james_davis_nicoll | Information is power

Nalgene water bottle?

That's it! With luck, this means an end to popping the top off my ad hoc drink bottle and smelling something vaguely akin to brimstone.

And it lets me gather precise information on the amount of water I consume. Obsessive collection of information is the sign of something good, I am sure.

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One of the errors to which SF is prone is failing to see the terribly mundane purposes to which exotic technology can be put.

Example: last night I heard a cosmetics ad extolling their use of nanotechnology and not in any ultra-cool "my eyelashes now emit laser beams and my skin flakes can reconstruct me if I am killed in under 30 seconds" manner, either. Nope, they were just using it to make people look better.

Of course, that's partly because "nanotechnology" is now a nearly meaningless word that's almost completely disconnected from its sfnal implications of self-assembling quasi-intelligent nanometer-scale robots. (Insert grumbly rant here.)

Nonetheless, things the use of nanometer-sized particles of zinc oxide to produce hypoallergenic high-SPF zinc-oxide sunscreen that's transparent rather than glaringly white are very cool bits of new technology, indeed.

"What if you're killed in over thirty seconds...?"

"Hm. I'd better get the upgrade."

With luck, this means an end to popping the top off my ad hoc drink bottle and smelling something vaguely akin to brimstone.

Not necessarily; Nalgene holds odours given enough provocation. I've had to stop using mine 'cos, despite repeated boilings, any water left in it starts to smell rank after a day or so. Avoid leaving anything in it for too long if you wanna avoid the stink.

(weirdly, though, I don't think it ever had anything in it but water. Maybe it was the purifier tablets...)

These days I just rely on my drinking bladder (bitevalvy goodness) for bushwalking water, and soft drink bottles for anything I don't want to put in the bladder (ie: booze). Day to day non-bushwalking water goes in ad hoc bottles; just gotta make sure to replace 'em every couple of weeks.

This is not a criticism so much as a comment. Perhaps other readers of James' blog feel the same; perhaps not. James has a distinct texture to his posts, and often I find it as unpleasent as I do fascinating. A central feature is the intense lack of context given to any given post. It is as if he's decided to type out part of his stream-of-conciousness at any point in time, and if you can't keep up with it, that's not his problem. This can be seen in the sheer volume of incredibly obscure refrences, which I believe, for the most part, remain completely opaque to everyone except James himself. Others may laugh, but it is not hard to laugh at a reference one does not understand if it is delivered with sufficient irony.

This is why, I, for one, find James' blog to be a rare event. I simply can't take the random, solipsistic prose, even if it's used to sketch occasionally inpspiring point or question. Apart from purely aesthetic issues with this style, I'm afraid of what it may imply about the personality behind the words. As ostensibly "good" a person as James appears to be, he strikes me as someone rather cold, inhuman and with a spark-plug curiosity that fires occasionally but whos net effect is breathlessness rather than enlightenement. What does James *do* with all of the apparently random information that he solicits? Is the constant use of impossible-to-place references evidence of thoughtless solipsism, relentless egoism, or just perpetual distraction? What does James really WANT in life?

I hope this doesn't come across as critical of James so much as bewildered by him.

A central feature is the intense lack of context given to any given post. It is as if he's decided to type out part of his stream-of-conciousness at any point in time, and if you can't keep up with it, that's not his problem.

And this is different from the rest of Livejournal exactly how, again?

That sounds like a pretty clear description of what I thought it was for, and how I use it.

Exactly. And he puts his name on it.

And this is different from the rest of Livejournal exactly how, again?

Perhaps you're right, but I for one don't read much Live Journal. Perhaps that's for the best. :)

Actually, it does.

You don't strike me as someone who means James well. The form of your criticisms, e.g., "thoughtless solipsism, relentless egoism, or perpetual distraction" -- a beautiful demonstration of the fallacy of the excluded middle -- combined with your repeated assertions that "this is not a criticism", when really, what else are they? combined with your own anonymity, reveal a deep-rooted passive-aggressiveness and insecurity on your own part, and a mean and petty spirit which believes itself too genteel to be mean or petty (but is wrong).

