Vietnamese Writer Won't Be Silenced
Ms. Huong's novels are not openly political, but their leitmotif is the disillusionment of people trapped by a fate beyond their control.
Maybe I am too trusting. I clicked on the tinyurl, which leads to this article.
'That's why I have to return. I return to do one thing: to spit in the face of the regime.' " Three cheers for "dissident whores."
Diese tinyurl muß sterben.
What's wrong with tinyurl?
Little girls and tinyurl are of The Debble!
I dunno, actually. People say they get recycled eventually, but according to the Tinyurl page, they never expire. <shrugs>
I had never heard of her before, so I've ordered one of her books. Has anyone else read what she's written?
(Should there have been a Curious George post or a complaint on tracicles's blog about tinyurl? It's more than kind of distracting to have that be the topic of conversation when it isn't the topic of the post. The link posted took me to the article, which made me curious enough to try to find out more about her, but the discussion might have made me ignore sugarmilktea's interest. Can we re-rail?)
Make that "dt118s" interest.
The main thing *I* dislike about tinyurl is I have no idea where they're going. I work on sites that are often relaxed about browsing to SFW sites; tinyURL is a great way for someone malicious to booby trap NSFW/spyware delivering/etc sites to people without any warning.
But, is this the place to discuss tinyurl?
It is now. Our threads are vast and can contain multitudes.
Tinyurls also booger the already be-boogered MoFi search function. Makes double posts more difficult to avoid.
Ditto, and ditto the blind link problem. And there's absolutely no reason to use them at all. Your browser doesn't care how long the address is. Tinyurl's only useful if your e-mail will break long addresses. No reason to use them, several reasons not to. Personally, I'd like to see that put in the posting guidelines.
goetter: I've been in love with you for years, and you know I'm knid of dim, so could you expain to me why this thread is about tinyurl. Me so curious!
And, mct, I'll ask you the same question. I love you big time, but still don't understand why this thread has become a critique of tinyurl. No one has given the actual topic a chance, so far. It's hard for me to imagine posting something I think is interesting if the discussion goes to the method rather than the information. I'm clueless on much internet stuff, so if I run up against a convention that I didn't know existed, should I expect this sort of treatment, when my intentions were honorable?
If you want to see something in the posting guidelines, why not propose it in the appropriate place? I kind of sorta maybe think we're supposed to be talking about the author, here, in spite of the way we got the link.
Is that unreasonable?
path, threads are dynamic and multidirectional things, at least here on extraordinarily lightly edited MoFi. Lacking a separate "meta" ghetto, MoFi handles most of its meta-issues (in this case, the form of the post rather than the content) inline. Had dt118 made his posting in heroic couplets, we could all be responding in the same wise or troping on Pope (Pope-troping?) in other fashions, and it'd be just as germane as discussing the author in question. Meta here is handled in situ.
Now if folks more lit-savvy than illiterate moi want to discuss Ms Huong, her work, her environment, or similar themes in other work, it will happen, displacing or supplanting the meta discussion, which seems to have run its course by now. But we can't force that. We can seed that, but we can't force that.
Oh, mct, I can think of one semi-good use for tinyurl: you can fit more links onto the front page that way. MoFi has, I think, a 1024-character limit on what goes into a FPP link. I hit that limit quickly, since I like to play with title tags etc.
We could instead discuss bannination in its various forms.
should I expect this sort of treatment
dt118 is teh suXx0rs!! Burn him! Burn him, and his thatch-roofed cottages!! — C'mon, path, nobody's abusing the poster here. As the Christians say, "Hate the sin, not the sinner." Not that anybody's hatin' here. It's all good.
Not unreasonable to re-rail. Sorry to extend the derail. But there's plenty of space here, and when the topic comes up, there's no reason not to discuss. Several reasons to discuss it, in fact, as it has a direct bearing on this site. dt118 could have had goatse on the other end of that link -- remember the shitstorm of angry modem's double-digit-IQ buffoonery? So this discussion needs to take place, and it needs to take place somewhere visible. I'd guess less than half of active members here check Tracy's blog with anything approaching regularity, and as I said, this is an issue worth discussion for the record, and in a place where most everybody's likely to see it.
You're right, we should discuss the link itself, and apologies to dt118. Don't take this as a personal indictment, but rather an honest mistake we'd just rather not see you or anyone else repeat. In fact, you'll get more members checking your link if it's not blinded by tinyurl or anything similar. I for one don't read anything that's been run through the link mill like that, just to be safe.
On topic, brava. Good for her.
On preview, what goetter said, and I didn't know about the character limit thing.
goettor - I didn't say we were abusing the poster, this discussion just went in a direction that didn't attend to his/her desire to spark our imagination. But how does any interesting discussion take place about the actual subject of the post if almost all the comments are about a sin of (I think) omission. Thank you for the on-topic links, though.
