Bill Dennis on the Internet and the Real World.#

Every Tuesday, my day off, I get in my brand new used 1991 Chevy Lumina and hit Interstate 74 and begin a quest for wit and wisdom in the real world. I get about about halfway to Bloomington when I realize there isn't any. I turn around and head for home and my DSL connection so I can cruise the 'Net. There isn't any wit or wisdom there either, but I don't have to cough up gasoline money.

Richard Tallent proposes a few ways to better utilize technology in schools.#

Turns out that computers don't help in the classroom environment and may actually be harmful. Doh! We waste massive amounts of taxpayer money on technology that is outdated before it is even installed, we have generations of teachers who couldn't even install a printer driver to save their life, and most schools have no specific plans on how to use the technology, partially because their school board members are just as tech-illiterate as the teachers and students. It this any surprise?

Michael Feldman writes about the Adopt-A-Journalist scheme and has some recommendations at making older media organizations more blog friendly.#

The basic idea is that to counteract the relative anonymity and lack of accountability on the part of Major Media writers and reporters, Bloggers should choose a single reporter and monitor, repost and comment on all of that individual's journalistic output.

Come on! That's the most invasive, repugnant and counterproductive idea we have heard in the 'Sphere since paid subscriptions! Who appointed us to be the Thought Police? And Who is Going to Monitor the Monitors? What a misguided, uncivil and rude waste of time!

Richard stole the words from my keyboard with regards to social software.#

I'm fairly skeptical as to this whole social software idea, since it still doesn't seem to be designed to get people out of their chairs and into actual social situations. Besides, my weblog is my social software. Linking to others using the <a href=> tag has been far more effective for me in "meeting" new people than any other form of online conversation. Right now—and probably for the duration of my flirtation with Orkut—the only people on my "friends" list are #joiito members. Yes, I'm effectively saying I will not invite you or accept you as a "friend" unless you're a #joiito regular. It's been putting a face to the screennames, but of course I must factor in the possibility that at least one of the faces may be a "Kaycee".

Richard links to a slut who doesn't like being used: Phil Ringnalda.#

Commenting is also a great way to get yourself known among webloggers. If you write something interesting, or just write well, in someone's comments, I'm quite likely to click your link, to see what else you have to say. [...]

But, the inevitable but, I've been noticing lately that there are quite a few people who are spamming comments, only with a link to their blogs rather than to a casino, a pill, or a naked woman. If you only have six words to say to me, that's cool, but if I then see that someone in my blogroll has just updated, and I go over there only to find that you had six similar words to say to her, and searching for link:yoursite.com shows that there are dozens or hundreds of links to your blog, all coming from six-word, nothing-much comments, I'm going to feel used, and even a slut doesn't like to feel used.

The Author of ecto writes about spam and spammas:#

I'm starting to think that spammers do not spam for profit anymore, if ever. I don't see how bombarding innocent users with hundreds of totally uninteresting and often obnoxious emails could generate even a bit of dough. This is plain revenge. Spammers are the notorious salesmen, Yehova's witnesses, and their offspring. After years of getting the doors slammed in their faces, they have finally found a way to remain unconditionally pushy, annoying and irritating, and without even having to ring doorbells.

Al3xander P4yn3 writes about how you should not write about blogging unless you are an idiot.#

The next time I hear someone drag out one of those generic intellectual litmus test concepts that get tediously applied and re-applied to any new big thing that comes up ("gender and [x]", "race and [x]", "social justice and [x]", "geopolitics and [x]", "deez nutz and [x]") and apply it to blogging I'm going to break heads. Seriously. That shit's tired enough when the big thing in question is actually new and radically different (ex: the Internet). Something like blogging that's little more than offshoots and amalgamations needs no more mental energy wasted on its "analysis" than the aforementioned deez nutz (though admittedly the already substantial body of research and critical theory regarding deez nutz makes comparison difficult at best).

Michael Feldman points to a story about Bill Clinton's email experience.#

The archives of the Bill Clinton presidential library will contain 39,999,998 e-mails by the former president's staff and two by the man himself.

"The only two he sent," Skip Rutherford, president of the Clinton Presidential Foundation, which is raising money for the library, said Monday.

Clay Shirky wonders if the Dean campaign's use of the Internet actually hurt the candidate.#

When I was 19, I remember seeing a bunch of guys in a parking lot in New Jersey absolutely rocking out to Twisted Sister at top volume, "Oh we're not gonna take it, No, we ain't gonna take it, Oh we're not gonna take it anymo-o-o-o-ore" and I remember thinking the song was using up the energy that would otherwise go into rebellion.

Just rocking out to Twisted Sister so hard, and feeling so good about it, made those guys feel like they'd already stood up to The Man, making it less likely that they would actually do so in the real world, when the time came. And I'm wondering if the Dean campaign has been singing a version of that song, or, rather, I'm wondering if the bottom-up tools they've been using have been helping their supporters sing that song to each other.