![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- I've added Sean CW Korsgaard's Korsgaard's Commentary, a blog focusing on cultural reviews. In one interesting recent post, Korsgaard makes the case for the excellence of the 1999 film The Mummy.
- Toronto writer and critic Drew Rowsome also has his own blog. He has recently shared his shortlist of picks for the Toronto Fringe festival.
[META] On the latest blogroll expansion
Jun. 28th, 2017 07:27 amI've added two blogs this morning, one old and one new.
- Aziz Poonawalla's City of Brass, a blog dealing with Islam and minority issues, is newly added. His most recent post there, drawing from the Chicago Dyke March Jewish flag event to that intersectionality is too limited a concept, makes an interesting argument.
- LGBTQ-themed blog Unicorn Booty is a group blog that covers many queer issues. I would recommend one recent post reporting on the erasure of the nature of the Pulse massacre in Orlando by Trump (and others).
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[META] On the latest blogroll expansion
Jun. 24th, 2017 01:23 pmConsider this post a consequence of a consolidation of my blogroll, with three posts from older blogs I've added previously and two new posts from new blogs.
- Missing persons blog Charley Ross shares the strange story of five people who went missing in a winter wilderness in 1978.
- Roads and Kingdom shares an anecdote by Alessio Perrone about a chat over a drink with a Cornishman, in a Cornwall ever more dependent on tourism.
- Strange Company shares the story of Kiltie, a Scottish cat who immigrated to the United States in the First World War.
- Starts With a Bang, a science blog by Ethan Siegel, argues that there is in fact no evidence for periodic mass extinctions caused by bodies external to the Earth.
- Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, a group blog by Canadian economists, considers the value placed on Aboriginal language television programming.
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Back one day in March, I accidentally and irretrievably deleted the private entry on Dreamwidth that had contained links to URLs and details on sources that I had been saving for future posts for perhaps a couple of years. I was a bit upset by this, but, I soon realized, I was more upset by my accidental deletion of the entry than by the loss. This private document, full of links pointing to possible future writings, had become baggage, something to be periodically updated and then consistently forgotten.
This realization prompted me to a rethinking of what I am doing, as a writer and a blogger and a person active on social media. What, exactly, am I doing? Why am I doing this? What should I be doing?
I am still thinking. Suffice it to say that something different will be coming. If I don't decide to make sure this difference will arrive thanks to my effort, well, who will do that?
This realization prompted me to a rethinking of what I am doing, as a writer and a blogger and a person active on social media. What, exactly, am I doing? Why am I doing this? What should I be doing?
I am still thinking. Suffice it to say that something different will be coming. If I don't decide to make sure this difference will arrive thanks to my effort, well, who will do that?
Almost two hours ago, I deleted my LiveJournal. User rfmcdpei is no longer active on this site.
I do allow for the possibility that I might change my mind. Maybe I will bring it back temporarily, so as to convert it to some kind of personal docment via BlogBooker, or perhaps I will restore it in the name of minimizing link rot on the Internet and to continue to be able to read what few (ever fewer) people still write only on LiveJournal. This post, however, is the first post that I will not be crossposting from Dreamwidth over to LiveJournal, and no other post shall follow.
I did join the rush on account of the new user agreement unleashed earlier this week, of course.
Any number of news sources, like the Daily Dot and Boing Boing and Gizmodo and Charlie Stross at Autopope, have written at great length about the new terms of service agreement. That this agreement is not available, not in a legally binding form and not in a well-translated form, in the English language made the exodus inevitable.
Russia, as a classical dictatorship, wants to be able to restrict what people write about within its sphere, to do away with anonymity and to limit the range of permissible subject matter. LiveJournal, which happens to be based in Russia as a consequence of a long series of business decisions (bad decisions, I would argue, ones which kept LiveJournal from emerging as a lasting social network of worldwide scope), is subject. Therefore, anyone who is not dependent on LiveJournal is leaving a social network that appears to be fatally compromised.
(What is the opposite of soft power?)
I have had alternatives ready. Back in October 2012, I blogged about how I had moved away from LiveJournal as a primary blog, towards Dreamwidth for LiveJournal-like social networking and to WordPress for the more blog-like functions. I am losing nothing as a consequence of this. My regrets about this are not especially profound ones, characterized much more by wistfulness and nostalgia than by serious regret.
rfmcdpei has been around for a month short of fifteen years. It's amazing.
