f4f3: (Default)
f4f3 ([personal profile] f4f3) wrote2006-06-01 05:07 pm

I Get This Guy To Think For Me

If anyone hasn't friended Bruce Sterling, go off and do it now.

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/brucesterling/

As well as being the second most well known survivor of Cyberpunk he writes great novels, and is his blog is full of "mordant wisecracks, travel snapshots, art weirdness, flarf poetics and Bollywood obsessions"

This paragraph in his journal today really made me think about what we're doing here in the Blogosphere, what the product of all our typing is, and if we should be proud of it.


"After spending some years here in blogdom, I'm increasingly sure now that blogs are not a literary means of expression. By their nature, blogs are platforms for tech development. That is their "intrinsic advantage." Even if some blogs emit books ("blooks"), blogs are not about books. Blogs are about long tails, invisible tails, architectures of participation, commons-based peer production and crowdsourcing. Blogs by their semantic nature are aggregative mini-Internets. Even if run by theorists, blogs don't produce "theories" but "theory objects." If you don't believe me quite yet, well, just wait and see. The elephant is marching out of the haze, and soon we will see it revealed in its full, stark, hairy, mammoth proportions"

[identity profile] rhythmaning.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
You mean I am not creating a work of literature? Jeez!

I quite like crowdsourcing as a neologism, though I am not sure I agree that blogs are "platforms for tech development" - that implies some form of intention.

Still, I have stopped thinking of my personal implementation of LJ as a blog - it is much more like a diary, as the name "Live Journal" implies.

[identity profile] f4f3.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 04:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I agree - I'd never thought about the "platforms for tech development" thing, and I'm not sure I agree with it now, but, as I say, it did make me think about it.

[identity profile] itchyfidget.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 04:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Did you read this? Personally I haven't come across this element of blogging, but maybe that's just because I'm very secure in my empowerment. *shrug*

[identity profile] rhythmaning.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I really do believe that it is what you make it. Or not.

[identity profile] f4f3.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
It doesn't ring any bells with me either - I've noticed all sorts of hobbyism, weird behaviour and obsession with sex here on live journal, and I guess the guys are just as bad...

[identity profile] parthenia14.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Word.

Word again

I saw that today and grr, it was so annoying - I mean, you can make anyone's blog look like the biggest bunch of aresewipery in the known universe, and to come down on men for idle chat and referring jokingly to their partners just seems...perverse.

For all the Guaridan wants to understand blogs, I don't think they really do: or else their 'blogosphere' (hack hack yeuuurch) is defined narrowly as political punditry only. (which is why they don't find many women...)

Although I agree with her over the horror of men squeeing about attractive women. That's just disgusting and perverted.

[identity profile] f4f3.livejournal.com 2006-06-02 07:50 am (UTC)(link)
So I shouldn't squee about you then? Glad we got that cleared up.

[identity profile] pshtaku.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
But - has he got a wabbit?

[identity profile] f4f3.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I'd be very surprised if he didn't.