BLOGS
The
word blog is derived from the term “web log,” but it
has since come to be both a noun (blog) and a verb
(to blog).
There
are currently over 60 million blogs in the world. The
challenge is to find one that is active, original, and of interest to you.
Blogging is a new kind of online self-publishing that allows people
to make private journal-style musings very public (to anyone with an Internet
connection who can read your language), to post opinion and editorial pieces of
writing, and to spread news and other information. Blogs
also allow people to link their own thoughts to material on the World Wide Web
through the insertion of hyperlinks into their text.
There
are two kinds of blogs: authored and aggregated.
Authored blogs are composed by individuals on a host
of topics. Aggregated blogs are collections of copied
articles and links to interesting sites on the net.
Many
blogs are multi-media documents that contain text,
images, and even animations. Many blogs are also interactive as they allow readers to post response
comments.
Blogs can be created on websites such as http://www.myspace.com, http://www.livejournal.com, http://www.xanga.com/, and http://www.opendiary.com/.
Wikipedia (a “wiki” is a website that
allows users to post and edit content) contains an informative history of blogging.
Here
are some indexes to blogs:
Political
commentary:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/index
Personal blogs:
Science blogs:
60 million global blogs: http://technorati.com or http://blogsearch.google.com/.
I also surveyed my friends, associates, and colleagues on their
favorite blogs. What follows are some of their
recommendations. Some of these blogs are very
serious; some are chatty and slight; and some are very risqué, saucy,
provocative, uncensored and downright rude and should be read by adults
only. In the spirit of blogging, I have reproduced these comments largely
unedited:
For
starters, here is the blog that Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau set up for soldiers serving in
(and here is how Trudeau satirizes blogging
in his comic strip: http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/zipperblog.html.
)
I'm actually a fan of don to earth:
http://dontoearth.blogspot.com/. It's an editorial blog
written by a 92 (?) year old. The author writes the entries by hand each day
and snail mails them to his daughter for her to type up.
For tech stuff my favorite blog would be
http://arstechnica.com. It started out as a
in depth analysis of computer chips/technology and has now evolved into a
community of writers discussing tech culture, new tech, and impacts of
government policy.
Here are some more blogs:
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/
Body modification:
Things to watch:
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/
Gadgets:
Art and such:
http://7deadlysinners.typepad.com/
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/
Bizarre and wonderful things:
Daily Dose of Imagery:
Random Commentary:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/
Academic Affairs:
Here
are some academic blogs I wander to when I should be
grading papers: I can’t imagine anyone other than an academic would be
interested in them, but you never know…
http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/2006/11/buried-treasure.html
seems to be walking personification of david
byrne’s question, “how did I get here?” I believe he
coined the phrase, “Foucault plus lawn care” regarding
his new life as a neo-suburbanite and professor; I can relate.
a
very funny, very angry woman some days she seems to be existing on pure bile
which she does not hesitate to spew at academia, patriarchy, her students, her
colleagues, her neighbors, the religious right and anyone else who gets in her
way. Delightful reading.
http://seejanecompute.blogspot.com/2006/11/secret-confession-time.html
candid, occasionally quite funny.
http://untenured-no-no.blogspot.com/2006/11/is-semester-over-yet.html
also a refreshing look into another academic’s challenges and
minor victories.
http://community.livejournal.com/____rhapsodical/profile
it’s a music blog. free downloads twice a day.
George RR Martin (A Song of
Ice and Fire) calls his blog "Not a Blog". I think it's because he's already bothered
enough by people asking him to finish the books, he doesn't want to be bothered
with people saying he hasn't updated his blog. I'm
pretty sure that was the stated reason. I imagine novelists aren't very good
about updating their blogs regularly. http://grrm.livejournal.com/
The agitator is one of the most intelligent, insightful, and well
informed independent political bloggers on the net: http://theagitator.net/
Excellent personal and political blog
that became popular when the author kept his webhosting
provider alive in the middle of Katrina:
http://interdictor.livejournal.com/
http://projectgay.blogspot.com/.
Two fabulously glamorous guys judging things harshly.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/ - Oddities about language, speech, etc. 2006 Word of the year? plutoed
- to pluto.. Pluto was plutoed.
http://disinfo.com/ -- "News"? From the troupe that brought you Everything
You Know Is Wrong and 50 Things You're Not Supposed to
Know comes a search engine for current affairs, politics, etc... and a blog.
http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/ - Hyperpeople --
What happens after we're all connected?
Three-part essays on globotechnoloicization of
the developed world and its sociological ramifications.
http://www.lifehacker.com/ Modding your life
for increased productivity.
http://cuteoverload.com/ This may very well be as far from literary as
I can muster.
The following blogs are very provocative and may be considered extremely
rude; however, they are also very popular. Read with caution.
One of my all-time favorites was "Confessions of a Porn Store
Clerk", one that I don't know if you could get away with using -- but it
might be good because it was written for a limited time and then abandoned, so
it is of finite length. I can't find the
original (was late-90's I believe), but some dedicated soul has reposted it
upon request here:
http://www.deepveininsomnia.com/SBcopscintro.ph
p
Oh, and if you want to laugh and feel terrible for doing so: http://www.tard-blog.com. It's not active anymore, but it's priceless.
I am just gonna go ahead and say http://tuckermax.com, a blog
about the crassest, foulest, worst man in the world.
“The misanthropic bitch” writes about whatever is pissing her off
at the time, and is generally a wonderful thing: http://www.misanthropic-bitch.com/
Sexy stuff:
http://www.sexoteric.com/blog/
http://www.tinynibbles.com/violetblue.html
http://xupacabras.weblog.com.pt/
One more:
http://markedformetal.livejournal.com/
Ex stripper/pornstar/model turned
author. She's totally nuts and an
excellent writer.
Appropriate: http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/coolestshop_1931_965041927
Also, check out Google Reader, the best RSS/blog
reader I've found: