In Case Of Actual Death

Wednesday July 23, 2008 at 12:10

And while we’re speaking about the ways that technology drives creativity and passion:

I’m tired of looking at whygodwhy and not liking the off-the-shelf wordpress templates, and having no idea how to tweak them the way I’d like. It doesn’t look like a place where I want to write, and hasn’t for a long time, and I don’t know what to do about it. I wish I had someone to do this work for me. Someone who could just sweep it out and tidy it up, make it clean and simple and semi-original and reasonably nice to look at, so I can stop focusing on how much I hate my website, and focus instead on how much I like writing things there.

(& I know you can pay people to do this, but I don’t have money. I only have a desire to make things for people to read on the internet, which don’t exactly pay the automobills.)

Wednesday July 23, 2008 at 11:58

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distorte:

I believe that reading novels leads, over a long time, to cumulative intellectual growth in ways that consumption of other media does not. This is my reason that reading novels is better for you than watching television, although it’s good to question assumptions like that sometimes.

…

The reason I like goodreads is not so much for its social aspects (although they’re okay), but because it makes me, knowing I’ll have to jot something down afterwards, think actual thoughts about books rather than just churning through without any real analysis. It makes me critical.

It’s also a bit like writing online. You could be doing it in a notebook, but the online thing gives you a framework. Keeps you honest.

Also, knowing that I’m publicising my reading list also keeps me away from complete dreck. Because what would I write after reading it?

I don’t have much to say about whether reading novels makes me a better or smarter person (I mainly read YA and graphic novels, so maybe it makes me a better teenager?) BUT I can say that goodreads has made reading fun for me again. A framework, like he says. This is the same function as joining a book club, except that a) in book clubs you have to sit there and listen while people drone on, and b) you don’t get to choose what you want to read, when you want to read it. Same with studying literature at university, which was also not my favorite.

Also, if I read a book and recommend it, and 6 months later you read it and also enjoy it, it feels like we’re sharing a nice little moment. Whereas if you’re enjoying S2 of Mad Men, I have to skip over all the livejournal entries where you go on and on about the spoilers, and 6 months later when I finally get around to watching it, you’re done talking about it. Maybe that’s just a books vs TV thing? I get really good reading recommendations from the friends I’m connected to, and I don’t why, but this works so much better for me on goodreads than it does on Netflix.

The only thing about goodreads (and it’s also a lame thing about every other social networking site) is the people who want to be friends with you but don’t actually know you. Half the time they only want to connect to you so that you’ll buy whatever book it is they’re selling, which is the most annoying marketing plan ever. The other half of the time they’re just random, perfectly nice people, and I feel bad about deleting their requests, but adding people I don’t know, whose recommendations I don’t trust, would cause the site to decrease in value for me. If goodreads instituted Twitter’s “follow me but I don’t have to follow you” function, this would be easily solved.

And about a public reading list keeping you from reading complete dreck, that’s a bunch of crap, and that way lies the False Cult of the Guilty Pleasure. Enjoy what you want to enjoy, irrespective of what Harold Bloom or Pitchfork or the girl in your English class (with the softest hair ever but who doesn’t even know you exist but maybe if she spotted you reading that book she loves she would suddenly notice you and have to kiss you) say.

This post was reblogged from Is that blogging?.

Monday July 21, 2008 at 8:19

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Not sure how to explain the internet to your young ones? Kean Soo and I present a series of nursery rhymes teaching children how
to comport themselves online.

(The next time we hang out, ask me to tell you the story of how I tried and failed to get Kean to draw a furry upskirt.)

(And long-time readers will figure out that this piece was based on an idea that originally appeared here.)

Saturday July 19, 2008 at 22:03

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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Al Green - Your love is like the morning sun.

Friday July 18, 2008 at 8:54

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distorte:

Fiction Volante completed its run yesterday. For one year, a new shortform story was posted every weekday. A blog format was used to contain the stories. They are of exceptional quality.

…

It saddens me that people are more interested in talking about computer products and Gawker celebrities than the incredibly exciting artistic avenues that the web is opening up. Perhaps it’s the standard blog format, perhaps it’s that people aren’t really as interested in creativity on the web as they claim, but the site passed its year in relative obscurity. Hopefully that doesn’t mean it can’t become famous after it’s dead.