There's also the assumption that intellectual pursuits cannot be an end in itself, from which I deduce our friend is an American.

I attributed our new friend from Couderport's, Pa. confusion to cultural differences: note that they call this a blog and not a journal, which could mean they are unfamiliar with the Single Neuron Syndrome [1] seen on LJ, and if they don't follow me on news, they're missing a large part of the conversation.

The cold and inhuman comment is, of course, similar to criticisms of Nortamericanos I used to hear from Brazilians of South Americans in the early 1970s and might be what you get when an excitable person raised to think passion should be the motivating force encounters someone raised in a more reserved, self-controlled and perhaps more rational society.

1: Everyone here is familiar with SNS? It's the number of neurons that fire before an urge is turned into an action.

You don't strike me as someone who means James well.

You strike me as someone intent on putting me on the defensive (needlessly, I might point out). But because you seem to be sincere in your outrage, I will respond. James as a person is good. As an author of this blog I am simply baffled by him. Perhaps the most salient sentence in my post was "what does James WANT". In the end, I'm not really sure who he is, as an author. Let me repeat: James has done me not a single ounce of harm, and in fact has done me some good by way of bringing up some interesting discussions. If, in my attempt to put my finger on a nagging issue that prevents me from reading his blog more often, I gave the impression that I actually hate the guy, well, I'd have to say that says less about me than about you and indeed the unfortunate paranoia that occasionally seeps into internet communities.

If it helps, think of it this way: James is an author (of a blog), and I am a literary critic (of the blog) who likes the work for it's content, but finds the author's murky motivation enough to prevent a whole-hearted "thumbs up" rating. I don't really expect him to change, but I do hold out the slim hope of hearing back from other readers, perhaps the author, some insightful comment that would address this nagging issue. Heck, perhaps I'm not the only one who feels held at bay from true enjoyment by the issues I've laid out.

I imagine that the reactions you're getting are less about, "You have attacked our beloved James!" than they are about, "What a remarkably odd thing to say in someone's blog."

I mean, even more than any other form of writing, 99% of all blogs are someone saying, "Here's whatever I happen to feel like talking about at the moment... if it amuses or interests anyone else to read it, fine; if not, go read something else." (The other 1% are people deliberately trying, with varying degrees of success, to be Notable Commentators on something.)

So performing "literary criticism" of a personal blog is an... unexpected thing to do. It's as though you walked up to James hanging out with some buddies, and announced that you were puzzled and disturbed by the way he was dressed.

In addition to that, while I can't speak for anyone else, your experience of James' blogging is not universal. Some of his "obscure references" I know, some I look up, some I just let go by because I can't be bothered... no skin off my nose. And it never occurred to me to question James' "murky motivation"... and now that I've spent at least a couple of seconds on the problem, I'm going to hazard a guess that James posts stuff in his blog for much the same reason I post stuff in mine: whim. ["What's the long version?" "It was a whim." Is that reference too obscure?]

I think you're being held back from true enjoyment of this journal by your assumptions of what it's for. In particular, you have the assumption that this journal is written for an audience in a manner that is roughly parallel to the intended audience for which most literary works, magazine columns, editorial prefaces, and other such things are written.

This is not an applicable assumption.

Consider, to begin with, the etymology of the word "blog": it comes from "web log" -- that is, a log which is posted to the web. Previous examples of logs that come to mind are things like captains' logs on board ship, log files that are created by software programs, and suchlike -- recordings of daily minutiae, without context other than that provided by the surrounding minutiae, directed to "whom it may concern". That traditional logs can be interesting to read is incidental to their purpose, not part of the intent; it would be absurd to critique the character of a ship captain from the perspective of an assumption that his log was intended for the interest of a general readership.

