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Ten Years On, Political Updates
This month marks ten years since I started using livejournal. Going over the multitude of past entries it has been quite a trip. It was on the growth phase back then, massively replacing usenet. Usenet these days, with a few notable moderated exceptions, is full of spam - the Green Card spam has finally succeeded. Livejournal lost its membership firstly to MySpace, then to Facebook, and Google Plus along with competitors from the source (e.g., Insanejournal, Dreamwidth). Some of its management decisions were quite suicidal as well; the great Strikethrough of 2007 certainly didn't help and occurred at the worst possible time for the service. Social networks have value because the people who post to them; frustrate the poster and the network loses value.
Despite my disappointment with many of the changes that have occurred in LJ-land, after ten years I'm pretty sure I'm going to remain for a while. There's excellent backup tools available (ljmigrate is recommended, it works very well indeed). Another feature is that I really like the interface; I mean threaded discussions, how hard can that be? Also, and this was quite unexpected, I found that I have come to enjoy the act of keeping a journal. I never really considered myself a diarist, but the idea of a (mostly) public and shared diary in a community of others doing the same has provided opportunities for discussions and friendships that were altogether quite unexpected. So here's to ten year, LJ, good work.
In other news wrote a piece on the latest round of Gillard-Rudd conflict in the Labor Party, which has picked up a bit of discussion on Facebook. I must certainly agree with the assessment that the weak thing about the entire debate is that it's not over issues, but rather potential electoral success. Also published an article on "Islamofascism" on the Isocracy Network, following a piece from Matt Bush. Apropos to those who don't see cultural relativism as an excuse for political and moral relativism, have made a start on the new International Luxemburgist Network, following a pretty serious data loss on their part.
Despite my disappointment with many of the changes that have occurred in LJ-land, after ten years I'm pretty sure I'm going to remain for a while. There's excellent backup tools available (ljmigrate is recommended, it works very well indeed). Another feature is that I really like the interface; I mean threaded discussions, how hard can that be? Also, and this was quite unexpected, I found that I have come to enjoy the act of keeping a journal. I never really considered myself a diarist, but the idea of a (mostly) public and shared diary in a community of others doing the same has provided opportunities for discussions and friendships that were altogether quite unexpected. So here's to ten year, LJ, good work.
In other news wrote a piece on the latest round of Gillard-Rudd conflict in the Labor Party, which has picked up a bit of discussion on Facebook. I must certainly agree with the assessment that the weak thing about the entire debate is that it's not over issues, but rather potential electoral success. Also published an article on "Islamofascism" on the Isocracy Network, following a piece from Matt Bush. Apropos to those who don't see cultural relativism as an excuse for political and moral relativism, have made a start on the new International Luxemburgist Network, following a pretty serious data loss on their part.
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-Kris/Sissy
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I don't think I'm going to give up on the place to be honest.
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I especially enjoyed reading your article on "Islamofascism." I am impressed by your reasoning and scholarship, and in particular like the article's concluding observations. Congrats to you and your co-author, Mr. Bush.
The problem as I see it isn't with any single religion; rather it's the fanatics--whether they are Muslim, Christian, or "free market" capitalists. ;-)
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FB is incredibly popular for reasons I haven't quite been able to ascertain (but nor have I thought about it much). Like buttons, preview pages, easy to access photo storage, tags etc, are probably all contributing factors. Most of these should be easy enough to implement on LJ.
The problem as I see it isn't with any single religion; rather it's the fanatics--whether they are Muslim, Christian, or "free market" capitalists. ;-)
Exactly.
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way dullA Thrill A Minute! Here's the quick version: I got 10 characters to max level, had over 100 alts, played on 9 different servers, belonged to and also created some "super groups" (these are equivalent to World of Warcraft "Guilds") and got WAY into it. Hey wait! I am sure I already blogged enough about this here! ;-)I think people got into FB as the "next new great thing," connected with family and friends, and only a few (tho growing few) object to what FB does with the data. Not so strangely some U.S. citizens object to being spied upon. Myself, I am old enough to remember and value privacy--in particular i like to respect the privacy of others--but at this point I feel rather callous about the idea of Big Brother spying on me. I mean, really, what a bore! As a Baby Boomer, I don't exactly keep my opinions secret, and as a consumer I grew up on commercial TV trying to sell dish soap, toilet paper, toys and all sorts of things since I was a wee lad. Thus rather like U.S. politics, rather than "brand loyalty" or brain-washed consumerism, I think some of us learned Discrimination--and I mean that purely as it's defined in psychology, as the ability to distinguish one thing from another.
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In other words, please feel free to post here again every so often :)
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LJ's done some good things the last few years, and they've made some changes that I wish they hadn't ... but overall I'm still very happy with the place. Honestly, the thing that puzzles and saddens me the most is the little group of trolls who devote so much energy to railing against anything and everything that happens on LJ. We're supposed to be building communities here, not destroying them for personal gratification.
I read a little about Australian politics when I can, though I don't know nearly enough to be conversant on the topic. When I visited there, I got the sense that the country was just starting to pick up some of America's more unfortunate political habits, which should be disconcerting to anyone!
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Glad to hear it. I find LJ easier to read, and with content longer than a couple of tweets (something I don't use). Did a few posts about emigrating over to Dreamwidth a while ago, which is where I make my posts (it gets echoed to LJ), because I was afraid LJ was going to collapse . But it hasn't.
I've been on here since about 2004, and it's incredible that I still am! Reliable I guess.
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The only purpose I find with Twitter is time-dependent sound bites. I use it at conferences basically...
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