1. I’m glad someone else wrote this post. The issue is buried under a deep layer of permafrost for me, and will not be unearthed by man nor machine.

2. The 5 Pierce lists aren’t my favorites, so I’ll add these:

3. The Achewood blogs count as online fiction. So does One Person Trend Stories. There are people doing good work. And there’s also a whole other section of the blogosphere worrying full-time about this problem, so, you know. And everytime someone complains about the state of online fiction, the entire fic community can’t hear it over all the shouting.

4. When Meg or Pierce or whoever posts a new story to their website, I don’t read it right away. I star it and wait for the right time, and enjoy having something to look forward to, when the conditions are right. It’s nice to have something to savor on the internet, as opposed to having things to get through.

5. I love that Fiction Volante had an end date. I think more sites should have end dates. Actually I think most sites should have end dates. The only thing I genuinely don’t care for on the internet is the apparently craving for websites to post the same thing, 12 times per day, on and on ad infinitum. If it wasn’t like that, all the other needling annoyances (anonymous irate commenters, Top X lists) would fall away.

6. I wonder if James is doing the thing I do. Everytime I realize I’m coming to the end of my interest in one of my websites (read: a certain style of writing), I think: “There’s, that’s done. But if I get X emails asking me to revive it, I will reconsider.” X is never a very high number, but I never get there. And I don’t say that to be complainy about my lot in life, because my lot in life is pretty amazing, and if you know me at all, you know that either way, I’m going to do what I feel like doing. I’m just saying that if Gawker ended tomorrow, I don’t think they’d reach their X either.

7. Actually, OK. I took a quick look through my feed reader. 93 feeds (down from over 200, thank you very much). There’s a few in there that aren’t updating regularly, but only one where I’ve actually emailed the guy to be like What the hell, let’s go. How many sites would you miss if they stopped updating tomorrow?

8. Or this: How many sites do you read, vs. how many would you miss?

9. Or: Of the sites that you read, how many are enriching your life, and how many are about just keeping up with the blogger next door?

This post was reblogged from Is that blogging?.

Thursday July 17, 2008 at 9:56

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Act Two

Act II is up alert

Tuesday July 15, 2008 at 16:43

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UNIQLOCK

ernie:

Put this on your monitor while you go to lunch or the bathroom and come back to find your co-workers fascinated or generally FREAKED OUT.

I used to use this! But I had to stop because I would be trying to have SERIOUS discussions with people in my office and their eyes kept getting glued to my monitor. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss it terribly.

This post was reblogged from Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest.

Tuesday July 15, 2008 at 9:11

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Dr. Horrible: Act I Available Today!

meghanagain:

You guys you guys you guys you guys you guysusususus! As far as I’m concerned the Internet can do whatever the heck it wants for the rest of its summer, like, it can continue to mangle feminist theory or muddle race relations or blaspheme the pillars of democracy or Photoshop cats into funny positions or make up words or ignore world politics that aren’t easily summed up in a vlog or whu-uh-uh-uh-utevur BECAUSE the Internet today has stepped up ferry this wonder to me, and I don’t care about your face! Your faaaaaaaaaace!

+Infinity. I was halfway through writing a very crabby post (don’t worry, it’ll keep!) when Joss Whedon made the world a better place. I don’t need anything else from you this summer, internet. Keep acting outraged about people who do things to become famous, for all I care. I’m just going to be excited about this.

This post was reblogged from How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down.

Friday July 11, 2008 at 16:48

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benhasten:

(photographer unknown)

This post was reblogged from benhästen.

Friday July 11, 2008 at 8:18

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“You guys I am seriously considering building a time machine for the sole purpose of bringing this book back to myself as a preteen. It would have soothed a lot of nerves, I can tell you that, and then about ten years later it would have served as a memory-beacon. E. Lockhart just totally nails so many important m/f dynamics that we’re all just supposed to up and guess about, and she does it without turning on any of that righteous Sarah Dessen scold. It’s kind of a miracle. Can I give this book to every girl?”

— From Meg’s review of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, which is suddenly one of my most favorite and loved books of all time. I cannot encourage you strongly enough to read this book.