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Saturday, November 22, 2008
Benefits of Loserdom
I tend to jot down blog drafts when I have an idea for an entry. These tend to be ignored – especially over the last few months when work has been difficult, and the first thing I’d like to do after a day of work is walk away from the computer. Certainly I don’t want to stay there and keep writing. So out of curiosity I looked up how many blog ‘drafts’ I had. 43. That’s too many. So I’m starting to take care of my backlog.

Normally, in a popular blog, this would be really bad because half of the new material would be created in a way that readers are unlikely to ever find it (several months in the past’s archives). Fortunately, I suppose, this isn’t a popular blog! It’s just for me! So I don’t have to worry about it. This is the benefits of loserdom – the only person that I’m trying to wite for is me.

This is also the case with the album I’m writing. Because it’s just me, writing for me, I don’t much care that it’s almost 2 years overdue.
Precious few people know that it exists, and that doesn’t bother me in the least.

The disadvantage, of course, is that without someone hanging on my shoulder asking where today’s blog is, or when the album is coming out, the likelihood of a punctual work schedule is slim. But hey, if Guns & Roses can publish Chinese Democracy, maybe there’s hope for Ignition as well.

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posted by Steve @ 6:07 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Daily Show idea
In response to the McCain campaign's notion of "real" America -- the small population of the town that lives in small towns, has a 6:1 ratio of churches to Starbucks, is dirt poor and religiously intolerant -- I would like to see the Daily Show have their correspondents highlight people from the "other" America.

They would show these people's connections to the radical left (via an education, the wrong skin color, maybe even the wrong religion) and how it destroys America. Oh, and they would be interviewing themselves. Even Rob Riggle would have some deep, dark, well-kept secret.

John Oliver: Actually a dirty foreigner who talks weird because he hates you!
Wyatt Cenac: Connected to Malcom X! Somehow! But not just because he's black! Really!
Samantha Bee: Pregnant in wedlock!
Aasif Mandvi: Do you even have to ask?
Rob Riggle: A New Yorker!

Make it happen, Daily Show! The masses demand it! And by masses I mean, ME. Do it!

Here's their first entry into this idea:

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posted by Steve @ 8:49 AM   0 comments
Sunday, February 03, 2008
First!
The curious phenomenon of people feeling gratified about making the first post in a popular comment thread (such as this example on Barack Obama's website) always weirded me out a little. Those people would have no trouble on my little blog, since I hadn't had any comments posted on it since early 2006. Since it's mostly a means of getting ideas down, and cataloging things that I think are awesome, I don't mind yelling into the black hole that is the blogosphere. I've been keeping a homepage for similar reasons since 1994.

I hadn't had any comments from people I didn't know until a few weeks ago, on the 24th. I had my first 2 comments posted by people I didn't know in person. It took me almost two weeks to even notice.

The first post was in response to my short riff on responsible feminism, which also applies to most activist ideas. A very nice person named Cate basically posted an agreement post, which I appreciate in bewilderment at the frightening idea that people might actually read what I write.

The other one, amusingly, was in response to my Will Rogers anti-consumerist quote. It said that the best way to save money was to get coupons and provided a link to a coupon website; this is possibly the best bit of spam I've ever seen.

The prospect of people actually reading my work prompted me to re-design the blog's look for the umpteenth time. I hate using templates (I'm a web designer, after all), and I take nice pictures sometimes, but I've had a terribly difficult time getting a good photo to work. So I am eating a lollipop, and notice it's very green... and there you go.

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posted by Steve @ 4:57 AM   2 comments
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Paragraph length
Upon reading this excellent article about the inverse relationship between legislative experience and presidential abilities, it struck me how short the paragraphs are. They're almost blog-like in length. I liked the article's content a great deal, but I thought it was very nicely readable as well. I've noticed that occasionally when media is transfered from print to Web, the longer paragraphs make things harder to read.

This begs the question whether paragraph lengths are, as a whole in well-educated writing, becoming shorter. A study done in 1992 (and therefore not aware of its significance vis a vis the Web) summarized:
[The study investigates] whether readers are aware of and have any preferences about paragraph length. Finds that readers are aware and have a more positive attitude toward writing with paragraphs of less than 100 words. Finds that paragraph length does not affect attitudes toward the expertise of the writer, ease of comprehension, or quality of the passage.

So there you go. I've been fretting over whether or not I sounded well-educated since I habitually use two- or three- sentence paragraphs, but apparently all that matters is that I need to have a complete point in each one. I also habitually use very long sentences extended by parentheticals, semicolon extensions and lists. I should stop that, but apparently the paragraphs are O.K.

So it seems that the more finely-chopped paragraphs seen most often in blogs will become more common. Long, meandering paragraphs that looked good (4 to 10 lines or so) in the printed page look so much more monolithic on the Web, where text is wrapped more often, so we'll see more breaks in paragraphs.

If shorter paragraphs mean more pointed logic, that's good, but if it means less useful information, I'm not sure this is a good thing. I fear the latter - we have enough sound-byte commentary as it is. A good example is that Hillary keeps crowing experience when she's not half as experienced as the people who are already out of the race; but people only know about the experience angle.

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posted by Steve @ 11:07 AM   0 comments
 
About Me


Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
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