Another dilemma is that right now I'm not having these entries appear on the home page. I'm worried they'll clutter and de-focus the main thrust of this blog. On the other hand, I'm still trying to figure out how to coordinate my various blogations, and I'm usually skeptical of hierarchical systems as being too static. I prefer multiple metadata so that various forms of filtering can be done by the reader.
In one view, Radio Free Blogistan is my metablog channel and I have other channels for other kinds of writing. On the other hand, RFB is the one getting all the attention right now, so it's tempting to fold everything else into it. Keeping personal stuff separate from technical and editorial stuff also makes sense, but the most popular blogs tend to mix personal with intellectual with business. "The personal is political," isn't that what they used to say?
I'll keep thinking about this.
categories: metablog radioactive x-pollen
5:36:06 PM 
say what []
categories: memewatch x-pollen
4:18:05 PM say what []
I'm still mining the J-School resources here. This is a link to J.D. Lasica's weblog/journalism resource:
Journalism's new life forms: The following links provide information about new forms of personal journalism — including weblogs, collaborative news sites, personal broadcasting, and more — as well as pointers to examples of each genre.Naturally, you'll start seeing some repeats with some of these seminal links, but I think this list is a keeper.
categories: memewatch metablog syllabus
2:15:20 PM say what []
Just noticed that Rebecca Blood has put all the links from her book online at her site. This is a good practice, as it enables her to update links as they change from their printed version in the book (as some already have).
2:10:36 PM say what []
Following a link from Q Daily News (I'm still exploring links that turned up from checking out the UC Berkeley J-School IP Weblog Class syllabus mentioned in an entry yesterday), I found this copy of developer's notes for Internet Explorer 6 SP 1, including the nonchalant mention that they are effectively abandoning the Gopher protocol:
Gopher protocolNow, I have to admit I haven't surfed a Gopher site in probably six or seven years, but this seems a little sad to me.
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The gopher protocol has been disabled by default. If you must use gopher you can re-enable the functionality by setting the following registry key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware MicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion InternetSettings]"EnableGopher"=dword:00000001
categories: memewatch
12:49:33 PM say what []
Anyone trying to get caught up on weblogs, history of weblogs, what makes a good weblog, history of what people have thought makes a good weblog, and so on, should probably go back and ready CamWorld's rant from January 26, 1999.
I have to admit that I used to think CamWorld was a nudie webcame portal site.
One interesting angle Cam pursues is not "who invented weblogging" or "who did it first" but more "what was the first successful/popular weblog." He points to Dave Winer's Scripting News as one candidate.
I find this interesting because I think who did it first is kind of boring and who invented it is kind of stupid. Depending on how you define it, early online diaries and journals predate most famous blogs. To some they don't count because they didn't necessarily point out and link to interesting websites. Others don't count more pure weblogs like Jorn Barger's Robot Wisdom precisely because they see the personal/journal aspect of blogging to be key. These definitions go round and round in circles.
Personally, I suspect it was the canned porno sites that had the first online journals, and everybody points to NCSA's "What's New" site as one of the first link filters. But, again, the more interesting question is how did the idea get so popular. That is, what about weblogging so closely meets the needs of such a large and growing number of people?
Cam also has a followup rant from May of that same year.
12:33:55 PM say what []
(Via A Blog Doesn't Need a Clever Name [via Scripting News]) Ray Ozzie is working through some of the legal issues surrounding employee weblogs at Groove networks.
categories: knowhow memewatch metablog
12:22:34 PM say what []
This morning it was an image of weblogs as antibodies or red^H^H^Hwhite blood cells (can you tell I haven't studied biology all that carefully?), swarming to attack so-called information from every possible angle. Whether it's just a multiplicity of viewpoints or Ken Layne's "fact-check[ing] your ass" the idea is the same. The sum of the blogosphere's parts is a planetwise intelligence system that knows more than any individual possibly could.
The phrase that came to mind was "the truth will out." I went looking in my trusty Bartlett's to find the source and could only find "Truth will come to light" (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act II, sc. ii, l. 86). Most of the related expressions are specifically about murder but make the same point about truth: see also "Mordre wol out, certeyn, it wol nat faille." (Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Pardoner's Tale, l. 558) and "Murder will out." (Cervantes, Don Quixote, pt. I, bk. III, ch. 8).
categories: memewatch metablog
12:07:53 PM say what []