LiveJournal was always been there for me. I remember reading Tom's LiveJournal, and the LiveJournals of others, back in early 2002 when I was so desperate to connect with anyone. I remember how excited I was when I got an invite code from Darren back in June of 2002. I remember writing an online diary of my life there, and then, first slowly then with speed, transforming this diary into a blog. I know that I met all sorts of people who I know nd like even know there, came to learn all kinds of things there, helped other people learn through LiveJournal. In my life, LiveJournal was a huge net positive.
And now it's over. It's an era that was bound to end, I know, and what an era it was. Thank you, LiveJournalers and LiveJournal founders, too, for making this so good and fun.
[META] Some blogroll additions
Mar. 6th, 2017 11:38 amTwo links are being added.
- To the news section, I'm adding the Canadian news website National Observer, which has interesting longer articles analyzing Canadian events. Of their recent articles, I would recommend Lorimer Shenher's "LGBTQ officers need to pick the right target", which argues that LGBTQ police officers should step back and consider the import of the police, as an organization, to many queer people.
- To the blog section, I'm adding Strange Company, a great blog that assembles links of interesting and odd things around the world, in the past and present, and takes the occasional longer look at particular events. This link, examining the history of one Reverend Griffiths who was something of a ghostbuster in 19th century Wales, is a good example of the latter category of post.
Dwight on Facebook linked to a Metafilter feature noting that the servers of Livejournal--the social networking and blogging platform I got started on, the social networking and blogging platform that I still use--has moved to Russia. In light of that country's issues with basic freedoms, it's probably worth considering ending blogging on this platform.
As of a few days ago, the IP addresses for blogging service LiveJournal have moved to 81.19.74.*, a block that lookup services locate in Moscow, Russia. Now users -- especially those who do not trust the Russian government -- are leaving the platform and advising others to leave.
For years, the online blogging community LiveJournal -- popular in Russia, Belarus, and the Ukraine -- has served as a key communications platform for Russian dissidents (the Committee to Protect Journalists earlier this month called on Russian authorities to release a LiveJournal user who has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for a critical blog post). Even after Russian company SUP bought it from California-based Six Apart in 2007 (previously), the fact that SUP continued to run the servers in the US meant that users felt relatively safe; a 2009 press release specifically said that LiveJournal, Inc.* would continue to run technical operations and servers in the United States (and claimed that 5.7 million LiveJournal users were Russia-based).
[. . .]
Tracerouting livejournal.com now points to a Moscow location and an ISP operated by Rambler Internet Holding LLC, the company that also owns SUP. (Former LiveJournal user Gary McGath says that a few days ago, he checked the IP location of livejournal.com, and it was in San Francisco.) LiveJournal's official news posts do not mention the change; users have begun to ask questions there and on their own journals.
[META] More blogroll and news links
Jan. 2nd, 2017 04:37 pmThe start of a new year is a good time to add links to my blogroll, bloggish and otherwise.
Enjoy!
- At the news end, Vice and Global News are now news sources I'll be following.
- Four blogs are going to appear on my blogroll: Toronto queer writer Michael Lyons' appropriately-named blog Michael Lyons Writes; group blog Roads and Kingdoms; engaging Alabama history blog Huntsvillain; and, missing persons blog Carley Ross.
Enjoy!
[PHOTO] On Look for a Moment
Nov. 2nd, 2016 06:55 pmThis afternoon, I shared a photo post from another WordPress blog. Only after I had shared it did it occur to me that I actually did not provide a context for this. So:
Look For A Moment, originally based here, is a global photo project organized by a kind woman in the Netherlands who gets people from around the world to share one photo from their environment. It goes on for a month. I joined it when it was going this April, and I was in from the start when it got going this month.
Look For A Moment, originally based here, is a global photo project organized by a kind woman in the Netherlands who gets people from around the world to share one photo from their environment. It goes on for a month. I joined it when it was going this April, and I was in from the start when it got going this month.
[META] What blogs do you read?
Sep. 16th, 2016 11:57 pmWhat sites do you visit regularly? What are you into?
Let me know in the comments.
Let me know in the comments.
[META] What do you think about blogging?
Aug. 29th, 2016 09:38 pmI've been thinking about the direction of A Bit More Detail, and my social media presence generally, quite a lot recently.
