Timbu::Musings: Blog: May 2003 Archives

Ranting == Poetry

By

on May 15, 2003 1:30 PM
Permalink

Sometimes a ranting monologue posted on the web takes on a certain disonance that it transcends ordinary prose and crosses the line into poetry.

Here is an excellent example:

Conferences, conferences everywhere. Mathematics degree or no long-forgotten mathematics degree, I don't know a power-law from a cheese sandwich, and I'll tell you, all these conferences and symposia and self-congratulatory bloggeriffic circlejerkathons lately, unfailingly dotted with laptop-lugging constellations of the Usual fat-end-of-the-comet Suspects, these cadres of neo-imagineering big-brained rent-a-pundits traipsing around telling everyone how breathtakingly important and revolutionary it all is... well, sometimes it just seems a little forced to me, and more than a little reminiscent of the frenzied bandwagonesque me-too (and the gimme-gimmes) of the leadup to the collective technojizz and detumescence and smoking rubble of the fin-de-siecle bubble. Just trade 'revenue streams and ROI calculation' for 'creative renaissance and DIY journalism,' and everything old smells new again.
--Emptybottle.org : A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.

I agree in some aspects. I think there is a little too much hype surrounding blogging at the momoment, especially since conceptually it's not too different from me posting interesting items on my office door.

grade school alum

By

tim

on May 14, 2003 2:18 PM
Permalink

Today while tail'ing my refferrer log I came across this entry.

144.*.*.* - - [14/May/2003:14:10:07 -0500] "GET /mtblog/index.html HTTP/1.0" 200 49546 "http://www.spinning-jennie.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"

Being the curious type of person, I thought I would check the link out.

Turns out spinning-jennie went to grade school with me. She linked to my blog after googling me. Small world, no.

Of course, I am still having difficulty figuring out just who this person is. I went to four different grade schools. They were located in Richland Center, West Allis, and two in Milwaukee. My fondest personal memories are the time I spent in Richland Center and at Manitoba (the grade school, not the Canadian Province).

Spinning-Jennie give me some hints.

Blogspace -- private or public?

By

tim

on May 11, 2003 5:58 PM
Permalink

I noticed on mamamusings an entry with this quote.

"This blog is not a public space, it’s a private one. "

This struck me as very interesting. I mean the content is on a public server, on a public network, published with public protocols. Yet it is private.

This illustrates a couple of things for me.

Everyone has a different definition of blogs and blogging.
The "publicness" of a blog is related to the whims and/or legitimate concerns of the blog owner / administrator.

P.S.

In the comments to this entry, Liz points out that "Yes, it's public in that it's made available publicly. But the writing space itself is not public, any more than my personal web page is a public forum." I agree. For instance I would hate for people to post comments with links to obscene material or hate filled writing. (And thanks for the comment Liz, it's only my third so far, but who is counting.)

So blogging is public in terms of distribution and consumption, but not public in terms of the content. It's also probably not a forum for name calling, public debate, or vigorous protest. [O.K. It might be a place for name calling, but only at the decree of the owner / administrator, see Dave Winer for details.]

Perhaps blogs are public like shopping malls are public. I mean anyone can go their, but you can't hold a protest inside of one, unless the mall owner sanctions it.

The tension between public and private is very interesting to me.

Of course, a blog could fulfill other purposes. As I have noted before, it could be for fiction, non-fiction, journalism, op-ed, serious research. See "Blogging is a Container."