So, mct. if the reaction to one of your FPPs was to talk about the nerdish mechanics of the link instead of the point you thought you were making, that would be ok? The thing I hate is that we're still talking about mechanics. That discussion can take place elsewhere - in not in tracicle's blog, maybe in a Curious George.
So, let's all go off now and read a bunch of relevant stuff about Viet Nam, and present some really insightful discussion topics, and just hope that anyone looking this tread later will get past the first 20 or comments, including this one, to find the fruits of our contemplation.
My mechanic is a charming little Vietnamese fellow. A bit talkative, though. Says he wants to be a writer. See the world. Climb Mt. Everest and wrestle a gorilla. Ski down the alps. Go shark fishing in the Japan Sea. See the lions chase wildebeest on the Serengeti, and gaze upon the planet Earth from space. Fascinating fellow, but sometimes I wish he'd shut up and change my oil.
On preview: oops, sorry, guess I was talking about mechanics again.
She was popular
She had a tiny url
She never let me see it
Alas
Teh thread bloweth where it will.
So this Vietnamese woman was jailed for using tinyurl?
I'm lost.
That's a pretty righteous elegant tweed jacket she's got there.
With my comment Die tinyurl, die!, it was not my intention to derail the thread or take anything away from the quality of the post. It was merely a brief, humorous comment directed at tinyurl - nothing more, nothing less. My apologies to dt118 for any undue harm to the post. I did not want to get into the "mechanics" of tinyurl, which is why I didn't run off to tracicle's blog to post a complaint.
Now, as to why I made that comment...
Yes, tinyurl does indeed suck. For one, it completely disguises the link. Tinyurl is ripe for spammers, malicious code, re-directs, spyware, etc. etc... My employer has blocked the tinyurl domain as a result of numerous problems in the past, so it's rather disappointing when I'm not able to follow someone's post because the link has been "tinyurl'd." So, I don't see that my comment was so unreasonable. As far as post character-limits are concerned, a lot can be "chopped" off from those excessively long urls. For example, the url for the NY Times article above:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/books/11writ.html?ei=5090&en=289409902a16f1e2&ex=1278734400&adxnnl=
1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1121111129-rCCZz2yMcgv4LzheIa91XQ
can be reduced to
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/books/11writ.html
Just as Duong Thu Huong refuses to be silenced, so does tinyurl. Very interesting topic of discussion, even though I found the article to be somewhat lacking.
smt, note that your shortened URL requires registration. At least part of PY's URL — the partner=rssuserland part — short-circuits that requirement. I will guess that he generated his verbose-appearing URL with this.
But I'm just nitpicking the example to be difficult.
I'm impressed by Ms Huong's persistence. Faced with what she faces, I'd stay in Paris. She must truly love her homeland.
Re: my use of tinyurl: I tried putting the New York Times URL in my post, and Monkeyfilter rejected it. It said something like the URL was longer than 125 characters, and it would not allow the post. So I used tinyurl. In my link, I identified it as NYT (New York Times). I probably should have prefixed the other link with "NYT" too, just to help further identify it. But it was SFW; tinyurl was the only way to post; I was impressed with the (all-too-brief) NYT article; had never heard of the author; and found it all interesting. Others, obviously, can disagree.
I generated that verbose-appearing URL by copying and pasting the URL I got when I followed dt118's link. My info is saved on this computer, so I'm automatically signed in, but that NYT link generator looks useful.
Monkeyfilter rejected it
If true, this is a serious failing of the Metaphilter software. I am afraid the cure might be a bit drastic (dumping and rebuilding the database to make a text column wider).
The alternative, though not very obvious in the posting interface, is to leave the "URL" box empty, and just link your URL in the body of the post. You'll have to beware that your "URL description" will be boldfaced and prefixed to your "link description".
Mephi 2.0 should move from a "URL"-based design to a "post"-based design. Good posts often have many links with no obvious primary link.
In my link, I identified it as NYT (New York Times). I probably should have prefixed the other link with "NYT" too
I really didn't notice the NYT (link description on the sidebar) until you mentioned this. I probably wouldn't have opened my mouth as such had I caught glimpse of that initially. All that aside, I was not complaining of your post. When I said the article was lacking, it was for that specifically - it was all-too-short. Thanks for posting dt118!
And goetter, you are correct indeed. My example has backfired on me completely. Bah...
Hmm, didn't know that either. tensor has a good solution for now.
partner=rssuserlandpart — short-circuits that requirement. I will guess that he generated his verbose-appearing URL with this. But I'm just nitpicking the example to be difficult. I'm impressed by Ms Huong's persistence. Faced with what she faces, I'd stay in Paris. She must truly love her homeland.