3 ms·

I guess I don't get it. I mean, it's obviously a parody, and it seems to be poking fun at the competitive nature of American academia... but it's just not funn

I guess I don't get it. I mean, it's obviously a parody, and it seems to be poking fun at the competitive nature of American academia... but it's just not funny to me. Maybe it's because of my background? I'm a huge gun nut, so most of those conversations seem at least to hint at something that's meaningful to me. For instance - the US military used a slower-burning, dirty powder than specified by the manufacturer when rolling out the M-16 and variants in Vietnam. As a result they got dirty very fast and jammed far more often that is acceptable. The first "example" is referring to this. The biggest thing I came away with is that Olin Shivers knew a ton about gun culture in 1987. Considering that there was no Internet and therefore no gun forums to waste hours every night on in 1987, he must have actually be a firearms enthusiast himself or have consulted with someone extremely knowledgeable to write this. All that said, there is one line that made me smile: "Poor Felton. Published, and published, and perished just the same."

onedognight 12y ago
> Considering that there was no Internet and therefore no gun forums It seems you missed the signature of FreeBSD co-founder Jordan Hubbard > moderator of rec.guns or maybe that this is a reference to a news group[1] which was the internet of 1987? [1] https://groups.google.com/forum#!forum/rec.guns https://groups.google.com/forum#!forum/rec.guns
- 67726e 12y ago
  BBS aside, you'd think a subscription to Guns & Ammo would suffice for that kind of stuff.
  - LyndsySimon 12y ago
    Not even close, at the level of detail in the post. Gun magazines are notoriously bad, and pretty much rewrite the same handful of articles over and over.
- LyndsySimon 12y ago
  My apologies, I was mostly being hyperbolic by saying there was "no Internet". My experience with BBSs and newsgroups is quite limited, considering I was three years old when this was published :) Do you have any idea of the membership of rec.guns in 1987? My favorite forum shows 6,188 users logged in right now, and 6.7m unique visitors in April of the year.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
it seems to be poking fun at the competitive nature of American academia I honestly can't tell what it's trying to satirize.
jjoonathan 12y ago
He might also be mocking a group of people pushing to ban weapons from campus, the surrounding city, or some other place where the incidence of gun violence is already so low that such a ban would have little or no effect other than to aggravate law-abiding gun enthusiasts such as himself. By imagining a world in which law-abiding gun owners were regularly mowing each other down for sport (i.e. a world in which the proposed bans would be directly effective) he hopes to demonstrate just how ridiculous some of the claims coming out of the anti-gun camp were. That's just a guess and there are more sophisticated arguments on both sides of the debate but it would be a crime to ignore such a wonderfully amusing piece of fiction on that basis alone. FWIW I was born into and consider myself sympathetic with gun culture.
- LyndsySimon 12y ago
  I hadn't considered that; it seems plausible. It seems like he was just trolling more than anything else. I'd love to read the replies he references in his email!

onedognight 12y ago

> Considering that there was no Internet and therefore no gun forums It seems you missed the signature of FreeBSD co-founder Jordan Hubbard > moderator of rec.guns or maybe that this is a reference to a news group[1] which was the internet of 1987? [1] https://groups.google.com/forum#!forum/rec.guns https://groups.google.com/forum#!forum/rec.guns

67726e 12y ago
BBS aside, you'd think a subscription to Guns & Ammo would suffice for that kind of stuff.
- LyndsySimon 12y ago
  Not even close, at the level of detail in the post. Gun magazines are notoriously bad, and pretty much rewrite the same handful of articles over and over.
LyndsySimon 12y ago
My apologies, I was mostly being hyperbolic by saying there was "no Internet". My experience with BBSs and newsgroups is quite limited, considering I was three years old when this was published :) Do you have any idea of the membership of rec.guns in 1987? My favorite forum shows 6,188 users logged in right now, and 6.7m unique visitors in April of the year.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

it seems to be poking fun at the competitive nature of American academia I honestly can't tell what it's trying to satirize.

jjoonathan 12y ago

He might also be mocking a group of people pushing to ban weapons from campus, the surrounding city, or some other place where the incidence of gun violence is already so low that such a ban would have little or no effect other than to aggravate law-abiding gun enthusiasts such as himself. By imagining a world in which law-abiding gun owners were regularly mowing each other down for sport (i.e. a world in which the proposed bans would be directly effective) he hopes to demonstrate just how ridiculous some of the claims coming out of the anti-gun camp were. That's just a guess and there are more sophisticated arguments on both sides of the debate but it would be a crime to ignore such a wonderfully amusing piece of fiction on that basis alone. FWIW I was born into and consider myself sympathetic with gun culture.

LyndsySimon 12y ago
I hadn't considered that; it seems plausible. It seems like he was just trolling more than anything else. I'd love to read the replies he references in his email!