To Analyze a Blog...

...is actually quite difficult. I was just checking all of your (English 4040/7040) blogs, and discovered that you either agree, or are just slacking. But I have no internet access at home, so it has to be done today!

First thing first, I had to go and find a blog I liked, and it seemed best to look outside of class for this. (Not that yours aren't great, I just prefer analyzing strangers). After looking and then looking some more, I found myself inclined to agree with Jake: most blogs are dull and boring. Then, just when all hope was lost, I stumbled on The Cleaner Plate Club. Wow.

I don't know who this woman is, but I think I'm falling for her. Just go to her site and hover over the hyperlinks: a little picture pops up! How does she do it? (Seriously, if anyone knows, tell me!)

So the first reason that I've chosen to discuss The Cleaner Plate Club is for the obvious mastery of technology on the site itself. It oozes professionality, but not in a "big-businessy" polished presentation. It's more of a "snarky stay-at-homer puts her brains to good use in more ways that just how to feed the family" sort of presentation. Although now that we're talking about feeding the family, it would be relevant to note that food (particularly for the family) is the primary topic of this blog.

Cleanerplateclub doesn't stop with food. She uses it as her "niche," but lots of other ideas satellite around food in a clever and effective manner. For example, Barak Obama, Ashton Kutcher, and Oscar winners are discussed comfortably alongside the weather, ethical eating, parenting, and beef recalls. Because of this, I feel that cleanerplateclub has created appeal to both a niche audience and to the world at large, and that is difficult to do.

Graphically, the website is very simple. It is virtually monochromatic, with gray, white, and black dominating the arena. The textual content is centered, with large open spaces on each side. This frees up the format for the insert of colorful, informative, and humorous pictures to illustrate points, or recipes. (Which look delicious!)

The style of the posts is deliberately informal. I say deliberately, because there is nothing accidental about this blog. Its author is clearly proofreading her posts and designing her page as she goes along. This is important, because there are many informal blogs out there, and like Jake and I think (hope I'm not presuming here), they can be dull and boring.

Poorly thought out posts with frequent errors don't grab reader attention. This blog grabs it and won't let go. Case in point: I've been trying to type this up for an hour and a half now, but I keep reading the interesting stuff on The Cleaner Plate Club instead.

Technowhati

I too have been exploring the world that is Technorati. So far, my results seem remarkably comparable to Aaron's: fascinating, but not really what I was looking for. Just out of curiosity, I decided to see how many people out there are really blogging about goats. I had to keep tweaking my searches, but I eventually came up with a few relevant blogs.

Technorati is not entirely to blame here, as I also may just not be sure of the necessary lingo to communicate that I'm looking for blogs that are about real goats, and life with them, not just references to goats. But for any of you who are not so sure about the world of "los cabritos," check out the film clip under Feb. 25th at this site. What fun! I laughed out loud in the library...

We could be heroes?

Someone else in the class mentioned that our Tuesday readings felt a little like a review or "blogging 101," which seems strange now that we've been writing our own blogs for weeks. That is at least a little bit true. We read a lot of "What is a blog?" discussion, but for me it was very timely.

I've decided that this blog isn't really my blog at all. It's a pre-blog of my blog. Or maybe blogs. I think I might need more than one. See, there's a lot to blog about, and the idea of the "niche" blog really resonates with me. I'm not especially interested in most people's "Story of My Life" blogs, but the niche ones get exciting, if I'm in their niche. (Great word, niche... I noticed that Jake pronounces it "neesh," whereas I've always leaned toward "nitch." As in stitch. Or bitch. Anyway, I looked it up and it seems that both pronunciations are acceptable, however the French will appreciate Josh's finesse, as he is preserving their influence. My French ancestors will meanwhile roll over in their graves.)

Speaking of ancestors, St. David's day is coming right up. That's right, Welshmen! Seeing as I've married into a Welsh family, I like to claim it for my own, and I'll be serving leeks on March 1st for lunch. Unfortunately there are no daffodils to decorate with, but we'll do our best.

See what I mean? It's so easy for blogs to lose focus! So I'm thinking about my niches. Not necessarily to make a profit, although if the farming ever takes off for me, it could help. More just to improve my writing. Like sentence fragments. And stuff.

