/

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:44:23 -0800

I just took a look at my friend/subscriptions list and about 80% of them are "no face" stumblers now... Meaning they somehow pissed someone off and got their account locked for something or other.

How does that happen to everyone but me?