Sat, Jul. 26th, 2003

(no subject)

Sat, Jul. 26th, 2003 01:20 pm
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Happy birthday, [livejournal.com profile] hecatehatesthat!!!!!

Interesting link

Sat, Jul. 26th, 2003 09:46 pm
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Here is a fascinating bit on group dynamics online, highly fandom relevant and relevant to blogs and LJ and the like.

ETA: Very interesting section on reputation and handles and the need for non-polynymity that reminded me of recent situations on AtPO.
oyceter: Delirium from Sandman with caption "That and the burning baby fish swimming all round your head" (delirium)
Reading the essays on Shirky makes me realize yet again how much I love the internet. Yes. I am an internet junkie. And was just talking to another old HS friend, gave her the link to my LJ, but asked her to keep it off her personal website, and thought just how many people probably think I'm strange because I live online. And many people don't get at all why I love the internet. But I love it because it lets me talk to people halfway around the globe in no time at all. It lets me read people's thoughts, thoughts that differ from mine substantially. It lets me talk to people who have substantially different life experiences from mine, and it makes the world smaller in a very tangible way for me.

This was sparked by a series of essays on Shirky about telcos trying to get into wireless internet and how they're doing everything wrong -- restricting content, focusing on m-commerce and the like. And how they don't seem to get that people talking to other people is what makes the internet work, and what will ultimately make wireless internet work as well. Because I'm not paying 7 dollars a month so I can find out what time movies are playing from my phone. But I would pay 10 cents a message to be able to send my boyfriend pictures I've taken with my phone. And if my phone let me check up on LJ or my email or whatnot while I was on the go? Yeah, sign me up!

I always get pissed off when people try to limit content on the internet or try to censor it or bring it over for their own corporate use. I disliked the takeover of Geocities by Yahoo on principle, I don't like how Google just bought Blogger, I hate the idea of MSN in general. This is also partially because I'm anti-corporate-world and extremely paranoid. I don't like the idea that these big conglomorate people can tell me what I can or can't have on my page, or the shutting down of fan pages and the like. I'm sure my model of a perfect internet is not a practical model, because mine is very anarchistic. But this is my forum for hearing voices I otherwise wouldn't have access to, and it's my place for finding complete new worlds, like fandom. And of course one pays for these freedoms with kerfluffles and flame wars and the like. But to me, it's worth it, ten times over.

I fell in love with the internet the second we had it hooked up to our house back in ninth grade and the technician guy typed in Yahoo's URL. And I found out I could search for anything I wanted to. And it was amazing. Ninety some percent of the sites were crap, of course, but there were people out there doing things, and it was incredible! Then I was looking for fiction online, because Taiwan=lack of English language books. And I stumbled on some XF fic, and I was a goner. I started watching the show because I had to catch up on the canon. LJ and blogs are just icing on the cake, and to me, they're almost the ultimate expression of why I love the internet. There's this giant blog/LJ network now that operates much differently from personal websites, and it's much faster and easier to navigate than sorting through links. And most of them are completely centered around individual opinions and thoughts and lots and lots of text! It's perfect.

So that's my love letter to the internet... may my cell phone soon follow in its steps.

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