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February 17, 2005

Nostradammit.

Scripting News: 2/17/2005:

Next week, Wired may give Adam Curry an award, for work that I, not he, did. I've told them this is not cool. Haven't heard yet what they plan to do about it. They offered to give me a free dinner. I'll buy my own dinner, thanks. I want credit for my work. I don't mind sharing it with Adam, because he was part of the invention. I've never been cheap with crediting Adam. But to say he is the inventor is just plain wrong.

I told you so.

Posted by John at 10:35 PM |

Clear as mud.

Scripting News: 2/17/2005

Also, sorry for the blackout on the purpose of my stay in Atlanta. The people I'm visiting don't want publicity for what they're doing, and I of course am respecting that.

How transparent.

Posted by John at 6:18 PM |

February 8, 2005

You could buy a Moleskine.

Ah, the Gray Lady does seem to be pissing off a lot of the bloggerati these days, eh? Kinda refreshing, if you ask me. The latest uproar is about a Styles article on "mommy blogging," this statement in particular:

The baby blog in many cases is an online shrine to parental self-absorption.

Alarums and excursions. More handwringing about the Times' agenda regarding bloggers, which I'm beginning to think roughly translates to "Why should we praise people who say we suck?" Though the wise, good, just blogosphere never really said that, really, they just said that they could do everything faster and better than the moribund, obsolete, hidebound MSM. And they also said a bunch of stuff about transparency and openness. Which I'd quote you, but it was discussed on a private mailing list associated with an invitation-only conference.

But I digress. Oh, yes, "mommy blogging." Julie Leung explains why it's legit:

This "mass therapy" and exploration of voice and identity are valid reasons for anyone to blog, whether a teenage guy or an at-home-mom or a CEO. Parents have some of the same reasons to want to blog as anyone else.

...writing forces you to meditate on who the heck you are: a particular need for parents in our culture today, especially those who have decided to get off the career ladder for a while. In our culture, we are identified by our job, our career, our skills, our education. When we lived in Silicon Valley, I remember the first question people would ask when being introduced was "Where do you work?".

Something about this didn't sit quite right with me, because I think that writing is indeed a fine tool for self-exploration. It nagged at me until I read Eric Meyer's take on the issue:

Blogging about little Johnny’s poopy diapers, or Susie’s apparently sourceless temper tantrums, is in no sense of the word necessary. It isn’t even needed, either by you or by the rest of us. If you absolutely must write down your thoughts and feelings about how hard it is to be a parent, do so in a private journal. Fifteen years from now, you can decide whether or not to give it to your child, and if you do, they can decide what to do with it. But don’t throw it out into the world as if it were a list of your favorite movies. That’s unnecessarily cruel.

Ah-ha! That's it! Many people write for self-exploration, but feel no need to inflict it on others in public! That's what I was thinking! People, didn't home movies teach us anything? All this stuff is going to be good for is embarrassing your child later on in front of their boy/girlfriends. I think that one of Julie Leung's commenters said what's really going on here best:

I blog because I type faster than I can write by hand. And I like how my site looks so far. And because I feel hip doing this thing online rather than having a journal. :)

Posted by John at 9:36 PM | | Comments (1)

February 4, 2005

But not a mandate.

Via Political Wire:

"I was surprised. I extended my hand and he was good enough to give me a manly embrace."

-- Sen. Joseph Lieberman, quoted by the Connecticut Post, on the kiss he received from President Bush.

I believe this is referred to as a "reverse Judas."

Posted by John at 11:47 AM |

Stuff to read


mph returns, and there was much rejoicing:

PuddingTime! Linklog: February 2005 Archives

mph's shiny, experimental blog only delivers the goods at 5:17 each morning.


Posted by John at 11:25 AM |

February 1, 2005

A request from the peanutosphere

Blogging, Journalism & Credibility » Inclusiveness at the Conference

Update, 9:10pm– Looks like I’m missing one vital fact from my paper. I just read on Scripting News: “The mail list for the BloJouCreCon continues to be active.� Isn’t that ironic, that despite all the demands for openness, the discussion continues on the private mail list, as opposed to the public conference blog? Makes one wonder about the utility of the weblog for carrying on conversations.

Indeed. In the interests of the much vaunted "transparency," is there some member of this list who would be willing to post list messages somewhere?

Posted by John at 5:56 PM | | Comments (2)