blogs

Posts tagged with "blogs"

Blog abuse

Monday, 30. April 2007, 12:52:23

Interesting and worrying article in today's Washington Post about women being frightened away from blogging by abusive responders. Not a new issue - Allan mentioned it a little while ago, particularly in reference to establishing a code of conduct.

I've been lucky myself to avoid any unpleasantness, but then again I am a man and not a particularly high profile one either. I do not permit anonymous postings on this blog. I think that acts as a filter. The most repellent postings are usually by those who are too cowardly to reveal even the limited amount of themselves that registering with Opera would reveal.

Still, I have no doubt that if a really nasty comment came my way it would upset me and make me reconsider blogging. After all, this is supposed to be a fun pastime and not a walk through a minefield. So I have considerable sympathy for those who have been driven away. Unfortunately, what is happening now reveals, once again, how much hatred of women lies beneath the relatively placid surface of society.

(I just checked my blog settings, and I am currently allowing anonymous posts. I guess I just don't get them...! Or am I? It's been long time since I looked at my profile and, of course, the layout has changed. Never mind!

Ah, just logged myself out to see what I look like to the non-Opera user, and indeed you do have to be logged in and registered to post here. Splendid!)

5 Comments

Where are the ordinary people?

Sunday, 4. March 2007, 15:56:31

news, blogs, bias, television ...

One of the reasons I gave up watching U.S. television years ago was the practically unshakable upper-middle class and affluent background of television drama. A few lower class stereotypes were allowed in the comedy are (e.g. The Dukes Of Hazzard - essentially an updated Beverly Hillbillies), but when it came to shows supposedly about real people, wealth was the watchword.

So I turned to the print media for my information, and as soon as the internet became established as a news outlet, to that. For some reason, I deluded myself that the same focus on wealth and class would not be evident there.

Thinking about it today, I realise I was half right

Three weeks of tracking...

Friday, 23. February 2007, 03:41:39

tracking, Marching Bands Of Manhattan, blogs

...and by far the most viewed post in my blog is this one from March 2006. This quotes the lyrics from Death Cab For Cutie's Marching Bands of Manhattan, and someone seems to be looking for those every hour of the day!

Well, that's all to the good. It's a great song, and it is clearly becoming well-known. But I am surprised, I must say!

7 Comments

A BIG Thank You to Demiphonic

Monday, 11. December 2006, 04:00:26

blogs, Demiphonic, random acts of kindness

Who, unasked and out of the goodness of his own heart, revamped the code for my blog.

Thank you very much indeed, Randall!

20 Comments

Exodus

Friday, 21. April 2006, 02:59:46

blogs, comings and goings

Been swamped with work (hard but good) and family (always good) stuff over the past few days, so I have not been around here much. And what do I find when I get back? Dear Joni is taking her (hopefully) temporary leave of us. Before that Stop The Funny, Troels - definitely a mini-Exodus here (appropriate for Passover perhaps?).

And that's fine. No one signs a contract to maintain a presence here. The comings and goings are part of the territory. I will probably disappear myself when I go on vacation this summer - this is my usual practice and reminds me that despite my fondness for all things computer, I am also perfectly capable of turning my back on them completely if need and/or inclination takes me that way.

Still, I will happy to see the recently departed return.

1 Comment

The Serious World of Blogging?

Saturday, 15. April 2006, 14:20:43

blogs, balance, rants

I'm basically an amateur blogger. I make no real effort to enlarge my public profile any more than how it currently stands (and frankly I am amazed that I have had as many views as I have on this Opera blog).

But there are plenty of others for whom blogging is clearly a life mission! I was reminded of this by today's Washington Post article on angry, left-leaning bloggers. In the past I paid little attention to political blogs, not least because many of the earlier and best known ones were rabid right-wing polemicals (and revolting to read), but, as this article points out, there are now a good number of similarly incensed left-wing bloggers in the U.S.

The article concentrates on one of the angriest, My Left Wing, that I had paid no attention to whatsoever before, so I took a look.

I was expecting to be turned off by the strident tone, but frankly it was very heartening to read rants such as these that I have no difficulty empathizing with.

Not sure if it makes me feel any better in the long run, though. Righteous anger is still anger, and it is not a good emotion to sustain over any length of time in my opinion. I prefer moderation both in tone and action.

Plus, life itself is too complex to reduce to rants, be they from the left or the right. Not that one should sit back and let clear injustice or foolishness go unchecked. But one should aim to restore balance; not simply replace one extreme with another.

On the other hand, sometimes it takes a bit of fire to stir people into any action at all. At the very least, it is heartening to see that boiling passion is not the sole property of the right (as it often seemed to be in this country over the past 20 years).

4 Comments

Vacillation

Wednesday, 5. April 2006, 01:52:12

blogs, diaries, private, public

I find my attitude to blogging vacillates between wanting to say something interesting that others might enjoy and simply recording my thoughts as if I was writing into a personal diary with the expectation that no one else would want or need to read them at all.

I think this is probably a good attitude to have in the long run. I don't want to get caught in the trap of having to 'produce', an issue that can weigh heavily, I think, on bloggers. That little meter on the 'preferences' page tells you that people are looking at this and my photographs, and I am glad that they are. If anyone gets any pleasure out of it, so much the better! But it also makes me aware that there is an audience, and that knowledge can influence what I chose to write. This is not really how it should be; I am not in the publishing business and nor do I wish to be.

So, you may ask, why blog at all? Why not just write in a private diary the old-fashioned way? There is merit to that argument, except I've never been able to sustain a private diary, but I do seem to be able to keep blogging. So, obviously, the audience - you - is encouraging me in some subtle ways. Public/private - blogging somehow straddles those categories in a satisfactory way. It certainly satisfies me

3 Comments

The Ephemeral World Of Blogging

Saturday, 1. April 2006, 17:19:30

blogs, exit, entry

The ease with which people enter and leave the world of blogging is perhaps its greatest asset and its greatest curse.

An asset, because even the shiest of us may tiptoe into this community feeling relatively unthreatened, and a curse bacause it is so easy within an instant to leave and disappear into an untraceable (or very difficult to trace) void.

Stop The Funny's exit today is neither the first nor is it going to be the last that has disturbed me on some level.

This comes with the territory.

0 Comments

Look here

Wednesday, 8. March 2006, 20:48:31

blogs, opera

There are many extremely talented people working with this site, and I've been lucky enough to run into a few of them. Frequently a post really strikes me as something a bit special, and I'll push it towards Opera Spotlights.

But in case this one gets missed, be sure to read My heart is a poorly-fashioned bean cake.

0 Comments

Big problems at blogger.com

Sunday, 5. February 2006, 15:25:56

blogs

Looks like blogger.com is have severe difficulties this weekend. I've been losing access to my music blog off and on for the past three days; it's currently offline. I guess a server bit the dust this weekend.

All the more reason to keep up my Opera blog on this excellent site!

9.43a.m. CST. Back up again - hope this is the last of the troubles.

2 Comments

Wednesday, 1. February 2006, 04:12:07

blogs

It's interesting to observe the range of blogs here - or on any other blog site. Some are personal diaries, some ways for small groups of people to congregate, some are polemical, some are reflective. Some are entreaties, others seem so self-contained.

Some focus on narrow interests, others on wide ones. Some are welcoming - others are outright prickly. The whole range of human emotions are here - from love to anger, passion to boredom, contentment to resentment.

In other words, precisely the range you would expect should you encounter a large, randomly assembled, group of people.

I like this. Even the most nihilistic and obsessive blogs still radiate life, and some are entrancing and enlightening. It is an interesting world we create here.

7 Comments