Personal blogs, while indeed written for the entertainment of an audience, partake heavily of this "log" nature. They are written as a log of random daily minutiae and contextless interesting tidbits, for an audience who has self-selected themselves as readers who wish to read such things. There is, in particular, no sound basis for an audience to feel or proclaim any entitlement to being entertained. Thus, any analysis which begins on a basis of questioning why a writer is choosing to shirk such a responsibility is thereby faulty.

If it helps, think of it this way: James is an author (of a blog), and I am a literary critic (of the blog) who likes the work for it's content, but finds the author's murky motivation enough to prevent a whole-hearted "thumbs up" rating.

*bogglement*

I was not aware that the sorts of random conversations one might choose to have in one's personal space were subject to literary criticism. You must be loads of fun at parties.

... incredibly obscure refrences, which I believe, for the most part, remain completely opaque to everyone except James himself.

I don't find him opaque at all. Your problem doesn't lie with him.

Tina? Is that you?

No, the poster seems to know the meanings of all the words used, so it's not version 1, and there's not enough insults for version 2. If anything, s/he is accusing James of being Tina.

I thought this text was one of those generic quasi-troll posts that gets put into newsgroups, filling in whatever specific noun is in the newsgroup name as the target for the ``analysis''.

No. I don't use LJ all that often, and wasn't aware I could sign my name to my post. The fact that you think I could be Tina both saddens me and makes me less likely to actually say who I am. While I'd ordinarily get behind anything that I've written, once something has been as badly misinterpreted as this has, it's only asking to engage in a long and ultimately fruitless battle that would be wiser to simply walk away from. It also makes me doubt the wisdom of attempting to articulate my rather complex criticism of your blog. Unfortunately you and some of your friends place every post into either the "for James" or "against James" bin, and I've unwittingly been placed in the latter.

And I'm put in a position where, even if I say "that was not my intention" someone will respond with "despite your repeated statements about your good intentions, you still have attacked James, murdered him in effigy, sullied his name, and shown what a despicable and psychologically unsound and unkind human being you really are."

I am not kidding when I say I find this situation heartbreaking.

You may want to try to avoid using phrases like "inhuman" when describing people in the future. For some reason, that appears to go over poorly.

No. I don't use LJ all that often, and wasn't aware I could sign my name to my post.

See, here we have another example of a huge cultural divide: why on Earth would you expect that you wouldn't be able/allowed to sign your name? What forums, online and off, don't allow people to take credit for their work?

1. A nit: 'inhuman' is a word, not a phrase. This is a fair description of something that is as frenetic, and yet detached, as your blog. To wit, even the manner in which you've taken offense is rather cold and detached!

2. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the LJ comment screen presented to non-LJ users. It consists of 3 elements: a "From" element consisting of 3 *radio-buttons*, a subject line, and a message body. There is nowhere to type an author name. The button labels are Anonymous, OpenID, and LiveJournal user. AFAIK I don't have an OpenID, I am certainly not an LJ user, which leaves only Anonymous.

There is no 'cultural divide' except the one invented in your febril imagination.

Why do you assume I took offense?

Regarding names, when I am in blogland (where I do not have an account) and the set-up does not assign me a name and I notice, I sign my replies thusly

[text text text]

James Nicoll

which I find to be universally useful.

Why do you assume I took offense?

Good question. Perhaps you really were just explaining the behavior of others without the implicit reference to your own feelings. Actually, I'd believe that of you more than most.

[text text text]

James Nicoll

Yes. But I've gotten in the habit of NOT doing that in any other e-context. It still strikes me that the LJ interface is so non-intuitive as to be broken.

I may have a snappier and potentially more useful (and interesting) way to phrase my dilemma: it's as if, in the quest to improve the signal to noise ratio of the internet, you've so single-mindedly pursued Signal that you've inadvertantly created Noise. Your ideas and thoughts are so numerous, and in many cases fascinating, but they all share the same quality, that you don't seem *invested* in them. So a stream of fascinating thought becomes an endless trail of intellectual detritus. It is as if you are watching your own mind for thoughts, and then posting these second-order observations as coldly and clinically as a diagnostic MD. (There's probably a good SFnal story that revolves around the inadvertant transmutation of Signal into Noise.)

