Two new blogs came to my attention in the past week. When I say new, I mean new to me, both seem to have been going for some time. It's odd, I was listening the other day to someone on the radio talking about how the photographs we take nowadays are mostly hidden away on desktops and in cameras, rather than being printed and shared with other people. It occured to me a long time ago that there is more and more stuff being written, but less and less of it is worth keeping.
Writing a blog is a special thing, so different from writing a journal which is for yourself and posterity only, there for your surviving family to read and possible burn. A blog is a living document, one in which it is possible to have a dynamic conversation with the readers, and within which you learn who those readers are, what they like and dislike about your blog and your writing.
The trouble is, the dynamic nature of the blog changes you. It has to. I didn't realise this when I first started my first blog, 10 years ago. I was a pioneer, blogging with a handful of other UK writers, when the BBC site was mostly unobtainable because it was more or less the only commercial site in the country, and on a dial up connection, more often timed out than not.
I was ignorant of the differences between journal writing and blogging, thought it was just an online journal. Ot was some time before I realised that a web log whould have details of your travels across the then much smaller web, with active links.
I wrote it initially like my diary, with names and places more or less unchanged. Soon I realised there was a dilemma between being honest and being able to say what I thought about people and places, and being identifiable. It meant that I wasn't just confiding incidents about my day, but the days of my friends and family. That I might hurt or enrage someone inadvertently...or advertently.
I tried to conceal my identity, but that too is fraught with dangers and deceit. If you are a middle manager living in a large town and enjoy the odd drink in the pub and watching your favourite football team at the weekends, I have no doubt you can probably blog away with a John Doe pseudonym and no one would find you out. But the combination of being a Quaker, being a home educator, working in Second Life and doing genealogy is a pretty unique one.
So... I could turn from a Quaker to a Buddhist, write my children out of the picture and mention no work and no genealogy... but then, would that still be me in there? It would cut out huge swathes of my life, and make the blog so much less interesting.
So... I could simply ensure that I don't say anything to embarrass or upset my nearest and dearest, and blog about safe things. Well yeah, that's more or less what I have done, apart from the occasional rant about commercial companies in SL. But it also cuts out that part of my life where I feel upset, angry, happy, frustrated or just plain bored, where I want to confide in my computer or my reader, and can't, in case I upset someone.
I'd have thought the same problems may beset the two blogs I have found this week. Bitchy Jones is a blog by a dominant woman, and is very definitely full of not-safe-for-work content. I don't agree with a lot of what she rants about, but the ranting is interesting and intelligent and fiery and alive. She's sometimes not very elegant, often badly spelled or typed, but it sparks and flashes, and is full of challenging and thought provoking ideas about dominance and submission and society.
The Grace Undressed blog was BoingBoinged which led the writer to withdraw most of the posts for a day while she checked through them with a fine toothpick to see if she had left identifying information which might lead the crazy posse to her doorstep. She is simply a fantastically brilliant writer, and I will be sad if she doesn't find a way out of stripping (her current job) into writing, which she does elegantly, poetically and with an honesty and authenticity that shines through the bleakest of posts. She is a truly gifted writer, don't let the stripper thing hoodwink you into thinking she has nothing to say... she speaks to me, and obviously to many people, because of the wave of people who followed the link from BoingBoing to her blog. I wish I had written the following, which she wrote about a 12-year-old who ran away from home and ended up in a strip club:
"I don't know what that girl had seen or felt or thought or done before she ran away. I know a lot more about what her life was like after. I can say for sure that the club was dark, and that it smelled of damp carpet and upholstery saturated with 15 years-worth of cigarette smoke and sour bodily excretions, and blizted over with a hundred cheap body sprays scented like would-be flowers and would-be musk. I know that the customers sat against the wall heavy-lidded, impassive, impenetrable. I know the other girls walked past her in a sweep of sheer fabric and high-heels and straight-ahead stares."
Then again, her experiences aren't my experiences. I can't write her life any more than she can write mine. But you can see, her writing is exquisite.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Picture of water affected by emotions
It's been a while since I visited the HADO site, the wonderful world of Water. Dr Emoto discovered that the same samples of water behaved very differently when they had different words written on them. Sample of water from different places showed different results too.
There is a video about the preparation of samples of water, pictures of frozen water crystals, but most interestingly, a page of links to articles which show how "love" anbd "demon" written on a bottle of water changes its crystalline form.
I don't know what's going on, or what the research shows, but I find the results fascinating and beautiful.
There is a video about the preparation of samples of water, pictures of frozen water crystals, but most interestingly, a page of links to articles which show how "love" anbd "demon" written on a bottle of water changes its crystalline form.
I don't know what's going on, or what the research shows, but I find the results fascinating and beautiful.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Amazing interactive disaster map
In looking for pictures of the lightning storm around the Chaiten volcano in Chile, I discovered this amazing interactive disaster map.