The freedom of blogging is to do a lousy job about whatever you want, and nobody cares. But you can also do a great job of blogging about exactly what you blog about, and let the market (or lack thereof...) come to you. Allons! Dal ati! Daliwch ati!

Ethics of Eating

According to assignment, I'm working on a concept map that can help me with a final project. The issue that I've started with is that of eating ethically. This concept map shows some of the issues that I am debating. It is (obviously) a work in progress, as I'm still trying to figure out how to label links appropriately and how to cover the issues, as there are even more that I'd like to add. Now let's see if it takes me anywhere...

Bottleneckers

Cross & Parker's "Hidden Power of Social Networks" really made me think. Social networks are all around us, but we (or at least I) rarely actually pay attention to them. The book was particularly centered around social networks in business settings, so it naturally made me think of work.

I used to work for Barnes & Noble, and in my years with them I was cross-trained in all of their different departments. Thus, I could cover receiving when the manager was gone, or fill in a cafe shift, work in the music department, kids department, main floor, etc. Because of this, a lot of my coworkers would come to me for information. On one of Cross & Parker's social network diagrams, I would probably have had a lot of lines coming and going. Usually I would think of this as a good thing. Who doesn't want to be a bit of an "expert," even if it is just in book selling?

However, Cross & Parker bring up an interesting point that it is not always a good thing to be centrally located. Sometimes it overloads the person who has become a network "hub," and their work performance is compromised because they end up meeting a lot of needs that aren't a part of their job description. Other times a person is centrally located because they like to dominate and control information, rather than helping it to flow freely throughout the network. Cross & Parker called these scenarios "bottlenecking," and suggested a careful analysis of these centrally located figures to ensure that they really were in healthy positions, and if they were not, to help them share their workload and information in more constructive manners.

So was I a bottleneck? Probably at least in some aspects. Although I liked to think of myself as an essential part, it may be that I was not helping as much as I thought I was. It's food for thought for a sometimes-over-achiever.

The Cartography of Concepts

I really enjoyed reading our article on underlying theory in concept maps (so Dr. Strickland and the rest of the class can now relax!). Concept maps are so familiar to me that I was really surprised to learn that they were only developed recently, in 1972. However, I was also familiar with the fact that seasons are caused by the angle of the earth's axis rather than its proximity to the sun, so it surprised me to learn that 21 Harvard grads were not. (In all fairness, a survey of 23 hardly presents a statistically significant result, plus research and selection methods were not mentioned, but still...)

Anyway, the part that I really appreciated was the discussion of the human brain not as a "...single 'vessel' to be filled, but rather a complex set of interrelated memory systems." This hearkens back to our class discussions about the internet as an extension of the human brain, and to one of my earlier blogs about how none of this is really new. However surreal the internet may seem, it is really just a different medium for the patterns our society is based on. Our brains have been using interrelated memory systems for quite some time (presumably!), so it's only logical to apply that to the way we use, store, and access information outside of them, hence web 2.0.

Connected?

Well, here goes. As a whole, "Connected" has served to make me quite connected. Within class, my negative reaction provoked me to be more interactive in discussions, bringing up my questions and difficulties. After class, I talked about it with my husband on the way home. That can't be a bad thing, right? In fact, I like that a lot.

But it still doesn't make me agree with the work as a whole. Like Lauren, I can appreciate Shaviro's approach, but I just didn't find it to be convincing. One of my problems is the voices of authority that he refers to. Foucault and Baudrillard are both highly respected philosophers, but they are both philosophers of post modernism (or, some would argue, post structuralism). Spicer is a poet that echoes their philosophies. None of this is bad (to me) on its own, but I felt that there was no balance of reference.

For example, Shaviro uses Baudrillard to say that "...the technosphere, or the mediascape, is the only 'nature' we know." Not only do I disagree with this, but because Shaviro doesn't mention any other support for this point besides Baudillard's philosophy about reality, I'm not convinced.
Similarly, when Jack Spicer says that "poems following the dictation of language" is "nonsense," or that poetry is a message that does not concern us, I find myself disagreeing and not being persuaded otherwise.

