So yeah, I’ve been pretty lax with the whole blogging thing lately. Not just with my own blog (although I did finally get around to upgrading Wordpress the other day. Unfortunately, it was a couple of days before 2.5 was released, so I’ve ended up doing it twice in the space of about a week…), but generally. There have been quite a few posts that I’ve read and wanted to comment on, but I generally thought “meh, do it later”, then forgot. Sorry.

I’d love to say I’ve been too busy doing work, but that’d be a blatent lie. I wrote up a list of things I need to cover on my whiteboard when I got home, and even drew up a revision timetable. It hasn’t happened though; the days have generally been a mix of sleep all morning, get up and watch TV (ESPN classic is running a series of programmes covering each F1 season from 1970…), then browse the net/play games for the rest of the afternoon. And then of course it’s too late to work…

I was talking to my Mum the other day about the internet, as you do, and I let slip that I have this site (she didnt know beforehand). She was pretty surprised, and kept asking what sort of stuff I write about.

It’s something I have trouble with, to be honest. I don’t like recording minutae on here (”today i went to a lecture and it was really boring so we just ended up playing hangman and so-and-so didnt know the alphabet LOL!”), because unless you know me in real life (and are part of a specific friendship group, in that example), I’d imagine too much of that thing would get pretty dull.

I don’t like writing things which are too personal (i.e. if I’m feeling crap, a ranty woe-is-me post about whatever), because I’m well aware that the internet is open to all… I write those sorts of things elsewhere, and when I look back at them, oh they make me squirm. Also, I generally think that no-one would be interested, which probably isn’t true, cos humans are inherently nosy beings…

So when I write a post, I generally have something I want to “say”, and know what I want the thing to be about; whether it’s a rant about religion, my musings about music, or just some random thought I’ve had.

I guess there’s a happy medium to be had; if it was entirely entries of “saying” stuff, addressing issues, then it makes for a pretty dull blog. If it’s entirely “woe is me!” stuff, I guess it’s pretty inaccessible to anyone who doesnt know you, besides the fact that it makes you look like an emo…

The great thing about blogs though is that they’re pretty personal (compared to, say, the print media); by reading my blog, you could probably make a few fair inferences about what I’m like, and about what I’m interested in. And you can immediately respond to posts. I love the communicative aspect of it all; not just in comments, but the spillover between blogs. The fact that theres a number of people who all read each others stuff probably spurs us on to write more frequently (certainly in my case…), and maybe also spurs us on to write better things. I think theres probably a crossover of ideas too, which is rather cool.

The Internet generally at the moment seems to be at an interesting point. I’m fairly sure we’ll see a proper revolution of the music industry in the next few years (especially given the way people like Jonathan Coulton are getting a decent amount of success purely by running things themselves over the net, and embracing the downloads rather than fighting them). Projects such as Wikipedia (flawed as it may be) make it easier than ever to find information, things such as Facebook are making it easier to keep touch with old friends, and things like blogs or YouTube or whatever mean that it’s easier than ever to share ideas.

I think that’s the difference. Traditionally, the Internet has been almost an extension of the real world. Okay BBS and IRC is an exception, but for the mainstream, what has the internet meant? Initially, it was a way of getting cheap CDs from Amazon and to send letters instantaneously to Auntie Bertha in Timbuktu. That stuff still happens, yes, but the whole Web 2.0 (hate that term…) shebang means that theres so much more to it. It’s about ideas, about people. It’s pretty cool.

So there you go. I can’t really be bothered re-reading this, so it’s probably rambly and incoherent (more rambly and incoherent than usual, I’ll say it before anyone else does…), but hey, there was dissent in the ranks on the comment page for the last post, so I thought I should write something… :-P

Closing thought: is it me, or are pretty much all the contestants on the Apprentice this year almost completely useless?