The map does not distinguish between a small accident involving 17 people and a collapsed fairground ride, and a disaster like the China earthquake involving thousands, and shows the most recent events as radiating circles in red or yellow.
If you click onto any of the icons on the map, you will get a page which offers a description of the event, updates, photographs and location details.
I think this is most useful when you want to get updates on events which have slipped from the mainstream media, like the Chaiten Volcano, although that volcano icon, which should be in southern Chile, occasionally appears in the middle of the Indian ocean, for reasons I don't understand.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Doc Martens design competition
Found a fun advert for the Doc Martens design competition and made a simple but attractive design I hope.
Go vote for me. Or make your own design and let me know so I can see and vote for it!
Go vote for me. Or make your own design and let me know so I can see and vote for it!
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Oil pulling for keratosis pilaris diary
I must preface my remarks with the information that I am not medically qualified, and i am not advising anyone to do anything. I am all in favour of people in general taking control and responsibility for their own health.
About 50% of the adult population suffers from keratosis pilaris to some extent. Also know as chickenskin, it looks like permanent goosebumps, sometimes red, sometimes not. There is a whole collection of relation conditions, which all have their own impressive latin name.
Some people will hardly think of this as a condition, and others are severely depressed by it. Of course, the severity and the impact that it makes upon your life are affected by how important your appearance is, where your tolerance for imperfections lies, etc. I have it, as do two of my children, one of whom has it pretty badly.
Anyoldhoo, having found the support forum and message board for KP, I discovered a discussion about oil pulling, which is apparently as well-known technique in various parts of the world. Put simply, it consists of using pure oil, like sunflower, sesame (untoasted) or coconut, and first thing in the morning, taking about a tablespoon, swilling it around the mouth for 20 minutes and then spitting it out.
People on the forum have reported mixed results from the method. Some claim to have seen a reduction in their KP, others report side effects such as a reduction in neck pain, or whitening of the teeth.
Few people seem able to explain how it can help. One postulates that it may remove toxins from the system somehow, because some toxins are fat soluble while others are water soluble... others that it kills bacteria. However, I am always in favour of things that don't harm but may help health, and so I decided to give it a try for myself, and record the results here.
I have often wondered what benefit the Roman got from covering themselves in oil and having a slave scrape it off again. Maybe this is an internal version of that....
Day 1
I do not have sunflower, untoasted sesame oil or coconut oil, and I wondered why people didn't use olive oil. Having tried it this morning I think I know the answer. Extra Virgin cold pressed olive oil has a strong, bitter, flavour, which may be tasty in salad dressings, but is quite hard to deal with when the undiluted oil is swishing around the mouth.
It was quite thick, too, even after I had swished it around for 20 minutes. It seemed to be doing something, because my tongue and gums were tingling quite strongly, although I was pulling it through my teeth quite slowly and gently. Tomorrow I will find a less flavoured oil.
At the end, I spat out the oil, and swilled my mouth out with salt water, which I also spat out. I then brushed my teeth. They do look whiter to me. There was something about the activity which woke me up and made me feel more alert... but maybe that was just the knowledge that I needed to observe the effects.
Day Two
I have sunflower oil, but it isn't cold pressed or organic. It's very easy to use for the oil pulling, hardly any flavour, not thick, but my mouth didn't tingle as it did yesterday with the olive oil. I managed 20 minutes, rinsed and brushed my teeth.
My tongue is less coated, my gums look pinker and my teeth whiter - though that could be expected I suppose, from the unaccustomed workout they are getting first thing. This is making me think about what I put into my mouth during the day... and making me more alert too.
Day Three
Decided to go back to olive oil. Although it tastes much more strongly than the bog standard sunflower, it also seemed to be more... hmmm hard to describe... seemed to have more active ingredient I suppose. Managed only 16 minutes before I started to gag and had to spit it out.
Gums and teeth continue to improve. It certainly wakes you up in the morning! Concentrating on a mouthful of oil is an unusual method for waking I I grant you....
My tongue is definitely a lot less coated, and my skin seems smoother. I do think that simply the attention that you pay to yourself in the course of doing this may be effective... also that the pinkness of the gums may be responsible for the apparent increased whiteness of the teeth.
About 50% of the adult population suffers from keratosis pilaris to some extent. Also know as chickenskin, it looks like permanent goosebumps, sometimes red, sometimes not. There is a whole collection of relation conditions, which all have their own impressive latin name.
Some people will hardly think of this as a condition, and others are severely depressed by it. Of course, the severity and the impact that it makes upon your life are affected by how important your appearance is, where your tolerance for imperfections lies, etc. I have it, as do two of my children, one of whom has it pretty badly.
Anyoldhoo, having found the support forum and message board for KP, I discovered a discussion about oil pulling, which is apparently as well-known technique in various parts of the world. Put simply, it consists of using pure oil, like sunflower, sesame (untoasted) or coconut, and first thing in the morning, taking about a tablespoon, swilling it around the mouth for 20 minutes and then spitting it out.