Ultimately Shaviro chose to use single voices without other examples or reference when he made his points, and he chose to reference voices from a single philosophical and historical perspective. This one-sided (in my opinion) approach was where the connection broke down. Even though he chose many different topics to discuss, I felt as though they were all presented from the same perspective, with little recognition of other perspectives. This in turn made me disagree with all of his little points, which sacrificed the effectiveness of the work as a whole.

BUT it challenged me. And that's a good thing, no matter how you look at it.

Google Reader

One more piece of the cyberworld has won me over! I think I may be even more enamored with Google Reader than I was with del.icio.us, although I'm disappointed by it's mundane name.

I've subscribed to a handful of updates that I thought might be interesting, and not only am I getting what I was looking for (like knowing when people post new blogs), but I'm finding fun things that I never would have looked for. For example, my parents hometown news posted their favorite restaurant's special lunch menu for Valentine's Day. I'm guessing my mom will end up with the cream of tomato soup and veggie pizza while my dad will opt for the "Nasty Nick with Fries," a "...chicken patty tossed in homemade BBQ sauce- topped w/bacon, swiss, lettuce & tomato."

So it may not be the most exciting news, but it made me feel more connected, just for a second, to my family that lives halfway across the country. I'll have to ask if they got the white-chocolate dipped heart-shaped cookies for dessert.

Collective Behavior

In chapter one from Six Degrees, Norton mentions how Leonhard Euler developed the first theorem in graph theory, by proving that one cannot walk across all seven bridges in Königsberg without crossing the same bridge twice.

Euler happens to be one of my husband's favorite mathematicians. I'm told that the next dog we get will be named Euler, which I have no problem with except for the fact that we'll be pronouncing it like "Oi-ler" because that is technically the correct way to pronounce Euler's last name (those crazy Germans!). I can just see taking the poor mutt (I always get mutts) into the vet, and the vet saying "Hi "Yu-ler," and I'll have to say, "Actually it's pronounced 'Oi-ler,' he's named after Leonhard Euler, the famous mathematician. My husband is a nerd." Then maybe I'll go on to tell the story about the bridges.

Then my dog, my husband, my vet, and I will all have connections to the same piece of knowledge, but each of us for slightly different reasons, and each of us with different connotations. We'll have our own mini-Euler network, and all of you will be a part, now that you've read this post.

Now the next time someone mentions Euler, an odd thought may pop into your head about dogs, or about blogs, or about people who are really big nerds. Well I suppose that the nerds are the natural link there, but you get what I mean. This is just one tiny example of the way that we get and receive and link information in our minds. It's amazing, really if we think about it.

I think that it is also a great example of how the internet works, with networks formed by myriads of links. Just think back to the last time you followed all the interesting links in a Wikipedia article. If you're anything like me, you ended up on some page about fruit farmers, wondering how you got there from Northern Irish Murals. So there is the internet as an extension of our brains. It mimics patterns that we have always used. It gives me a sense of wonder, and also a sense of comfort. Sometimes it seems like a strange new world, but there's really nothing all that new about it.

Change is Good!

Well, I couldn't wait any longer. I know this template doesn't reflect what is going on outside, but it's a good representation of what I'm thinking these days.

I went to the grocery store yesterday, and there were flower seed packets for sale, a sure harbinger of spring!

Today I went to the post office to mail Valentines (I spent yesterday evening making them instead of planning my menu for the week...), and buy stamps. I ended up with flower stamps, and mailed cards bursting with Zinnias, Tulips, Irises, Gerber Daisies, Magnolias, Cone Flowers, Water Lilies, and Poppies.

So it may be 18 degrees out today, but it is February, and in Missouri that is only a month away from life and vitality.

It is time to wake up and to come back to life. I’m ready.

Life as an Amateur

I loved Lauren's post full of McLuhan quotes, particularly the last one which read, "the amateur can afford to lose." In the original context, McLuhan was praising the freedom of amateurs. They are not obligated to succeed, so they can take risks and break rules if it pleases them, which can at times lead to great success. What an inspirational way to approach daily life!

However, when I originally read the quote, I took it out of context. I read it to say that being an amateur is a safety net. It is the exact opposite of taking risks, and this is the type of amateurism I have banked on in the past.

