[META] Blogroll Expansion

Jul. 2nd, 2010 01:42 am
rfmcdonald: (Default)
It's time for another big bang expansion!

First, two housekeeping notes: Paul Gilster is the author of Centauri Dreams' posts, while Edward Lucas has moved to the Economist-hosted blog Eastern approaches.

  • Burgh Diaspora, maintained by geographer Jim Russell, is a blog that started--as the name suggests--by taking a look at the diaspora from the Rust Belt city of Pittsburgh, and provides interesting examinations of how such afflicted areas can recover. This post exploring Minnesota's desire to keep its high-school graduates from leaving by sending them to local colleges is nice reading.

  • Nissology PEI is the blog of Prince Edward Islander Hans Connor; "nissology" is the study of islands. With Japan's defeat by Paraguay, it turns out that there are no more island nation participants at the World Cup.

  • The Central Asia group blog Registan is the first place I go for Central Asia news. While the recent coverage of Kyrgyzystan has been great, the scathing criticism of cartoonist and commentator Ted Rall deserves reading.

  • Michael Steeleworthy, library student and mapper extraordinary, can be found at his blog The Zeds, where he explores "information and its spaces." His meditations on the differences between helping people with their research and being a research assistant are thoughtful.


    • Go, read.
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    [FORUM] What would you do without LiveJournal?

    Jan. 10th, 2009 02:44 pm
    rfmcdonald: (Default)
    During the recent kerfuffle around LiveJournal's future, [livejournal.com profile] lord_whimsy had a post ("TO BE OR NOT TO BE") discussing his sense of ambivalence towards his LJ.

    My initial impulse was to start backing off and exporting my six year-old LiveJournal, but at the last moment, I decided to cancel these safeguards. It felt too much like backpedaling to an old media mindset, a craving for permanence in an impermanent medium. Emotionally I wanted to save all the nonsense I've posted here--some of which have documented my life over that period. But philosophically I'm appalled at the idea, since the ephemeral nature of a blog/journal/blogue is part of its beauty--lends it a bittersweet tang, if you will. And besides, I won't revisit 90% of those posts, anyway.

    So what are your thoughts? When the time comes, will you embalm your LJ or will you let it die a "natural" death?


    I've backed up my LJ onto my laptop, and am considering (if not energetically) the idea of exporting it to WordPress. That's just the blog end of things secured, howeevr. LiveJournal has functioned for me at least as much as social network, long predating my Facebook membership, than as a blog. If LiveJournal were to go under, I could and would resort to Facebook, but that would be only partial compensation for the loss of the rich and eclectic network of people I've gotten to know since June 2002. LiveJournal's friends list is something I've grown accustomed to and could only duplicate, with some effort, via a not-very-portable RSS reader.

    And you? What has LiveJournal done for you, and what would you do without it?
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