Monday, April 17, 2006
I registered this blog more than a week ago and haven't written a thing yet.
If you asked me why I hadn't I might say it's because I've been too busy. And that might be a half truth. Busy? Yes, but not so busy that I can't afford ten minutes here or there to record my thoughts.
I want to start keeping a record of the things that I do, and the things that happen to me. I don't think this is the best way to go about doing that -- but everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?
Here are a couple of my concerns for starters: portability, convenience, reliability, and privacy.
If I keep my records here, how easy is it for me to cull all of my posts and incorporate them into a journal or memoir? Will I have to retype them? Laboriously cut and paste them? Write or find a program to parse them? Does anyone know? Please tell me.
Is it more convenient to keep a blog than a journal? It occurs to me right this second that in my life, right now, it is easier at any given moment for me to find an internet-connected computer than a pencil and paper. If I keep my journals loose leaf then I worry about keeping my papers organized. If I keep them in a book then I need it with me whenever I'm inspired to write. I want to say that keeping a blog wins on convenience, for me.
Will this site fold up one day taking my precious memories with it, without any warning? No.
Google operates blogger. It's probably a safe bet that not only will Blogger not fold up tomorrow, or the next day, or next year, but every single bit that I submit to this site will remain somewhere imprisoned on a wafer thin platter of aluminum and magnetic oxide, spinning silently at 7200 RPMs in a God forsaken closet nobody really knows where, until the end of eternity.
But we trust Google; it's not their great harvest that bothers us. Other People are also collecting basically everything on the entire internet. What bad could come of this? I really have no clue. Is your blog on here? Have the contents of a person's blog ever been used against them as criminal evidence? Not that I've heard of, but we kind of know that it's happening, right? Maybe there have been some notable cases that I just haven't heard of.
So anyway, it's blogging for now, the lesser of two weevils. Here comes my first pithy zinger.
I was in court today for four and a half hours, giving testimony and argument before a district judge.
This was exhausting, I think mainly because it was me who was on trial. It shouldn't have happened. More forthcoming . . . .
What am I doing lately? Current projects beyond the humdrum (work, school, etc..) include study of typesetting (with LaTeX -- if any of my friends are closet users I would be interested to know), and audio mastering. I have got an ADC for my computer that puts line-level (guitar esp, or mic) straight into a DAW for bit twiddling with a program like audacity.
Now add blogging to the list.
I love words.
Lawyers and Mathematicians and Doctors and Lawyers and Scientists all do their best to kill words. There's no good word but a dead word might be their mantra, and this policy is not without its merits. It minimizes ambiguity. It mitigates controversy. It assuages disagreement, and it ameliorates confusion.
(That passage came without a thesaurus or dictionary, so a free double cheeseburger if you catch a typo or misusage).
Poets, Politicians, and many of the religious, conversely, love the living words. Messages are more than the context through which they're transmitted. Feelings are expressed, and evoked. People and ideas are regarded with primacy; institutions serve people, people aren't slaves to institutions.
Either of these ways of communicating, used to exclusion of the other, is probably bad.
Read a legal brief and try to determine which of eleven million lawyers wrote it. Then contrast that with a poem by e. e. cummings. I think there is a way for me to write with unambiguous flare; to transmit meaning lucidly and with living words, yet not let expression of style deter or encumber the transmission of my thoughts. I don't want a style distinct from who i am, but maybe I want one distinct from who you are. I think I can develop what I want through work and practice.
But it's past coming up on 1:00 am now, and what was a quick note has become forty minutes of thinking and writing.
With my next entry I will practice brevity and concision.
. . . . and I had three double cheeseburgers for dinner a few nights ago, which brings the running count to: 3.
If you asked me why I hadn't I might say it's because I've been too busy. And that might be a half truth. Busy? Yes, but not so busy that I can't afford ten minutes here or there to record my thoughts.
I want to start keeping a record of the things that I do, and the things that happen to me. I don't think this is the best way to go about doing that -- but everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?
Here are a couple of my concerns for starters: portability, convenience, reliability, and privacy.
If I keep my records here, how easy is it for me to cull all of my posts and incorporate them into a journal or memoir? Will I have to retype them? Laboriously cut and paste them? Write or find a program to parse them? Does anyone know? Please tell me.
Is it more convenient to keep a blog than a journal? It occurs to me right this second that in my life, right now, it is easier at any given moment for me to find an internet-connected computer than a pencil and paper. If I keep my journals loose leaf then I worry about keeping my papers organized. If I keep them in a book then I need it with me whenever I'm inspired to write. I want to say that keeping a blog wins on convenience, for me.
Will this site fold up one day taking my precious memories with it, without any warning? No.
Google operates blogger. It's probably a safe bet that not only will Blogger not fold up tomorrow, or the next day, or next year, but every single bit that I submit to this site will remain somewhere imprisoned on a wafer thin platter of aluminum and magnetic oxide, spinning silently at 7200 RPMs in a God forsaken closet nobody really knows where, until the end of eternity.
But we trust Google; it's not their great harvest that bothers us. Other People are also collecting basically everything on the entire internet. What bad could come of this? I really have no clue. Is your blog on here? Have the contents of a person's blog ever been used against them as criminal evidence? Not that I've heard of, but we kind of know that it's happening, right? Maybe there have been some notable cases that I just haven't heard of.
So anyway, it's blogging for now, the lesser of two weevils. Here comes my first pithy zinger.
I was in court today for four and a half hours, giving testimony and argument before a district judge.
This was exhausting, I think mainly because it was me who was on trial. It shouldn't have happened. More forthcoming . . . .
What am I doing lately? Current projects beyond the humdrum (work, school, etc..) include study of typesetting (with LaTeX -- if any of my friends are closet users I would be interested to know), and audio mastering. I have got an ADC for my computer that puts line-level (guitar esp, or mic) straight into a DAW for bit twiddling with a program like audacity.
Now add blogging to the list.
I love words.
Lawyers and Mathematicians and Doctors and Lawyers and Scientists all do their best to kill words. There's no good word but a dead word might be their mantra, and this policy is not without its merits. It minimizes ambiguity. It mitigates controversy. It assuages disagreement, and it ameliorates confusion.
(That passage came without a thesaurus or dictionary, so a free double cheeseburger if you catch a typo or misusage).
Poets, Politicians, and many of the religious, conversely, love the living words. Messages are more than the context through which they're transmitted. Feelings are expressed, and evoked. People and ideas are regarded with primacy; institutions serve people, people aren't slaves to institutions.
Either of these ways of communicating, used to exclusion of the other, is probably bad.
Read a legal brief and try to determine which of eleven million lawyers wrote it. Then contrast that with a poem by e. e. cummings. I think there is a way for me to write with unambiguous flare; to transmit meaning lucidly and with living words, yet not let expression of style deter or encumber the transmission of my thoughts. I don't want a style distinct from who i am, but maybe I want one distinct from who you are. I think I can develop what I want through work and practice.
But it's past coming up on 1:00 am now, and what was a quick note has become forty minutes of thinking and writing.
With my next entry I will practice brevity and concision.
. . . . and I had three double cheeseburgers for dinner a few nights ago, which brings the running count to: 3.
# posted by The Cheeseburglar : 10:06 PM
