MICROBLOGGING BELONGS AT TWITTER.COM
There was a time when I sort of believed the standard blogging doctrine “blog often”. I’m not exactly sure what the point of this was, other than to increase the likelihood of something you write being picked up somewhere significant. Or perhaps it was to “keep your blogging skills sharp”, if there are such things to sharpen. Recently though I’ve been subscribing to a huge number of politically influential blogs because I’ve been very engaged in this election cycle. And I have to say, regardless of what side of the isle these people come from, their work is almost exclusively terrible (there are rare exceptions).
I was reminded of a quote from way back in the day when I was first learning BSD (as introduced to me by the first Mac OS X … yes, I was a late bloomer in the grand scheme of things). From Ray & Ray’s Mac OS X Unleashed, reproduced without permission,
Caution [...] Just as some of us are safer not owning super-fast sports cars, some are less a threat to ourselves and others if we don’t have a big box of firecrackers, and some would be better off if we couldn’t buy donuts by the dozen, Unix is just too much for some people. It might be too much power, or too much flexibility, or too much information to remember, but Unix seems specifically designed to create a user who epitomizes the phrase knows just enough to be dangerous.
Each of these examples deals with “excess” in some way shape or form. While I disagree with its application to Unix for obvious reasons, it’s perfect for some of these people. Some of those to which this commentary is directed (not listed) I believe are extremely intelligent and linear in their thinking when writing through other mediums, but good lord, they all just become trivial little assholes who’d rather post off-the-cuff remarks then actually think through anything logically anymore.
Vdov.net has often published prolifically, through just as often we lag in our content production. I will no longer care if in a given month we lag … microblogging belongs at twitter.com.
Cheers.
twitter = femtoblogging
I mean we also suffer in that we don’t blog as our occupation. If I had nothing else to do all day and got paid for it I think I might take a spin at being a “trivial little asshole[] who’d rather post off-the-cuff remarks then actually think through anything logically anymore.”
You did read my Tibet post right? I am halfway there as is.
i’m pretty sure this is a side project for most of these people.
there seems to be a real difference though. people who selectively quote and don’t cite, for instance. a ton of these people are published authors (traditional media), and they would never get away with this crap in their previous/day jobs.
besides, its hard to expect this is their true calling … their only legitimacy seems to stem from their non-blogging CV/bio, which is always no more than one click away from whatever they post.
i demand vdov microblogging… with blink tags!
NOOOOO…. vdov strips blink tags
wow … you have far too much time on your hands
don’t be jealous
afischer, i’m definitely jealous of the scrolling marquee