You are not important. You are not interesting. What you think does not benefit other people.
"Blogging," on the whole, is not important or interesting. "Blogging" is a bunch of people thinking they are important or interesting, and telling each other -- because they are all "bloggers" -- that they are important or interesting. And that is neither important nor interesting.
It's a neverending, self-perpetuating cycle. I say you're great, you say I'm great, and our need for validation is fulfilled, so we can go validate other people. I guess it's harmless enough, but it's really lame and annoying.
Calvin and Hobbes predicted this years ago. Calvin says, "I feel I have an obligation to keep a journal of my thoughts. Being a genius, my ideas are naturally more important and interesting than other people's. So I figure the world would benefit from a record of my mental activities." Hobbes: "How philanthropic of you."
But you aren't a genius. Your ideas are not important or interesting. We, the world, do not benefit from your mental activities. You're just someone who thinks they know a lot more than they do, and likes to be told how great they are. Come back to reality. You're clueless.
And don't think I am any different. I fully expect people to say how great I am for writing this, and it makes me feel dirty.
Oh, and for the record, "blogging" is not "journalism" either. If you have to ask, the answer is No. Trust me -- I've seen your work -- you do not have the discernment to be a journalist. Journalism requires separating the wheat from the chaff, and you're all chaff, baby.
Now Playing: Missing Love - Ty Tabor (Safety)
Dirtily,
Andy
Who can identify all the Calvin and Hobbes references in my blog entries?
The first inkling I had that Slash journals were blogs was at YAPC::NA::2002, I think. Before that, I thought we were just communicating with one another.
I write here because I have friends out there (or enemies, or whatever) who sometimes express an interest in what I have to say. There's smart people here who sometimes give me valuable feedback on my ideas, be they code, religion, or politics. I've got friends far and near who know to come here to see what I'm up to, too. Perhaps most of all, I write here to fulfill the primordial hacker morality of sharing information. When I learn something about Perl/Oracle/whatever, I throw it in here. Maybe people will notice and find it useful. Maybe people will link to it, or take what I write and turn it into a HOWTO, or whatever. I haven't given anything significant to the Perl community in code -- but maybe I can give back by sharing what little I know.
Re:I hate blogging
rafael on 2003-08-26T19:34:28
Indeed, posting journal entries here is quite different from having a LiveJournal account or a separate blog : the audience, the site, the community and its common interests, preexist to the journal. It's a small world. People are not reduced to what they post in their blog.
Granted, most people's blogs (like most people's lives) are mostly mundane, and therefore not useful in this way. But then again, people blogging about their day-to-day lives are probably not deluded enough to think they are recording their genius for posterity. Not everyone takes himself so seriously...
Re:Journalism
pudge on 2003-08-26T19:14:52
Blogging may not be journalism, but it can certainly help journalism by allowing a journalist to see much more than would be possible with just his/her own reporting.
Yes, a reporter sees much more about an accident by interviewing witnesses than by just looking at the accident itself.:-) That doesn't make them unique or interesting, it makes them common, which, I suppose, in a little computer world where most of what happens is inconsequential, is an accomplishment. Re:Journalism
TorgoX on 2003-08-27T06:15:40
"paid journalist".Re:Journalism
educated_foo on 2003-08-27T18:04:43
Okay, that was depressing all around. At least (1) I'm not a journalism student, and (2) it's now possible to avoid advertorials almost entirely by getting your news online (through junkbuster) from the NYT or Guardian. But still, lousy journalism's just one more "debt" that will be coming back to kick us sharply in our collective nads.
/s
Pudge, like ones of people, you're an avid reader of my blog. My blog is syndicated through RSS files that are amalagamated by meerkat and so my very, very important (and carefully crafted) words spread across the entire world's population of web robots.
I know you can't stopping reading my blog and that's called "addiction." The people that love you (and I) want you to get better, but you can't as long as you remain "in denial." Your road map to recovery begins by watching Braincandy over and over again.