People on the forum have reported mixed results from the method. Some claim to have seen a reduction in their KP, others report side effects such as a reduction in neck pain, or whitening of the teeth.
Few people seem able to explain how it can help. One postulates that it may remove toxins from the system somehow, because some toxins are fat soluble while others are water soluble... others that it kills bacteria. However, I am always in favour of things that don't harm but may help health, and so I decided to give it a try for myself, and record the results here.
I have often wondered what benefit the Roman got from covering themselves in oil and having a slave scrape it off again. Maybe this is an internal version of that....
Day 1
I do not have sunflower, untoasted sesame oil or coconut oil, and I wondered why people didn't use olive oil. Having tried it this morning I think I know the answer. Extra Virgin cold pressed olive oil has a strong, bitter, flavour, which may be tasty in salad dressings, but is quite hard to deal with when the undiluted oil is swishing around the mouth.
It was quite thick, too, even after I had swished it around for 20 minutes. It seemed to be doing something, because my tongue and gums were tingling quite strongly, although I was pulling it through my teeth quite slowly and gently. Tomorrow I will find a less flavoured oil.
At the end, I spat out the oil, and swilled my mouth out with salt water, which I also spat out. I then brushed my teeth. They do look whiter to me. There was something about the activity which woke me up and made me feel more alert... but maybe that was just the knowledge that I needed to observe the effects.
Day Two
I have sunflower oil, but it isn't cold pressed or organic. It's very easy to use for the oil pulling, hardly any flavour, not thick, but my mouth didn't tingle as it did yesterday with the olive oil. I managed 20 minutes, rinsed and brushed my teeth.
My tongue is less coated, my gums look pinker and my teeth whiter - though that could be expected I suppose, from the unaccustomed workout they are getting first thing. This is making me think about what I put into my mouth during the day... and making me more alert too.
Day Three
Decided to go back to olive oil. Although it tastes much more strongly than the bog standard sunflower, it also seemed to be more... hmmm hard to describe... seemed to have more active ingredient I suppose. Managed only 16 minutes before I started to gag and had to spit it out.
Gums and teeth continue to improve. It certainly wakes you up in the morning! Concentrating on a mouthful of oil is an unusual method for waking I I grant you....
My tongue is definitely a lot less coated, and my skin seems smoother. I do think that simply the attention that you pay to yourself in the course of doing this may be effective... also that the pinkness of the gums may be responsible for the apparent increased whiteness of the teeth.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
New soup track
Soup posted a new track to his Myspace profile. I like it a lot, although it is a bit inconvenient to have to go to MySpace everytime I want to hear it....
Friday, March 7, 2008
Money programme on email
Today's Money Programme (on BBC2 at 19.00 for UK viewers), is on the subject "Email is ruining my life". The BBC website carries an outline of the programme which includes these top tips from Loughborough University's Dr Tom Jackson.
He has spent the last nine years researching and developing better e-mail practice and has five tips he believes can help you take control of your inbox:
* Invest in a spam filter. You shouldn't open a spam e-mail, because as soon as you open the e-mail up, it notifies the organisation that has sent that, saying this is a valid e-mail address. They know how long you've looked at it, when you looked at it and did you go back to it.
* Target your e-mail. One of most annoying things about e-mail is the sheer number of messages we receive that aren't addressed primarily to us. Does everyone in the cc box really need to be copied in on your words of wisdom? Basically, a cc is there for information purposes only, and you should only use it for that purpose.
* Write more carefully. The reason to write carefully is crystal clear. It just vastly increases the chance that whatever it is you want to get done will get done. If you don't write carefully, there's room for misunderstanding.
* Reduce interruptions. I think it does start to stress people out. Simply by changing the way they have their e-mail application set up, they can start to reduce some of that stress.
* Get training. E-mail seems like common sense. Anyone can write an e-mail. But the issues we're having are that many people are struggling with e-mail communication - and training can really help with that.
He has spent the last nine years researching and developing better e-mail practice and has five tips he believes can help you take control of your inbox:
* Invest in a spam filter. You shouldn't open a spam e-mail, because as soon as you open the e-mail up, it notifies the organisation that has sent that, saying this is a valid e-mail address. They know how long you've looked at it, when you looked at it and did you go back to it.
* Target your e-mail. One of most annoying things about e-mail is the sheer number of messages we receive that aren't addressed primarily to us. Does everyone in the cc box really need to be copied in on your words of wisdom? Basically, a cc is there for information purposes only, and you should only use it for that purpose.
* Write more carefully. The reason to write carefully is crystal clear. It just vastly increases the chance that whatever it is you want to get done will get done. If you don't write carefully, there's room for misunderstanding.
* Reduce interruptions. I think it does start to stress people out. Simply by changing the way they have their e-mail application set up, they can start to reduce some of that stress.
* Get training. E-mail seems like common sense. Anyone can write an e-mail. But the issues we're having are that many people are struggling with e-mail communication - and training can really help with that.
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