Take a few steps back to high school. I went to a really small high school (graduating class of 12), so sports were something that everyone participated in, regardless of talent. They were more of a social thing. Now I'm going to admit something embarrassing. I ran on the x-country team, but I am a terrible runner. I'm over 5'8," I don't weigh a lot (even less back then), and I look like I could be OK at it. But I'm not. I am truly awful.

However, I wasn't willing for everyone to know that. Instead of admitting that I'd be lucky to ever run a sub-8-minute-mile in my life (10-12 minute ones suit me just fine), I set myself up as "the encourager." I ran at the back of races and came in dead last. Every time. If a girl was having a rough race, I'd just jog next to her and talk her through it. That may seem nice, but my real fear was that if I actually tried to be good, I wouldn't be. So I just didn't try. How pathetic!

So this will be my new goal: I can still embrace being an amateur freely (thank God, because odds are I'll stay that way for the rest of my life, like most of the world does!), but instead of using it not to try, I can use it to try things in my own way and have confidence that I can afford to fail. Or, as Juanita pointed out in Thursday's class, maybe it isn't failing so much as it is discovering that one approach didn't work. (Isn't there a famous quote about that, too?) Now lets try the next theory...

A Million Little Pieces

I know that the wordplay is probably getting old, but I just can't help it. Small Pieces Loosely Joined and A Million Little Pieces seem distinctly interrelated, at least in titles. Also, the typical cover shot on AMLP is of a hand covered in ice-cream sprinkles, and that serves as a striking image of the loose joining of small pieces. But I digress.

In reading the first chapter of SPLJ, a question struck me. It relates quite naturally to both books, so I'll keep heading down that path a little longer. It rotated around the quote, "The very basics of what it means to have a self-identity through time, an "inner" consistency, a core character from which all else springs--are in question on the Web," from chapter 1 of SPLJ.

Now, to me this is a chicken-or-the-egg sort of an issue. I think there is a lot more at work here than the internet revolution (large as it is). The ideas of core character and inner consistency, or even one self-identity through time are all up in the air, and this does not seem to relate solely to the web.

Take, for example, James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces. At the time this book reigned supreme on the bestseller lists, I was working for Barnes & Noble. I was also there to witness the book's fall, Oprah's humiliation, and enraged customers looking for their money back. All of this centered on a book marketed as biography, detailing the amazing pulling-myself-up-by-the- bootstraps story of James Frey's recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. The only problem was that this book was not biography. Frey certainly had been a substance abuser, but many of the "facts" he related were simply not true, or even close to the truth, as the truth came out. (What is truth?)

Frey's was an extremely embellished persona which perhaps developed out of lack of publisher support, out of Frey's black heart, or some unknown. But this persona was probably a lot closer to reality than the personae that many present on the web. But this time people got angry.

One defense Frey attempted was his plea for the "truthiness," of his book, rather than factual details. He was presenting his feelings, trying to capture the moments and emotions rather than the literal narrative of his life. Many accepted this as a valid explanation. Others would say that he had taken the concept too far.

But this brings up greater questions of our societal standards for truth and identity. Post modernism could certainly be a factor, as are the media, globalization, the web, and any other factors of "the now.” All of these deserve much more credit than I can give to them.

As humans in the twenty-first century, how do we reconcile our identities with the world around us? Is the idea of an inner consistency or core character outdated? What does it mean for a person to have one identity in class, another on Facebook, another at work, and yet another at home? Are we living in a technologically inspired state of schizophrenia, or is there an underlying unity to be found? Perhaps, as Aaron suggested, “What […] Web2 allows is that movement from ‘this is what people see me as’ to ‘this is what I've always really been,’” and we are just now beginning to grasp some of that complexity.

Yum

I have to admit, the first time I saw the url for del.icio.us, I was hoping it had something to do with food. But that's because I really like food, and it would be such a witty website. Like Epicurious... I love it! Who thinks of these names?

