Internet Recommendation Cartels

Some things exist that speak out in favor of the internet. Farlex's Free Dictionary is one of these things. On the surface of it it is of course just a standard web 2.0 site. But there are a lot of online dictionaries: plenty, in fact, so where do you go. What is the standard model for inoffensiveness? Web 2.0 is of course something like a swarm of informational bees and a robust, drunk legislational bureaucracy.

In the future we shall unironically type such things as http://WW.EMAIL-2.com/sys/sisyphus/suchafuss4628334611098249224. Which W will disappear? That's the part I don't know yet, to be truthful. It's probably impossible to know, but anyone will have a 33% chance of being right, I suppose.

In the end that's what's important. Statisticians have the dubious honor of inventing and integrating their pseudoscience into the world, a position which they violently defend even in the face of statistically unsound statistical-professions such as meteorologist or phenomenologist. Web 2.0 is like a statistician and a state-adjacent private bureaucrat/hypocrite.

That was a little out of hand. The Free Dictionary is a swell thing though. I've never seen it fail me yet. The front page has all kinds of little widget-style subsections, but the only one I ever use the Word Match Up, pictured below:

 

Obviously there's a lot of other stuff going on that I cropped out because, fuck, let's ignore as much of Web 2.0 whenever possible - the distractions, the personalizations, the ever-looming identity policy or threat of fraud or some other defeat.Word Match Up on Farlexionary is one of the few things I try to make a point of doing each day. It's an idle minute well spent, in my opinion – one of the few, right? Mark Twain is definitely and automatically allowed a space on my blog, at the very least.

The game can be tough. I have lost much of my prestige to obscure or polyvalent words, but most of the time I can't be bothered to truly follow all the rules, and I think most have this feeling. Words work best when they're poured out in a drunken torrent or muttered incoherently or whatever.

Match Up, yeah. I think it's just well designed is all, and it is part of a decent resource. Plus, the -

Well I technically, or at least academically failed the test. But to be fair: look at that shit. There are awesome words that are underused critically, are not obtuse, and do not sound like 'adumbrate'. Vituperate I feel bad about, because I've seen vituperative people and the entire culture of vituper sickens me when I am confronted with it. That shit is my kryptonite.

The Free Dictionary is better than Facebook, Twitter, and your favorite news site combined.