What do you think about blogging? You're reading this: Why do you read this and other blogs? What do you want to get from them?
What do you think about blogging? You're reading this: Why do you read this and other blogs? What do you want to get from them?
[META] Who reads A Bit More Detail?
May. 30th, 2016 11:56 pmHere's a meta question: Who actually reads this? People who don't normally comment here, and people who read this at sites I don't track--Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Twitter, RSS feeds, you name it--please comment.
One thing I would like to do is to associate different nights with different kinds of long-form blog posts. Thursday would be for music, as it has been for years, while Wednesday might be for pop culture, Monday and Friday for more various themed stuff, and so on.
Thematically, I'd like to focus the blog tightly. The focus I've chosen so far is on Toronto and secondarily on islands, not just Prince Edward Island, leaving other linkage for the [BLOG] and [NEWS] posts of the earlier parts of the day.
If you have better ideas, please tell me.
Thematically, I'd like to focus the blog tightly. The focus I've chosen so far is on Toronto and secondarily on islands, not just Prince Edward Island, leaving other linkage for the [BLOG] and [NEWS] posts of the earlier parts of the day.
If you have better ideas, please tell me.
[WRITING] On routines
May. 18th, 2016 11:48 pmLong-time readers of A Bit More Detail are probably aware that I follow routines fairly strictly. A photo post invariably comes in the morning, followed by bulk links posts (news items now as well as blogs), followed by individual links of interest to me, followed some later some nights by essays and the kind. The idea of a routine helps me write, gives me a much-needed structure for this blog and much else.
I'm thinking of imposing still more structure on A Bit More Detail and its ancillary blogs, of committing myself to more writing of long-format posts like essays. I like writing. I aspire to be a writer, of some kind and of some import. Why not now?
I'm thinking of imposing still more structure on A Bit More Detail and its ancillary blogs, of committing myself to more writing of long-format posts like essays. I like writing. I aspire to be a writer, of some kind and of some import. Why not now?
[META] On future posts
Apr. 1st, 2016 04:43 pmHello!
For most of the past two weeks, I've been fighting an unpleasant stomach bug. Between work and rest, I've not have much time--or at least, much incentive--to be very busy here.
On a more profound level, I've been thinking a bit about my blog and what I want to achieve here. I have a greater interest in long-form writing than my posts here have indicated, I believe, as well as a disinterest in remaining particularly invested in content that I'm not particularly interested in composing. So, there will be changes. I'm not sure how far these changes will go at this point. Perhaps you'll stay to discover them with me?|
Randy
For most of the past two weeks, I've been fighting an unpleasant stomach bug. Between work and rest, I've not have much time--or at least, much incentive--to be very busy here.
On a more profound level, I've been thinking a bit about my blog and what I want to achieve here. I have a greater interest in long-form writing than my posts here have indicated, I believe, as well as a disinterest in remaining particularly invested in content that I'm not particularly interested in composing. So, there will be changes. I'm not sure how far these changes will go at this point. Perhaps you'll stay to discover them with me?|
Randy
[META] Blogroll expansion!
Mar. 9th, 2016 10:58 pmOnly two this time.
- Anglican priest, SF/fantasy fan, and former Torontonian Rachel Kessler blogs at Rev Rachel Rambles. Most recently she has blogged about Room, examining it as a metaphor for growing up.
- The Fifteenth is the blog of former Livejournaler Steve Roby, containing short reviews of books, television, and other forms of pop culture. I liked his review of a book on David Bowie that concentrated on the post-Scary Monsters period of his career.
[FORUM] What blogs would you recommend?
Mar. 2nd, 2016 11:50 pmWhat blogs would you recommend? Surely the blogosphere still has some life left to it!
[META] More blogroll additions
Feb. 28th, 2016 09:11 am- Political science professor Russell Arben Fox's In Media Res, once on the blogroll, is back on. His most recent post reports on an interesting discussion he had with others about the potential of localism.
- The Rose and Phoenix Inn is the blog of Maritimes-based writer Victoria Goddard. Her photo post depicting the warm near-spring on Prince Edward Island is worth noting.
- Shadow, Light and Colour is a photography blog by fellow Torontonian and Queen's English grad Elisabeth Beattie. Her most recent photo, a black-and-white image of the Danforth's Holy Name church, is lovely.
