What I read today
I love tabbed browsing. I've got it set to open links in new tabs without interrupting my reading, so when I'm blog-browsing (or looking up stuff on Wikipedia, IMDb, &c...) I often click on every interesting link in sight, which then accumulate. This leads to two things: tons of tabs in a single browser window, which Firefox is now able to handle pretty well, thank goodness. And some interesting, eclectic reading. :)
I don't believe in blogrolls--I don't find a series of titles without commentary very appealing. I feel the same about books: I want a blurb, or a recommendation, or something to catch my interest, although sometimes the title is enough. So here is what I hope to make a regular feature of what I hope to turn into a real blog (starting with making me post more often!): a selection from my browsing. Enjoy!
What got me started on this particular browsing string: I'm looking into joining Facebook (I have an old friend who sends me about one invite a month...), whether I should, who owns it, do I trust them, &c. So I googled, opened a bunch of likely-looking results, and found out about this tempest in a wire: some dude, testing out software for synchronising contact information between various web accounts, got his Facebook account blocked for about a day. Much link-clicking ensued, including updates on the dude's blog, and comments at other sites. The really interesting (to me) parts of this flap are the ownership of data and privacy issues, not the hair-trigger reflexes of Facebook's policebots. A couple of the more interesting finds: a post about data wars, and a definition of data scraping.
I don't remember what quirk of the links led me to this (ETA: yes I do--I was browsing around the other posts on that dude's blog, above), but it brought tears to my eyes. The last post of a blogger, dead in Iraq last January. I'll honor his request that people abstain from political commentary using his death as an example. From there I reached the front page of Obsidian Wings, and found this post about bailing out the mortgage agencies, right at the top. A good read, and a good point.
I also stopped by Kate Harding's Shapely Prose, just 'cuz. I love that site to bits. It's helped me be more aware of what I'm doing to myself when I moan about my weight. Second post down as I type, I find this about the intersection of feminism and fat acceptance is thought-provoking. And before you tell me "I'm not a feminist, but...", we're all affected by crap like this, even the ones who don't think it applies to them, or can't see that it does, or refuse to admit it, or whatever. Here's another post, from a different site, about the female of the species' sacro-sanct duty to offer the world something good to look at (hint: that was irony, right there). *end mini-rant du jour*
Also, just because I can, one of my favorite xkcd strips of all:
Grownups
Thoughts and links are welcome, on this my very first "real" blog post. :)
I don't believe in blogrolls--I don't find a series of titles without commentary very appealing. I feel the same about books: I want a blurb, or a recommendation, or something to catch my interest, although sometimes the title is enough. So here is what I hope to make a regular feature of what I hope to turn into a real blog (starting with making me post more often!): a selection from my browsing. Enjoy!
What got me started on this particular browsing string: I'm looking into joining Facebook (I have an old friend who sends me about one invite a month...), whether I should, who owns it, do I trust them, &c. So I googled, opened a bunch of likely-looking results, and found out about this tempest in a wire: some dude, testing out software for synchronising contact information between various web accounts, got his Facebook account blocked for about a day. Much link-clicking ensued, including updates on the dude's blog, and comments at other sites. The really interesting (to me) parts of this flap are the ownership of data and privacy issues, not the hair-trigger reflexes of Facebook's policebots. A couple of the more interesting finds: a post about data wars, and a definition of data scraping.
I don't remember what quirk of the links led me to this (ETA: yes I do--I was browsing around the other posts on that dude's blog, above), but it brought tears to my eyes. The last post of a blogger, dead in Iraq last January. I'll honor his request that people abstain from political commentary using his death as an example. From there I reached the front page of Obsidian Wings, and found this post about bailing out the mortgage agencies, right at the top. A good read, and a good point.
I also stopped by Kate Harding's Shapely Prose, just 'cuz. I love that site to bits. It's helped me be more aware of what I'm doing to myself when I moan about my weight. Second post down as I type, I find this about the intersection of feminism and fat acceptance is thought-provoking. And before you tell me "I'm not a feminist, but...", we're all affected by crap like this, even the ones who don't think it applies to them, or can't see that it does, or refuse to admit it, or whatever. Here's another post, from a different site, about the female of the species' sacro-sanct duty to offer the world something good to look at (hint: that was irony, right there). *end mini-rant du jour*
Also, just because I can, one of my favorite xkcd strips of all:
Grownups
Thoughts and links are welcome, on this my very first "real" blog post. :)