Not much to report

[peterbirks]

Hard work, lots of training, not winning or losing much at cards, the occasional tossy anonymous comment on LJ, piano practice, watching movies. In other words, nothing much of interest.

I always feel when I get through to March 1st that I have "broken the back" of the year. Eight and a half straight weeks of work (Fellini's film 8 and a half was of course based on the number of weeks from the start of the year through to March 1 ... or, maybe it wasn't) get you to the point where there begins to be light at the end of the tunnel, with the first personal holidays of the year in sight, followed by the UK's strangely concatenated sequence of public holidays, followed by another holiday, followed, hopefully, by Bermuda in June for work. Then its grind-grind again through to October, with only the single August Bank Holiday for respite.

February was a losing months at cards, although the second half of the month saw nearly all of the deficit wiped out, and in "real" terms (i.e., when bonuses not yet cashed in are included) I'm up a little bit. I'm still not putting in too much effort. It's relaxation and, with luck, a bit of profit.

One of the annoying bits of blogging is the person who sends one-line replies. I know that I have no right to ask for more, but one can't help but feel that, hey, if I can make the effort to put 1,000 words together, perhaps you might have the decency to put together more than a single sentence that has just come into your head. But it seems standard, and it's far less worse here than it is, for example, on the 2+2 forums, where the percentage of tossy comments and the percentage of tossy one-liners is far far higher.

I have nothing against one-liners per se. A well-thought out single sentence is a wonder indeed. Efficient, to the point, apposite. Normally, though, a one-liner is ill-thought-out, poorly-expressed, and is an example of "I always say what's going through my head, and if I don't need to explain my mental shorthand to myself, why on earth should I explain it to you?"

Well, because it's polite so to do, that's why.

The other frequent flaw is that the one-liner respondent hasn't even bothered to read what you wrote in the first place -- or, rather, hasn't read it properly. So he actually knocks down a straw man of his own construction. These guys must be manna from heaven for magicians because they simply see what they want to see, rather than what is actually aritten down.

Blogging is fading anyway. Facebook can take longer "status posts" which are, in the old sense, precisely what blogs were for. The really brief comments gravitate to Twitter. That leaves, well, what does it leave, for blogs. Long carefully thought-out essays, that's what. But few bloggers have the ability or the time to put together long well-thought-out essays. Those who do, and who are still writing, therefopre deserve to be treasured (and these guys certainly do NOT merit ill-thought out one-life responses!). I really do need to clean up my favourites list, adding those people keeping at it, and striking out the far larger number of "old-style" blogs that, in the main, haven't been updated for 18 months anyway.

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Comments

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

TL;DR

Seriously, I know just what you mean and hate the concept that "TL;DR" might ever represent a smart way of thinking with a passion, but all too often I perceive a gulf in quality between what you say and what I might have to say in response. This tends to result in me making no response at all.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the TL:Dr response. Gawd. Why not write "I have attention deficit disorder and/or am a right pain in the arse"?

I don't see your responses as lacking quality Chris. The opnly difference between us is my ghastly lack of self-doubt about my writing and, er, a certain fluency that some might mistake for prolix.
PJ

[bryangb.livejournal.com]

You're not wrong about the shortage of blog-writing time. When I set up on LJ, I had the modest aim of writing at least once a month; now I think I'm doing well if I ensure it's less than a month since my last post. (Tadaa, tadaa...)

I guess the same applies to comment-writing, with the additional factor that sometimes I only want to reply to one short element of a longer post. As you say, it is thoughtless one-liners that are the problem, not one-liners per se.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, I think I do say that good one-liners are excellent, but most of them aren't. But I think I am projecting my own verbosity here. Even if I'm only replying to a single sentence, I will usually come up with three or four paragraphs, setting out what I think the writer means, what my starting point is, what my conclusion is, and why I think I have come to that conclusion.

I have no right to expect other people to do this, but I kind of object to the "I'm too busy to write more than one sentence" argument, because it's really "I'm too lazy to write more than one sentence". But, hey, why should people write any more than they want to, if they aren't being paid so to do?

PJ

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Why should people write any more than they want to,, if they aren't being paid to do so? Because they can always write less than they want to, that's why. Generally, that would be aesthetically more satisfying for everybody concerned.

I dunno. First oral poetry, next wood-block printed political pamphlets, then serialised novels a la Dickens and Thackeray, followed by fanzines and eventually blogs. All dead or dying. Even the prototypical three-minute pop song now only lasts for 2 minutes and 58 seconds, including commercials in the middle eight.

The world is going to hell in a hand-basket, I tell you.

[bryangb.livejournal.com]

I meant to write once a week, not month, of course.

And the "not being paid" thing is sadly very powerful. I've found it get harder and harder to write for pleasure. )-:

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Why should people write any more than they want to,, if they aren't being paid to do so? Because they can always write less than they want to, that's why. Generally, that would be aesthetically more satisfying for everybody concerned.

I dunno. First oral poetry, next wood-block printed political pamphlets, then serialised novels a la Dickens and Thackeray, followed by fanzines and eventually blogs. All dead or dying. Even the prototypical three-minute pop song now only lasts for 2 minutes and 58 seconds, including commercials in the middle eight.

The world is going to hell in a hand-basket, I tell you.

[slowjoe.livejournal.com]

If you were asking the question, "does anyone else notice a chasm between the lengths of Birks' posts and my possible comment?", the question is yes. Often, I write a comment, and then delete it for similar reasons.

One of the causes is the nature of your blog posts. They tend to be a series of comments not necessarily thematically linked. Any comment which addresses more than a couple of points feels "unthought".

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Not really sure what you are getting here. A paragraph in response to one of the several points raised is fine (indeed, the maximum that I would expect). Mike in response to my most recent post just covers Nectar points.

Only Pete D writes full responses, and the simplest answer is just to respond in separate posts. That ghets rid of any "unthought" aspect.

PJ