Bloggers Unite: JOHN MENADUE.-Strengthening Pearls and Irritations.

"From a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having heard of one or the other. All life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.” 

Coal mining allowed under Sydney water reservoir for first time in 20 years


‘Holy Crap This Is Insane’: Citing Coronavirus Pandemic, EPA Indefinitely Suspends Environmental Rules Common Dreams

Wake Up! Your Fears Are Being Manipulated The American Conservative

What The Literature Of Plague Tells Us

Jill Lepore: “The literature of contagion is vile. A plague is like a lobotomy. It cuts away the higher realms, the loftiest capacities of humanity, and leaves only the animal. “Farewell to the giant powers of man,” Mary Shelley wrote in “The Last Man,” in 1826, after a disease has ravaged the world. “Farewell to the arts,—to eloquence.” Every story of epidemic is a story of illiteracy, language made powerless, man made brute. But, then, the existence of books, no matter how grim the tale, is itself a sign, evidence that humanity endures, in the very contagion of reading.” – The New Yorker

JOHN MENADUE.-Strengthening Pearls and Irritations.

From next week, we will be outsourcing the production, technical support and promotion of Pearls & Irritations. 

This outsourcing will be with Michael West Media.

In this contracting out of the ‘back office’, the editorial independence of Pearls & Irritations will be strictly maintained. I will continue as editor. There will be no paywall and no advertising.

We will be seeking modest financial contributions from our readers.

SATURDAY’s GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND 

What people in other forums are saying about public policy Continue reading →

I just did a bit of copying and pasting

Of this:
Born in New York City in 1945, Tesler eventually studied computer science at Stanford University before working in the school’s artificial intelligence research lab in the late 1960s. He moved to Xerox in 1973, where he devised the time-saving concepts to cut, copy and paste in computer systems.

Your workday is easier thanks to his revolutionary ideas,” Xerox tweeted Thursday to honor Tesler.

Oh, it goes far beyond that, for me and surely for many others. My whole life was made possible by this sort of stuff.

With thanks to Instapundit. It’s little postings like this that keep me going back there. If all there was there was politics, I’d keep going back, but surely not so often.

Imagine having to copy out just the two links above, letter by letter, number by number. MEdia Dragon and the Theatre of the Absurd. . .

SAY THANKS TO THE HARDWORKING TECH GUYS:  With internet usage surging, companies are scrambling to keep it all running.

Even 20 years ago, this pandemic would have been very different, people would have been much more alone, and much more of the economy would have shut down.

Indoor Voices, A Quarantine Group Blog Just Like The Old Days

By Aaron Cohen

A few weeks ago, writer Kyle Chayka Tweeted “I predict a great Blogging Renaissance,” to which also writer Kevin Nguyen responded, “i kinda wanna do a weird free-for-all quarantine blog.” Then they added other writer Bijan Stephenand started Indoor Voices, a group blog which has now grown to about 80 members, all of whom miss what the internet used to be like AND  happen to be home quite a bit at the moment. (To cement old school credentials, Indoor Voices is hosted on ancient blogging platform Blogspot, the place I got my blogging start in 2004. (Out of an abundance of shame, I absolutely will not be linking to this first blog.)) 

From the Indoor Voices about page:

Blogging is not a substitute for direct action. Direct action in this case involves staying  home. Blogging is one thing to do while staying at home. Please wash your hands. It’s hard to believe, but there was a time where the internet was just full of casual websites posting random stuff. And you’d go to them maybe even multiple times a day to see if they had posted any new stories. It was something we all did when we were bored at our desks, at our jobs. Now there are no more desks. But there are still blogs. 

There’s no theme, except quarantine. There’s no schedule, except people post every day whenever they want. As you might expect from a group of 80 people, post subjects vary. There are beauty tips, missives to Deadwood and Steven Universe, strategies to get through your pile of New Yorkers, and a regularly featured What Should You Do Tonight? I myself have posted about working from home with kids (it’s…fine), what help small businesses need right now, andQuarantine, an anthem sung to the tune of Dolly Parton’s, Jolene. (This level of blogging productivity hasn’t been seen by me since 2014.) 

In a brief interview, cofounder Kevin Nguyen had this to say about Indoor Voices:

We started Indoor Voices  because we were nostalgic for classic days of blogging, and partly as an inside joke. Then we realized that the blogs we missed felt like an inside joke that a small community was in on. So far, we’ve been really thrilled with the creative, chaotic energy that people have been putting forward. It’s writing for writing’s sake, and we’ve enjoyed seeing just how diverse and funny and strange that’s been. Probably helps  that we’re all slowly going stir crazy.

Note also, Kevin’s first novel, New Waves, is finally out. It’s my most anticipated read of the year, but don’t take my word for it. Almost every publication thatwrites about books regularly listed it as anticipated as well.

Naked Conversation: Links 3/29/2020

Posted on March 29, 2020 by Lambert Strether

Patient readers, a comment on comments, supplementing what Yves said here on informational hygiene. Before you press “Post Comment,” please consider the cascading effects your comment can cause, and the effect such cascades can have on moderators, who may end up having to rip out entire threads, a cumbersome, error-prone, and extremely irritating process. Comments that cause cascades tend to be ill-informed, politically motivated without being deft or knowledgeable, or (sometimes) simple shit-stirring, as if NC were Facebook or Reddit. It isn’t. 

Normally, we prefer to let the commentariat act, as it were, as our immune system for agnotology, but the volume of comments now is such that the cascade from a poor comment is the equivalent of a cytokine storm for our poor moderators. 

The best way to avoid a cascade of dead cells and infected matter in our comments section is to take care with your initial post. Take your time to be analytical, add links and evidence, and if possible quotes. Then the commentariat can proceed on the basis of building collective knowledge, as opposed to spending its time, and ours, filtering out ego-driven, self-involved crap. Thank you! –Lambert