News

Despite what you may have thought, the problem with the Humboldt County blogosphere isn't that it's too stupid. On the contrary, the problem is that it's not stupid enough. Every day, all around the world, the bar for brainlessness is set a little bit higher, and as usual Humboldt County is behind the curve. We have our pioneers, most notably the great Suzy Blah Blah, but we should all try harder to follow their example.

Fortunately, there is now a simple online tool to help us all dumb up our discourse. It's called The Unintelligencer, and it will automatically translate ordinary writing into five levels of stupidity, depending on your needs. Take, for example, a recent post by Ecoshift, one of the county's most backwardly smart bloggers:

After reading The Journal’s recent cover story "Codes, Damned Codes" on the county’s heavy handed code enforcement activities in McKinleyville I wondered if there could possibly be a more confrontational way to go about "protecting" renters and future home owners from sub standard building and land use practices. I imagined that some would view the effort as protecting property values for the neighborhood and therefore at least somewhat justified.

Set at level "unintelligible," The Unintelligencer renders this passage in an Internet-ready format:

after reading thee journal’s resent cover stry "codes, damned codes" on tehz county’s heavy handed code enforcement activites ins mckinleyville i wondered iffn thar cud possibly b moar confrontational wae 2 goa abowt "protecting" renters + fuchur home pwners form sub standard building an land uize practices. i imagined dat som wud wiew the effort az protecting property values foar the neighborhood en therefore @ least somewhat justified.

Good news: The Unintelligencer will automatically parse feeds for you, so you can pick up a Humboldt County blogfeed in machine-unintelligenced format. Try it out!