Photography Links

Readers who come across this blog by chance may not know that I also have a photography blog called "Short Sights at Noon".   There is a link further down the page here directly to some past posts there.


I continue to send little pieces round to friends and now that Boards.ie seems to be back on an even keel, I'm happily posting some comments there as well.


Blogging continues to bemuse many of the over-fifties, but gradually the value of combining snappy pieces of writing with a photo is gaining popularity with my friends.   It would be excellent if they took to blog writing as well as it's such a painless way of keeping in contact with those living far away.




Not travelling abroad this year has turned out to have many benefits, notably the time available to organise photo archives and think about projects for Summer.   I continue to wish I could visit Italy more often, it is such a beautiful place.

http://shortsights.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-08-30T10:02:00-07:00&max-results=7

Words, Words, Words...

I've just found a great blog in the Blogspot system... Book Dirt. Beautifully written and, at this very moment giving 25 reasons why books (the printed versions) will survive.

Grammar finally abandoned me at the end of my zealous post there. I'm sure they'll work it out...

Does It Matter If Nobody Reads a Blog?

People who measure success in terms of approval by others would be unhappy to run a blog like this. It turns out that most visitors don't stop at all, which makes me consider if the ips from which they come are merely part of the network mechanics.

All is not lost, however, as the Analytics can be used to learn about new places around the globe. Geographers would find this useful, I expect.

Also, the value of blogging is that of documentary. Unless the Internet is obliterated, all the people who have taken time to learn the skills required to blog will be available to newcomers and will, it is to be hoped, have quicker access than those of us who had the feeling of being present at some astonishing breakthrough in science and knowledge.

I continues to astonish me that such a system can operate thanks to mathematics. Anybody who finds the subject boring or mysterious can quickly find sites on logarithms everywhere these days. Thanks to being indoors more than usual at the moment, a bit of trigonometry could pass the time.

Le jeu continue...

The Way of the World

I've stopped tuning into the news.

I know that some people claim that laughter is a form of aggression, but for whatever reason, discussion about Europe makes me laugh out loud and I can't waste time at the moment. So much to catch up on in the blog, for instance.

Like any machine, once started it seems to have taken on a life of its own. While it is tiresome to explain what a blog is to the vast number of people who pour scorn on such self indulgence, gradually the value of being able to find like-minded contacts around the world is increasingly obvious even to professional writers.

Their distain for unedited ramblings is a source of amusement to me. Do they find that bloggers are not serious people? Are they concerned that their place in the world order may be threatened? Learning to read is still withheld in some societies as a way for elites to keep power over those who are unable to access information.

Learning to write is to find a voice in the ever increasing noise that our Planet is making.

Learning to blog is one step futher. It allows for documentary makers to upload their podcasts. Films that would never find a public forum are now top billing among fans and "Rudetube" is popular on TV, as the official media, which is almost always a follower rather than an innovator, catches up with the play.

There is a certain snobbism in distaining blogs, just as Flaubert made a song and dance about that new fangled machine, the train. However, they are increasingly more read than newspapers, especially among younger generations.

I have often been puzzled by those who feel that anything has to be given official validation before its value is recognised. Authority structures are being, finally and to my relief, being broken down by the ability of many people to maintain a coherent body of writing and visual material for sharing online. Showing it to another person for approval would not dawn on me, because their input would change the nature of what is being produced.

The Analysand

Since Google Analytics is on one of the blogs here, I check it out ever so often just to see which cities send visitors to the site.
Having insight into all the extras, like bounce rate, are not really useful at the moment, as the most hits per day is forty and this is not a commercial site.

One detail pleases me. The average time sometimes hits twenty seconds, which is all is needs to look at photos. It also confirms my belief that surfers read next to nothing on blogs, skim quickly and move on.

In fact skimming over blogs could be one way of training oneself in speed reading.
One can get quite a lot of information in twenty seconds...