Fortunately I don't have the problem of a massive readership amplifying and distorting everything I say.

Pictures of food, descriptions of how food compensates or affects moods, links to other food bloggers, recipes, oh and did I mention pictures of food?

Another thing which is not universal but seems very widespread is that the majority of food blogs I've bumped into appear to be written by women.

Here are a random few which are examples of the art:
http://epicureandebauchery.blogspot.com/
http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/journal/
http://www.roboppy.net/food/
http://bayarea.typepad.com/bayarea/
http://lightningfield.com/extra/0504eatingchina/

Of course with dining there is always the matter of etiqutte - this does not go neglected even in a virtual world:
http://foodblogscool.blogspot.com/

On the other hand, no respectable design site can resist the lure of rusty steel. But we must forgive and forget the occasional indiscretion. Afterall who has NOT posted a link to an abandoned building or two?

Link: http://www.designobserver.com/

We might, for instance, choose to torment Graydon Carter for the month.

Of course this should be obvious since his name gets top-billing on his graphic. You will note that he has conveniently removed his hair so you can more easily see that big brain of his.

But what can I say? I think he is right in the specific and in the general. But with a condition...

When I was studying architecture one of the recurring rituals was having critiques of your assignment. The general process is to prepare your design including drawings, models or whatever else is necessary to demonstrate your conception. Then on the appointed day a panel is assembled (usually made of instructors and invited guests). Each person then presents their design and the guests critique it, sometimes praising what is not there, sometimes damning it, other times giving constructive criticism. It really just depends on the mood or temperament of the juror.

Another aspect of this process that bears explanation is that it usually occurs after a period of extreme activity, activity which does not include sleep and may involve consumption of a great deal of caffinated beverages. The end result of which is a fragile grip on reality by those being critiqued. Emotions were quite often close to the surface.

So what does this have to do with ego? Well, in the case that your project is loved it should be obvious that the flames of ego are flamed white hot. What is not obvious at first is that when the project is not loved, or even despised a remarkably a similar thing happens. As a protection tactic people dissociate their self from their work. It doesn't happen immediately, but it is clear that advanced students are crying far less often than those in their first year. People also learn that the criticism may in fact be bogus and that their own ideas are just as valid as anyone's.

The end result is a group of people who are secure in their own opinions. They may not fall into the classical definition of the egomanic who thinks they are great, but they may fit into a definition where an egomaniac is one who thinks everyone else is inferior or more charitably (and perhaps more accurately) where an egomanic is one who makes no connection between the quality of one's work and the quality of one's self.

So here is where it gets tied back together. Blogging is similar to standing up for one of those reviews. There are no doubt those who do it to show themselves (and I think in the case of Seth's blog - to brand themselves) but there are others who could care less. People who are secure enough that they do not use the blog to feed their ego, but instead keep things entirely separate. It is these people I think that Seth misses in his characterization.

I believe that nothing in unconditionally true, and hence I am opposed to every statement of positive truth and to every man who states it. Such men seem to me to be either idiots or scoundrels.

And with such skepticism I can not but mistrust those authors, indeed I don't trust zealots of any viewpoint but my own. But there is no mechanism in this world for indicating mistrust. Blogs often leave little room for dissent, and often the act of dissenting drives more traffic to that blog and in the insanity that says a blog linked to often is a source of authenticity even a negative protest is converted into a positive. Right now, the entire territory is wide open and neighbors are friendly because the nearest neighbor is 234 trillion electrons away, but will the same sort of belief that positive feedback alone is sufficient hold? Is it sufficient to limit or to expose the idiots and scoundrels? Or should we just be content that they have existed always and protect them as if they were just so many spotted owls?

Where this entry is going I'm not quite sure. I'm quite capable of ignoring idiots and I have no motive to try and stuff a sock in their mouths as after all, I'm not so fond of the taste of socks. But it does strike me as something curious. Frontiers somehow always seem to be the province of idiots and scoundrels. Perhaps there is nothing to worry about and they will all take up podcasting.

However it reminds me that syndication may possibly be robbing the world of some amount of beauty. As Nietzsche said "“It is neither the best nor the worst things in a book that defy translation.” and translation into xml is indeed translation.

It is interesting to see how things have changed since then. At that time the limitations of bandwidth were a very real thing and there were constant arguments about sending binaries, now most take the ability to view images as so common that it is not even worth mentioning. And in this ascii-art world, usenet was king. One has to say that usenet still exists and perhaps even thrives, but most new computer users have no idea what NNTP is or how to access it. Someday the same will be said of RSS. You might be saying that of RSS even now. But to get back to the story, Richard always seems to be around for the beginning of things. Godwin's law is an example and the creation of alt.sex newsgroups is another. But somehow Richard never seems to capitalize on these early positions.

I point out his website as an example of this. It is not visible from the surface, but it is really created using some code which Richard put together himself (most likely using C rather than some toy language like PERL) and which enables on-line editing and publishing. But, of course, no one - or at least few - are using it. Rather they are using things like MovableType and WordPress or skipping the installation altogether and simply opening an account at Typepad or one of the countless other options.

The reason why can be traced back to the early days. Back then you just needed a place to store stuff. An FTP server and later a web page. If you wanted conversation or commentary you would go to usenet or set up a mailserve. So when Richard put this thing together he was thinking more about an online library rather than something which would allow conversations, note-taking, linking and the like - and all of that on the fly. A library is fine if you put the books away on the shelves, but for those of us who love to read and have books on the floor, on the nightstand, under the bed and tucked into pockets, the library concept is just too high maintenance. It will never be complete and will look like hell in the process. This is the state of Richard's site. Richard Sexton, the man who invented the blog.

But after a while I found out he was actually genuine about this stuff and his comments like "That's OK. But, I gotta tell you, the mainstream press has the weblogging thing all wrong. It's all a fad. Like most things that the press reports, they blow it out of porportion (and they miss the real story). What is the real story? Web sites are finally easy and low-cost enough that everyone can do one, not just the folks who like writing stupid HTML tags." started working on me. Finally a few years later I understand. He was right.

But what is he doing now? Well, he is talking this and evangelizing that. But it is OK. It isn't all just shilling for Microsoft. Last time I met him he walked up to a table where I was talking to some other people and asked us what we were doing and then launched into giving us the details of that Channel 9 thing he is doing. And we all thought "huh?" but were hardly offended. He just can't help himself. He can't keep from talking about things he thinks are great. 5 stars for being inspirational.

Score: 4 stars