I can use my site again – maybe the network problems Dave Winer reported are fixed? It’s early morning here in Sweden, I guess most americans are still sleeping. (Update: Yes!)
Everyone writing on the web has to make different distinctions between professional, personal and private. Good judgement will always be necessary, of course – but some webloggers have site designs that directly reflect the choices they have made.
Many webloggers write both long stories and short “log-style” entries. For instance, Dave Winer uses two different sites: DaveNet and Scripting News. With Manila, the calendar does everything you want (well, almost) for basic logging. But where should the other stories go?
I don’t know, yet. Or rather… not taking the time for a complete re-design is the choice reflected by this site right now.
Yesterday CamWorld linked to a story about the increasing size of business magazines, and how it makes them impossible to read. Cam realized he bought them but didn’t read them anymore. And of course, this morning I found an unread issue of Harvard Business Review in the pile of books and magazines by my bed.
I tried to get a picture of the pile into my computer. But the funky Sony-branded parallell-port adapter and it’s stupid software wouldn’t let me. “Because we can’t!” Hi Gary 
When I browsed the magazine, I found an article about how to keep employees. Summary:
- The niggers are uppity these days.
- Some ways of making it difficult to leave still work.
- Make deals with other employers, so there is nowhere to go.
- Resort to short term bribes whenever necessary.
All this written in the sickening nihilistic voice of someone trying to please his masters and reassure himself at the same time.
OK. So I was studying the enemy. Now what?
I take a break. It’s lunch time in Sweden and the sun is shining – after all these dark months, everyone is almost religious about it!
Because we can’t, Hah! I make an obtuse reference to the very fact that things do not always go smooth on todays home page of iSee iSay.
Are those contemporary magazines you are reading? Independent action starts with independant thought. Check out “Creating Livable Alternatives to Wage Slavery” linked to Friday, March 17, 2000
Enjoy the sun, same here in Boston.
Cheers,
Gary
It is now saturday morning. Christ, it took a while to get back in from the sun
.
Thanks for the link. Yes, http://www.whywork.org/ is an interesting place. I think Abuddhas memes, (http://www.crosswinds.net/~abuddha/bookmark.htm) linked to it some time ago.
I will have to write the rest of this story. “… what if they are us?”, in the title, refers to all the people who try to stay free, but find it hard to do so without using other people.
For instance, the writer of that awful HBR article is probably a well-paid consultant who would like to think of himself as a free spirit. But closer to my mind is the IT business itself: in a growing company the dreams of living free and the dreams of cashing in frequently conflict. In a very small company this is even more interesting: it comes down to personal choices.
Hope Boston still has nice weather! I was there once, in 1995 – some places outside town reminded me of Sweden: woods, nice but not excessive houses, fresh air.
Enjoy,
Jonas