You mentioned earlier something about "intellectual pursuits being an end unto themselves". Does this describe you? What part then does the community play in those pursuits? What part does morality play in those pursuits? You may believe, at some level, that intellectual pursuits are ends-unto-themselves. But is that really what you believe? Isn't there a larger social and moral context in which any such activity must fit within? Your interest in social and political commentary tell me that you understand this well. Or perhaps I have misunderstood and like one of Iain Banks' Ships playing in "Happy Fun Space" you are merely not forgetting "where your off switch is".

I have many goals but neither explaining them or the thought processes that led me to embrace them seem to be among them. I will note that you seem to use words like "cold" and "clinically" in a negative sense: that says a lot about you. It's not my job to organize or present myself in such a way as to keep you happy, whoever you are. I am afraid that this is something that you will have to come to grips with on your own.

Speaking of existing in a context, you might want to consider the implications of the way people reacted to your comments before engaging in future public analyses of other people.

I had hoped to find others, perhaps even yourself, who had noticed this aspect of your work, and would be happy to discuss it openly. Instead I have recieved personal attacks and dismissal. So be it. I will walk away saddened and disappointed by someone who I thought had enough egolessness and humor to allow for a frank and open discussion of something a reader found distasteful about their blog. I was thinking that maybe you and your community would be self-aware enough to not have a knee-jerk reaction.

I was wrong. Good-bye.

I am desolated that discovering that my various writings do not have as their purpose satisfying some anonymous person's criteria and that the people here are not monkeys to dance for your entertainment has driven you away. May you enjoy more success in future critical endeavours.

You know, it's as if you are under the delusion that prefacing insulting verbiage with "it's as if" prevents it from being insulting.

Or, alternately, it's as if you don't think that "you've created Noise", "you don't seem invested in what you write", "you've produced an endless trail of intellectual detritus", "your write as coldly and clinically as a diagnostic MD", and the like are insults. Which is, indeed, a deeply strage and alien treatment of the language.

It is as if you are watching your own mind for thoughts, and then posting these second-order observations as coldly and clinically as a diagnostic MD.

http://www.bartleby.com/66/64/16064.html

I prefer: http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

There is no 'cultural divide' except the one invented in your febril imagination.

All right. So you've called James' blog unpleasant, and referred to the man himself, directly and by speculation, as solipsistic (twice), cold, inhuman, unenlightened, thoughtless and egoistic, then questioned the character of anyone who has pointed out that by most reckonings those are fightin' words. I cannot concieve of how someone with such a mastery of that classic internet argument tactic, the personal attack couched in conciliatory language and followed by further attack on anyone who calls out the original attack, manages to be so ignorant of the ways of such a feature of the online landscape as prominent as LiveJournal, but okay, fine, I'll buy it for the sake of argument. This sentence I have quoted here, however, the one in which you imply James is a liar by suggesting that he is delusional, is explicitly an insult. Do we get to find your conduct distasteful now, or are you going to try to squirm out of accountability for this one too?

the ways of such a feature of the online landscape as prominent as LiveJournal

Or something to that general effect, but a little less word-salady.

Good Lord, you'd positively despise my LJ.

People have online personae, which may or may not coincide with their private selves, and they choose to reveal what they choose to reveal. It's tempting to diagnose personality traits based on what you read in blogs or journals, but it's dangerous, and I must say that when your diagnosis is that the poster is a cold and unfeeling person, airing that without provocation in comments to the person's LJ is kind of a strange thing to do. If you come across a blog or journal with a peculiar authorial voice, I think it's best to first assume that this is Art, or something like it.

