Comments on: Pretend you know better.

Pretend you know better.

PM — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:10:57 -0800

"Smugopedia is a collection of slightly controversial opinions about a variety of subjects. We offer you the chance to buy a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction at the small cost of alienating your friends and loved ones."

By: Solon and Thanks

Solon and Thanks — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:15:19 -0800

this is tailor made for metafilter.

By: nevercalm

nevercalm — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:53:44 -0800

I already knew about this.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:59:53 -0800

Smugopedia is a blog, not a 'pedia. Their lax use of the language is disappointing for purported smugmongers.

By: Alexandra Kitty

Alexandra Kitty — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:18:32 -0800

I have no attention span for these things any more...

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:19:49 -0800

My friends and loved ones pay me to host this glorious, permanent sense of self-satisfaction. Monthly.

By: Artw

Artw — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:27:19 -0800

The Vikings section badly needs expanding.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:45:59 -0800

If Nancy's baldheaded pal wrote this blog, they could call it 'Smuggo,' but he probably dosen't.

By: oddman

oddman — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:53:29 -0800

Two pages? Meh.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:09:14 -0800

MetaFilter: a collection of slightly controversial opinions about a variety of subjects

By: clearly

clearly — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:10:41 -0800

I am undoubitively the most well mannered aristocrat on MetaFilter.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:13:05 -0800

The Vikings section badly needs expanding. Not necessarily. "Vikings: always literal" would seem to fit the bill.

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:16:52 -0800

oddman: there's another dozen or so if you look through the archive. I don't know why you can't next your way over to them.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:42:12 -0800

MIT's most far reaching contribution to contemporary culture is arguably the fact most of the LSD on the east coast during the 1960s was produced at MIT. 86 percent awesome.

By: wendell

wendell — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:03:59 -0800

So, they've re-branded the Conservapedia? And Nancy's pal is SLUGGO, not Smuggo. Same name as Mr Bill's arch-enemy. And there was a KROQ who called himself 'Doug the Slug' who was quickly re-christened 'Sluggo' by Jed the Fish. And the first time a garden slug found its way inside my bathroom, I called him "Sluggo" as I gingerly picked him up with a Gopher reaching tool and tossed him out the front door.

By: wendell

wendell — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:06:40 -0800

...a KROQ Disc Jockey... Anyway, Nancy's Sluggo was (and is, the comic's still running) NOT smug.

By: Snyder

Snyder — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:15:34 -0800

I guess this is nice for those who need a website for such things.