After my initial disappointment, I had a "rappelling moment." The first time I ever went rock climbing, my friend Logan took me up Ragged Mountain (no joke, what's with the Ragged stuff?) and set me up. But instead of having me start by climbing, he wanted me to rappel down first to learn the feel of the ropes and to trust my harness. So he instructed me to balance my arches on the edge of the cliff (standing back-to), and to lean out until I was perpendicular. I was NOT to hold onto the rope. At that moment, I knew that I was doing something really scary, entirely new, and I still wasn't sure if I'd like the end result.

That's how del.icio.us feels. I've set up my new account and dutifully bookmarked a few sites, but it is a whole new world and I'm really not sure what to do with it yet! I've got a funny feeling that I just might like it...

Mass Intelligence

This morning I got up, showered, dressed, made a cup of tea (green with Jasmine), ate breakfast, packed lunch, and headed out the door for school.

I hopped in the car, turned the key, and the engine turned over (and over), but wouldn't start. In my 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit (RIP, "Leila"), this meant I needed to pump the gas a little, but my like-new 1999 Toyota Corolla ("Zeke") has that newfangled fuel injection stuff, so that wasn't the problem (I don't think...). It was a damp morning. Maybe the distributer? But the cap wasn't cracked or loose. Maybe condensation in the fuel line? Spark plugs? Maybe anything...

It never started, so I hopped aboard my trusty bike (1995 Gary Fischer Nirvana, "Gary") and sped off to school. I arrived at school covered in sweat and mud (remember, it's a damp 45 degree February morning), thirty minutes late to class (I live on the other side of the city), but just in time for my first quiz. Score one for me.

Plus, it's free coffee Monday at McDonald's, so today really can't be that bad. I called the shop, and they're going to tow Zeke over and take a look at him. I'll bike by after school. But I'm wondering, if I could actually poll everyone (say, in all my classes), would they know what the problem was?

I know, it sounds far-fetched. But according to Surowiecki in "The Wisdom of Crowds," perhaps not that far-fetched.

If the stock market could figure out who is to blame for the Challenger explosion (that gives me goosebumps!), I think a group of college students might be able to guess Zeke's ailment. Yes, Meredith, I'd like to poll the audience. Any guesses, people?

In all seriousness, this information just amazes me. I love the fact that Google works on this principle. It's fascinating that tagging can function the same way. What would happen if the two technologies married, as Laura Gordon-Murnane suggests? Super-brilliant offspring with the knowledge of the masses only a click away, that's what.

February

Ok, so I know that the title doesn't have a lot to do with any of our readings. But here is my recognition that I'm a product of something bigger than just what I am reading, or studying for class. For example, today I am not only my mother's daughter, my boss's employee, my husband's wife, my dog's owner, and a woman from a small town in Maine who when she was fifteen years old worked on her Uncle's lobster boat and developed an interest in Marine Biology while retaining her first love of reading, etc. *thanks Aaron* I am also influenced by my more immediate environment.

It is Friday. I'm frustrated that my main accomplishment last night was playing in the snow with the dog. That means I need to catch up on reading, cleaning, cooking, and all of my other responsibilities today. But it's February, and I'm happy that the month is turning. I want to make Valentines and send them to my family. I want to celebrate that we are progressing out of the dark months of winter, and that each day has a little more light. I should be in a good mood, but I'm still cranky about not getting more things done last night, so I'm feeling critical.

Unfortunately this is all going to influence my writing a little more than it should. In my mind, I know that after re-reading the Edbauer piece I should be discussing rhetorical ecology (that intro was my half-hearted nod to it), so here goes...

The first time I read this piece, I noticed some errors, namely in the are of calling Cingular "Gingular," and other oddities. This time, they practically screamed at me. Isn't style an important part of any rhetoric? The pinnacle of my frustration came after reading the lines, "Upon seeing a picture of this homemade sign, my friend laughingly commented, 'Doesn't this person realize just how toetrc! this sign is?'"

What does that mean??? I even googled "toetrc," just in case the friend was speaking Klingon. She wasn't.

I still got the point. But I have to admit it was heavily compromised. I know that Edbauer could hardly have planned on my grumpy reading of her piece, but she (or whoever reproduced it for LION) might have known that such blatant errors are hardly professional. It is hard to trust an argument when it does not even seem to have been proofread.

So there it is. Be productive in your homes so you don't end up in a mood like mine. Happy February everyone.