Spring Cleaning

I did something I haven't done in a few years: changed my blog layout. Take a quick look if you've been reading by RSS feed.

It's not like I fell out of bed and suddenly had mad web design skills. Nope. Actually, Blogger/BlogSpot finally unleashed their new template designer. It's easy to use, and thankfully, it doesn't overwhelm with a million features. What it does add, though, is very useful.

You can finally pick how many columns you want independent of other layout choices. You can also easily change the widths of columns. This is what my old layout desperately needed. I was constantly resizing videos so they wouldn't break my columns. I guess I can finally say goodbye to my old friend Aspect Ratio Calculator.

I picked a very simple layout. I like simple. I stuck with the same color scheme. My profile icon matches nicely.

You can now pick a background image from iStockphoto. I tried a cool orange bubbly image, and it looked lovely in preview, but when I saved the changes and tested my blog, the scroll lag was awful! The text scrolled while my gadgets and videos lagged behind on the screen. Ick. Well I got rid of that real quick. I went back to the default solid background. I doubt the problem is Blogger's fault. It's more of a web browser limitation. Background images probably work fine on a blog that doesn't have as many embedded videos as The Dorkmonger.

Anyway, I assume most of my readers follow by RSS, but I hope the new design gives a better first impression.

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Post Is About You

I'm reading this NY Times article on blogging and finding myself getting more and more irritated. Their premise is that bloggers expect instant fame and fortune and when it doesn't come, they abandon their blogs:

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

Dreams? Ambitions? Are we climbing to the top of Mount Everest or writing a blog? They certainly manage to quote a bunch of dimwits who fit their profile of the discouraged blogger with an audience of one. The Internet does not mourn their retirement. But do I believe the stats that say 95% give up?

I'm positive that narcissism is alive and well. The people who think the world is interested in what they ate for breakfast probably abandoned public blogs for a good reason -- it's too easy for your friends to "forget" to check your blog. Instead those types opted for a more captured audience -- like on Facebook, where your friends, family, and distant acquaintances will at least skim your daily minutia and angst every time they login.

But my main gripe is the NY Times portraying that exact caricature of self-absorbed opportunistic bloggers. There are other reasons to blog like sharing what you've learned, pointing out interesting news items, and adding your own commentary... which is, of course, also narcissistic.

I guess you need a little bit of arrogance to be a good writer, but then I see this article about J.D. Salinger. It's a mystery if he's still writing or not. He's certainly not publishing. The article posits "perhaps he's writing not for publication but for God, which would mean there'd be no need to preserve any material traces of his work."

Well, I'm satisfied with a happy medium. Try not to be vain, but don't keep it to myself. Don't dream of fame and fortune, but think about the therapeutic benefits of writing.

Not Dead

(Image from Spamusement!)

I'm not dead. Let's just say it's been a good week for video games and a bad week for blogging. But I warned you this week was coming. I'll be back.

Blogroll Amnesty Day

February 3 is Blogroll Amnesty Day, a celebration of small blogs. (If video doesn't show, click here):



Not to sound tearful, but I realize there are few blogs tinier than mine. So I will link to a few of my favorite blogs, and though the "Dorkmonger bump" may not account for much, I'll give it my best shot!

Trung Chatter: This is the friend who convinced me to start blogging again after a five year hiatus. He is working on his masters degree in econ at the University of Missouri Kansas City, so when he writes about institutional economics, you better listen.

People in the Sun: He has a cute baby, and a pit bull, and he discovered the meaning of life while reading a book store job application. Sometimes he makes observations I wish I had figured out myself.

Yoga for Cynics: Why am I reading a yoga blog? I'm lucky I have the strength to scratch my own head, but this blog is about more than body contortions. It's about the stuff I was raised to have contempt for -- like the search for enlightenment -- while still doubting and disagreeing with everything.

Pruning Shears: Dan writes a very level-headed political blog. There are the occasional succinct posts, but also many well researched and linked discussions on the expansion of government powers.

Past in Print Weblog: Aaron is a blogger with a background in American history, and I appreciate the connections he makes between our past and our present.

Superfabutastic: Hey, I just remembered one blog smaller than my own. My friend Mo, who likes to thoroughly research everything before he makes a move, created this blog a few months ago and has not written a single post. It's high time I busted his balls.

Ok, I think that's a pretty good list, and in the process of making it I realized it's kind of difficult describing why I like certain blogs.

Since this month marks the one year anniversary of the Dorkmonger revival, I hereby affirm my commitment to keep on blogging.

No Coincidence

Image via I Can Has Cheezburger.

Is it just a coincidence that a few weeks after hiring Samuel Wurzelbacher (aka "Joe the Plumber," aka leftover baggage from the McCain campaign), Pajamas Media is shutting down its blogger advertising network? Apparently the blog advertising market is crashing along with everything else.

Of course, there is also the possibility that companies didn't want to advertise on wingnut blogs. The free market is funny like that.

I guess PJM saw themselves as some kind of superhero in tights (err Pajamas) exposing liberal bias and stomping out the traditional media. Instead, they got Joe the Pretend War Correspondent ranting about how reporters shouldn't report, the media should be abolished, and everything would be better if Americans kept on cheering. Funny how the antiquated liberal media handily discredited him.

PJM is still trying to define a future for themselves. Their lineup of webcasts looks like remnants from Bush's military analysts program... but on second thought, no military analyst was as stupid as Joe the Shlump... except, well that Rumsfeld guy had some insane moments.

But I digress. Many Americans don't know much about news outside the US, and PJM might find their niche in making those average Joes feel smart.

Subversion is a Crime Against The State

Isn't that one cute and non-threatening avatar? In China, he pops up every thirty minutes on web surfers' screens to cheerfully remind them that subversion is a crime against the state.

Beijing has declared war on cybercafes, the Internet, and bloggers. The government has frequently raided cybercafes claiming that pornography and violent, addictive video games are cultural pollution and threaten their youth and their future.

But the control-freak government doesn't stop there (they never do). Project "Golden Shield" is the name of the Chinese high-tech surveillance and censorship program. The program involves some 300,000 surveillance cameras, often disguised as lampposts, connected to a single, nationwide network. This network involves a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history, credit records, Internet usage and biometric data.

When I read about these tools of oppression, somehow I don't shout "wow, great opportunity to make money!" Maybe that's why I'm not rich like those people at Cisco who are helping to build the Great Firewall of China (while possibly violating U.S. sanctions). Western companies -- even those that proudly attach themselves to the Internet’s reputation for anarchy -- peddle their wares to China’s Ministry of Public Security. Shanghai Business Magazine recently estimated that the Chinese security industry is enjoying 15% annual growth.

Undermining privacy is a profitable business. And privacy is the rock that dignity, freedom of association and freedom of speech are built on.

China, hosting the summer Olympics, is trying to awe us with their technology, planning, efficiency and social order, but this is not progress.

Naomi Klein describes the new police state:

The goal of all this central planning and spying is not to celebrate the glories of Communism, regardless of what China's governing party calls itself. It is to create the ultimate consumer cocoon for Visa cards, Adidas sneakers, China Mobile cell phones, McDonald's happy meals, Tsingtao beer, and UPS delivery -- to name just a few of the official Olympic sponsors. But the hottest new market of all is the surveillance itself. Unlike the police states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, China has built a Police State 2.0, an entirely for-profit affair that is the latest frontier for the global Disaster Capitalism Complex.

I used to believe that free people and free markets were a package deal. It's not true, unless you only value your freedom to buy stuff.

BBC News has an online video exploring China's cyberspace. I had to pause at the point where Sherang Chen, editor for BBC China, says that the Chinese "do feel they are enjoying quite a degree of freedom..." When Police State 2.0 arrives in the U.S., "quite a degree of freedom" won't be enough for me.

Commenting on Comments

Actually I have no comments on this recent Gawker article on Why Newspapers Shouldn't Allow Comments. I have no comments because I totally agree!

Comedian Lewis Black would like us to imagine what would have happened if public comments were allowed on the Declaration of Independence:

Nutpicking

Oh how I love learning new words! I'm talking about words that aren't just new to me, but are new to the English language. I'm doubly thrilled when the definition seems long overdue.

Nutpicking: The practice of sifting through the comments of blogs, email threads, discussion groups and other user generated content in an attempt to find choice quotes proving that the advocates for or against a particular political opinion are unreasonable, uninformed extremists.

The word was apparently coined by readers of The Washington Monthly in 2006, so maybe I'm not a fashionable early adopter, but I'm early enough to identify the nutpicking strategy in the 2008 election. The right-wing blogs are pointing out anti-semitic hatred on the Obama blogs, and the left-wing blogs are pointing out the racial slurs on McCain's blog.

Of course, there are bound to be some crazies in every movement, but I must point out the irony that it was McCain who introduced the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act of 2006 (PDF) which would have regulated blogs and held bloggers responsible for the comments posted by others... responsible to the tune of $300,000!

What a mess that law would have been! Consider the Twat-O-Tron script which spits out incoherent xenophobic rants. Now consider that when these rants are posted on the BBC's Have Your Say website, they are actually rated quite highly by other readers. (h/t Kuro5hin)

So if ever such a blog regulating bill passes, then the Internet will become a battle ground of nutpicking scripts attempting to incur penalties on enemy blogs by launching the weapon of stupid comments and bad grammar.

And I bet when you clicked this post you thought I'd be writing about what people do when they have crabs. Fooled ya.

My Butt

I'm still pondering my Blogged to Death post from two days ago. The original New York Times article has been getting quite a bit of criticism. I never took it seriously, but I guess it really was a lousy piece of journalism. Slate rips it to shreds in Everything You Need to Know about the Dead Blogger Epidemic. They also find the link I wish I could have discovered myself: America's Most Dangerous Jobs. Blogging didn't make the list in case you were wondering.

So why did I title this post "My Butt"? Because bloggers (and everybody in the information technology field) sit on their butts a lot. I know mine hurts, so I was happy to stumble upon a list of tips on How to Stay Healthy While Sitting at Your Desk All Day. One piece of advice is don't keep junk food at your desk. I'm guilty of that one. I should probably also drink more water, but remember you do not need 8 glasses a day.

Blogged to Death

I've been taking it easy the last few days just so I don't blog myself to death. Yeah, right. the New York Times is reporting that bloggers work long hours, and a couple of them have died early deaths. I wonder how that compares to other professions? I can't seem to find that information though I found this cool life expectancy map.

Anyway, I certainly don't work long hours, I don't feel stressed, and I still think blogging is pretty cool. The coolest thing about blogging is... well it's certainly not the money because I'm not making any yet... the coolest thing is that I get to say what I want to say without needing anybody's permission. It's not like the old days when if you wrote a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, it would probably never get published. I think Clay Shirky said it well last week on The Colbert Report:



It's easy to forget that there is a generation gap between those who grew up with the internet and those who did not.

Another article in the New York Times is a grim reminder that Iranian bloggers face political persecution: "In 2004, according to Human Rights Watch, 21 bloggers or people who worked at Internet news sites critical of the government were arrested, and some of them were tortured. Periodic arrests since then have ended with jail terms."

Blogging to death is no joke.