Consider this the intervention that Eric Raymond never got.
PS. My blog.
Re:"denial" ain't just a river in Egypt
pudge on 2003-08-27T21:09:20
I am merely looking through a glass darkly.Re:"denial" ain't just a river in Egypt
jjohn on 2003-08-27T21:09:56
The right Braincandy. I can't believe there are two.Re:"denial" ain't just a river in Egypt
pudge on 2003-08-27T21:14:01
+1, Astonishment.
Oh, and for the record, "blogging" is not "journalism" either. If you have to ask, the answer is No. Trust me -- I've seen your work -- you do not have the discernment to be a journalist. Journalism requires separating the wheat from the chaff, and you're all chaff, baby.
Err, would you consider Slashdot/use.perl "journalism" then? I mean, *ahem* -- I've seen your work, I've seen the chaff, etc. Granted, there are other editors far, far worse, but even still: isn't it just a smidge hypocritical to complain about journalistic standards when you work for a site who's senior editors actively resist the idea that they should learn to spell, use proper grammar, check facts, and avoid duplicating stories. Or failing that, at least give someone the job of making sure that anything they post gets cleaned up a little?
Nothing personal -- like I say, I think Pudge does a better job than some of the other
Re:Pot meets kettle
pudge on 2003-08-27T21:41:22
But Slashdot/use.perl are, arguably, just collaborative blogs, little different from any other personal blog except that the interconnections between people's commentary is a bit better interwoven.
Slashdot -- the main page etc. -- is not a "blog" in the same sense I am referring. I am referring to the "this is what I am thinking today, may it enrich you!" web sites. Slashdot is a "here's what's going on that may be relevant to you, discuss it if you wish" web site. It's really a very different animal.
I won't discuss use Perl; right now, as it's different than Slashdot, and I don't want to get too much onto a tangent. (For the record, if you care, I think the use Perl; homepage is a form of journalism, what might be called "newsletter journalism," the same kind of thing you see when Aunt Sally sends out her annual "what we did this year" letter at Christmas.)
would you consider Slashdot/use.perl "journalism" then?
Yes, Slashdot is, IMO. It's certainly not traditional journalism, but it is collaborative journalism. I could say a lot about it, but I'd end up using words like "paradigm" and then be forced to slap myself. Suffice it to say, however, that I really don't quibble with learned people who say it is NOT journalism. It all depends on your definition (see below).
isn't it just a smidge hypocritical to complain about journalistic standards when you work for a site who's senior editors actively resist the idea that they should learn to spell, use proper grammar, check facts, and avoid duplicating stories
None of that is, stricly speaking, true. There is ONE editor -- the most important one:-) -- who resists proper spelling and grammar. And no one on staff disparages fact-checking or avoidance of duplicates; quite the opposite, in fact.
But even if you what you said were true, no, it would not be hypocritical, because I would be expressing my disagreement with those policies.:-) But seriously, what I am saying goes deeper than such superficial things as spelling and grammar or duplicate stories, and even fact-checking. Being "real journalism" is not about being "professional," it is at its root about a few things in my mind:
- As already mentioned, discernment
- Regular publication (trying to be complete not just in a given story, but in providing all the relevant stories for your audience)
- Interviews, detail, additional facts
This last point is what separates Slashdot. Merely reprinting news -- what most "blogs" do -- or adding opinion to them is not journalism. Slashdot is one of the most complete sources of information about any given story it publishes on the home page, because of the discussions. Almost anything you want to know about a subject, you'll find it, or a link to it, in a Slashdot story. It is the best example around of "collaborative journalism." Again, some people say it isn't journalism. They can say that, it won't bother me. But I'll say it is.
Anyway, i think this is going off on a tangent. I am talking primarily about the self-centered "blogs" where people just give their thoughts and bask in the glory of how clever they are. You know, like my journal here. And that is something very different from Slashdot.