Online, I tend to come across as a cooler and more composed character than I really am, and this is largely deliberate. When my wife first met me, she said my in-person voice was unusually similar to my online voice, but I think she's come to realize that there's some concealment going on here. In particular, I usually don't vent my irrational ravings publicly when I get mad or depressed, though many LJers and bloggers do, and I imagine that can make me come across as this robotic figure.

When my wife first met me, she said my in-person voice was unusually similar to my online voice, but I think she's come to realize that there's some concealment going on here.

I got ID'd today by a complete stranger, after they overheard me ask a short question (very short, as in "is that resource available for free, or is it another pay-per-view jobbie?") in a lecture; they'd previously read my postings to an academic discussion board, and apparently my sentence construction is distinctive enough for them to pick me from a handful of words, spoken or written.

'Twas rather weird, especially as the next thing they did was ask me if I could get them any memory-enhancing drugs (because they'd seen me take my thrice-daily medicine in class, and assumed it was some sort of magic academic-ability pill...).

With all of James's legendary encounters with sharp objects I found the post name 'Deconstructing James' to be frightening if not redundant.

;-)

-m

I hope this doesn't come across as critical of James so much as bewildered by him.

Oh, dear. Please accept my apologies. I wasn't aware that the mind-control ray I was beaming at your coordinates was causing so much discomfort. Allow me to switch it off and remove from you the compulsion to read a blog you find so painful and disorienting.

Better?

-- Steve is of the opinion that, if a literary work seems too obscure, one can either work out the references for oneself or one can leave the work.

-- Steve is of the opinion that, if a literary work seems too obscure, one can either work out the references for oneself or one can leave the work.

James is of the opinion that the second is obvious and it took him 20 years to discover this fact.

I always understand James' posts. Maybe you're not as smart as I am.

Most glasses hold 8 ounces.

So that's two Standard Quaffs, then I have to go refill them. My nalgene bottle is good for eight sips.

Dude. Anonymous got all that from a post about WATER BOTTLES?! I'd hate to see what happens when you post about your cats.

I enjoy reading your interesting asides posts. They are footnotes to my day, and I dearly love footnotes.

It's dreadfully AOL, I know, but I wanted to second this. In fact, James, there are some people around there who prefer those asides to long and serious analysis of the percentage of water on Titan...

Ewa Pawelec, Poland

There must be some way to combine them...

"I don't know how many people have ever had to suit an outdoor cat up in their little heated jackets, booties and air-bottles so they can relieve themselves outside. In fact, I would guess that this is close to zero because most people will be able to envision what the consequence of "liquid urine + 100 K" means, particularly in combination with a not especially patient cat who does not appreciate being frozen to the ground by a concrete-hard slab of solid pee-ice.

At that, it's better than the time we found out why hot urine and methane ice make a bad combination. The resulting steam explosion sent shards of solidified piss over a surprisingly large radius and very curiously, the people who design titan-suits don't seem to have taken into account the possibility that their product will have to stand up to a gail of lethally pointed fragments of urine."

Bravo!

*ponders*

How much context does J. Random Reader need to understand 'I found a nifty new water bottle', anyway?

Apparently J. Random Reader subscribes to the school of critiquing that believes that, in order to properly understand the symbology and meaning in a work, one must interpret the text within in the context of everything that's ever been known about who the author is and what they think and what influenced them. Otherwise, it's completely impossible to have a reasonable idea whether or not the niftiness of the water bottle symbolizes a belated reaction to chronic dehydration in his early teen years, or is merely a Freudian symbol of wishing to deny the loss of the mother-baby relationship.

LOL - you make me realize something important that got lost in my own defensive reactions. Sometimes whim is just a whim. And in *my* interminable search for meaning in everything, I'm aghast to realize how meaningless such a search is. In the end I'm glad that James finds happiness sharing whatever it is he wishes to share, and if it doesn't resonate with me, well, it's no skin off my back nor does it reflect poorly on James. It just IS.

This insight is worth a lot to me. Thank you for inspiring it.

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