BLOG MUSINGS

Blog Musing

Personal Style and Technical Ability seem to be the key points of note when taking a big picture look at weblogs.

Personal Style refers to the writing style, subject matter, manner of presentation of prose, and to some degree, the regularity of posting.

Technical Ability refers to the design of the page, the additional graphics and visual presentation elements which require varying degrees of know-how and capability in the areas of page design, html, XML, graphics rendering, and all that behind-the-page tech stuff, the likes of which normally confuse the heck out of non-tech types such as yours truly..

Gee, I wish some one would make it easy and explain to me how to do ìanchor tagsî within hyperlinks.

Perhaps the best example of mastery of both can be found in Rageboyís blog.

aka Chris Locke, our inspiring wordsmith! Personal Style: His writing is exquisite. Rageboy topics range from issues of new-tech to his lovelife to social issues to matters of freedom of speech/the press/digital content to some of the most wicked-funny porn (no, not hard-core, really more along the lines of soft-porn or just that exposure of female flesh that bothers repressed appointed incumbent twits like John Ashcroft), or just plain side-splittingest linkworthy shit one can find on the web.

Technical Ability: Rageboyís ability to change the look and feel of the page, adding graphics, playing with what I think may be known as frames, design and layout ñ would indicate he has tremendous technical chops, as well.

Rageboy just had a birthday last week, proving that life rages onward.

There are other examples of bloggers having serious skills in both areas. Gary Turner, Oliver Willis, Burning Bird, Joe Jennett, to name but a few.

Although I am ever impressed by those who can say a great deal within an economy of words, I am one given to recounting voraciously, in detail (sometimes graphic, no un intended) and spewing forth with long-form entries.

Years ago, back in the good old days of Compu$erve, when the web was barely known and there were all these various common-interest groups enjoying panels and forums of different sorts, my pal Doc Searls referred to my various posts on the BP Forum (Broadcast Professionals, of which I once was one) as essays. Essays! Damn, I had thought they were either musings or just part of the conversation(s) going on in that forum. I took this as a compliment. Doc further suggested that I put them (the various and many essays) together into a book and publish it as Radio Programming and Marketing textbook. I took that as a compliment, also.

The point, though, is that writing essays, longer-form entries, limits oneís readership. Blogs such as mine, and those including DeanLand (bless them!) in their blogrolls, appeal to readers of a certain sort. That certain sort may be wider in scope than not, but it is within a certain spectrum of types. Readership of this and similar such blogs is not the same readership as, say, the New York Post or the Enquirer.

Then again, readership hereabouts may not be sharing a lot of demographic Venn Diagram space with Brain Surgeon Monthly or Nuclear Physic Journal. Yet it seems (from the feedback) that readers of this and the referrer pages are mostly educated, intelligent, thinkers, and communicators. Of course, this is a somewhat interactive medium, so it stands to reason that this would be the case.

Doc further described me once as a raconteur. That, I thought, hit the nail right on the head. I like that description, and am rather pleased to hear it. Raconteur has been the Word Of The Day at dictionary.com a few times, including on my birthday this year.


Breast Fearer Ashcroft

Look what Google finds in the image search when you type Ashcroft Asshole in the search parameter box! Wow, Once again Google is right on the mark!


You are in violation of the violation

Although this is from one of the endeavors of the talented artist Robert Crumb, it came up when I did a Google Search for Ashcroft supporters.  How fitting, don't you think? While seeking out pictures using the Google Image engine, I came upon one that seemed a good illustrative resource. But when I clicked on it, hereís what appears under the graphic: Images on this page may NOT be used or reproduced, in part or whole, without written permission from the artist. Does this mean Google violated the wishes of the artist? And what kind of idiot posts on the web, where anyone can cut and paste, and then says, HEY!, Donít copy this stuff I have posted on an open, free, accessible platform? Well, not wishing to aggravate the already ill-at-ease, I didnít copy it nor did I use any of the graphics. Part of me wants to post a hyper link to the site, but why put more web users in jeopardy of violating the artistís wishes? Far be it from me to cause such a horrid event.