By: popechunk

popechunk — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:09:45 -0800

Here are my favorites: Iliad Although the Robert Fagles translation is modern, popular, and easy to understand if you've never studied Greek, Richard Lattimore's classic translation captures the feeling of the original Greek more accurately. Central Park Prospect Park, not Central Park, ought to be considered the gem of the New York parks. Frederick Law Olmstead, after all, designed both, but he considered Prospect Park to be his crowning achievement. Julius Caesar Caesar's pomposity -- such as his propensity for referring to himself, in his writings and accounts of his wars, as "Caesar" and not "I" or "me" -- makes him unbearable even today. George Orwell 1984 and Animal Farm are classics, but a much more accurate portrayal of contemporary life than 1984's 'Big Brother' is the middle class despair captured in Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Clueless Amy Heckerling did a great job of updating Emma into Clueless, but she lost the powerful subtlety of Austin's novel by entirely eliminating certain things, like the character of Mrs. Weston -- the wise governess and Frank Churchill's mother. Harvard It is rather smug how Harvard alumni, when asked where they went to school, respond with, "In Boston." Victor Hugo Although Victor Hugo was a talented playwright, it is really his political activism that mattered. He could even be credited with the abolition of the death penalty in Switzerland. David Hume Although Hume's classic Treatise on Human Nature is a key work of political philosophy to come out of the Scottish Enlightenment, Hume's forgotten masterpiece Of the Standard of Taste, in which he argues that judging art is not arbitrary, is probably the most important work in aesthetics before Kant. Yale Although Yale has a good law school, Yale itself can feel more like a retirement community for geniuses than a stimulating university: The great Yale faculty members get tenure there decades after doing their brilliant work elsewhere. Tango Although the Tango greats like Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla are first rate musicians, Tango doesn't capture the "everyday man in the street, letting himself go" sentiment as well as its oft-forgotten contemporary, the Murga, does. You can still see it, with its eccentric Carneval-like costumes and dances, in the provinces of Argentina and Uruguay today. Ivy League The Ivy League universities happen to be good schools, but academics has nothing to do with the Ivy League: the Ivy League was founded as a football league and still today remains merely an intercollegiate athletic league. Voltaire The extreme degree to which Voltaire was hated by the great men of his era is surprising--hated even by the likes of Mozart, who wrote to his father after Voltaire's death, "the arch-scoundrel Voltaire has finally kicked the bucket." The Riviera Everyone goes to the French Riviera. The Italian Riviera is just as lovely, and so much more exclusive. Rio De Janeiro Rio de Janeiro is wonderful, but right across the bay is Niteroi, which is even better. The view of the city there is spectacular, and the Oscar Neimeyer museum is a real perk. Aristotle Aristotle rose to prominence not through his ideas but as the academic favored by the most powerful man in the world at the time, King Philip II of Macedonia. Philip II loved this unknown philosopher and fellow Macedonian so much that he chose Aristotle to be his son's tutor--and his son was Alexander the Great. Aristotle was a guy beloved by kings who conquered the world and spread his ideas. Dartmouth It's curious how, when people list the Ivy League schools, they tend to forget Dartmouth. Go Although a lot of fun to play, Go isn't as realistic as another ancient strategy game, the Viking "Hnefatafl," in which one of the two sides is the attacker and the other merely vies to help its own King escape. Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) MIT's most far reaching contribution to contemporary culture is arguably the fact most of the LSD on the east coast during the 1960s was produced at MIT. Venezuela Venezuela, although beautiful, bears strikingly little resemblance to Italy, which is surprising given that the word "Venezuela" literally means, "Little Venice." Bickering Such departmental bickering always reminds me of Borges' observation on the Falklands War: It's like two bald men fighting over a comb. James Madison Although James Madison was perhaps the most under-rated President, the degree to which the history and thought of the ancient world--from Athens and Rome to the Hebrews--permeated every aspect of his life is striking: even after completing his studies at Princeton in two years, he remained on campus for one more year just to study Hebrew.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:29:09 -0800

Bah. Henry Root's World of Knowledge puts this feeble effort to shame.

By: JoeXIII007

JoeXIII007 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:59:29 -0800

Now why do I care?

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:01:29 -0800

Meh. Ambrose Bierce did this over a hundred years ago.

By: bodywithoutorgans

bodywithoutorgans — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:20:11 -0800

In the spirit of Ambrose Bierce, an updated version of his Devil's Dictionary

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:26:14 -0800

So popechunk, your favorites are... all of them?

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:32:21 -0800

Meh. Ambrose Bierce did this over a hundred years ago. Did he? I thought he was witty & insightful.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:02:09 -0800

Here's my best smug opinion: Although Murakami himself may disagree, Alfred Birnbaum's 1989 translation of Murakami Haruki's novel Norwegian Wood better evokes the story's emotional arc than Jay Rubin's 2000 translation.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:34:29 -0800

they both might have done better to have translated haruki murakami instead.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:53:48 -0800

In the spirit of paradox, the user with a lot of favorites has no favorites.

By: Zambrano

Zambrano — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:13:19 -0800

metafilteropedia

By: thedaniel

thedaniel — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:41:42 -0800

they both might have done better to have translated haruki murakami instead. Are you making some kind of crack along the lines of "FoB got the names switched around"? If so, you have failed at smugging.