I’m on the iPad now. This is simply a test of a new method; I hope that this will look more like the “regular” ones.
When you visit this here journal, if you really want the full experience, don't just check for new entries. Scroll back a little, to see whether other recent entries have new or changed comments.
Case in point: look two entries ago, at " Holiday Newsletter, part 3". This has collected three comments since it was posted on May 28.
And if you read those, you see my social network in action.
The first two are "anonymous," in the sense that Dreamwidth itself doesn't know who posted them. Neither would a random reader (one who doesn't already know me).
The first comment, though, was not anonymous to me, because the commenter included her first name at the bottom of the text. The second commenter didn't do that, so I didn't know who had left it; I guessed, but my guess turned out to be wrong.
Which brings us to the third comment, which isn't anonymous in any sense: I posted it, as a reply to the second. Its main point: to ask Commenter 2 to identify oneself.
And today, having learned who that was, I further edited the third comment, thus "outing" her.
Exciting stuff, huh? A reality show, you might say: learn more about not just me, but my friends and relatives too.
Back on March 18, I promised you [yet] another installment of my so-called "holiday newsletter." I said that it would continue to talk about my interactions with people, moving the focus to social media (and Dreamwidth, in particular). So here goes.
As it turns out, March 18 is not the date of my most recent journal entry before today's. On May 13, I posted "Everybody wants a piece of me, I guess". That's a silly title for a posting whose actual purpose was to let readers know that I had had hernia surgery two days earlier.
And that May 13 posting is a perfect example of what this journal entry is supposed to be about: how (e.g.) Dreamwidth could be an effective tool in strengthening the bonds between (e.g.) me and the people I care about.
You see, even for an extreme introvert like me, there are rather a lot of such people. People who might like to know when I have something like a hernia operation. Enough of them so that, in my weakened state two days after the surgery, it was not feasible to email, or call, all of them.
By posting it on Dreamwidth, I made it theoretically possible that they all would learn about it. But of course that didn't actually happen; to the best of my knowledge, nobody actually found out about the surgery through that medium alone. Why not? Because very few people check my journal often enough for it to serve that purpose.
To the limited extent that that is anyone's "fault," it's mine. The root problem is that I don't post often enough.
On the other hand, I might post more often if I knew that more people were checking.
So here's my plan: after posting this entry, I will begin a two-pronged effort. An effort to post more often, and, concurrently, a "marketing" effort. I will contact a collection of people who might be willing to experiment with checking my Dreamwidth more often … and who then might continue to do so, if I keep up my end of the bargain, and post more often—particularly, with "news items" that my friends and relatives might want to know.
My diabolical plan is more complicated than that. But this journal entry is—as almost always—already quite long enough. I will finish by inviting you, if you feel like it, to play a guessing game. Namely, about the series of journal entries of which this one is the third: can you figure out what their content has to do with the phrase with which I titled them, namely, "Holiday Newsletter"?
Okay, here's the long-promised continuation of my so-called "holiday newsletter." First, a follow-up note to the first section, "computer programming," of the previous post: I finished several improvements to the Clojure code which calculates my income taxes, and got my federal and North Carolina returns filed.
What I promised for the continuation was some information about social interaction.
Background: I lead a pretty solitary life. Not a surprise: computer programming and writing are both mostly solitary activities, and I spend so much time on them, by choice, that there's relatively little left for real-time interaction with other humans.
Too little, in fact. And I am making that judgment, not on the basis of any general belief about how people "ought" to live, but on observation of myself. Sometimes I "go with the flow" for an extended period while programming and/or writing, and end up in a tense state, all tied up in knots.
It took me a long time to realize that I was (often) getting tense because I had been solitary for too long. But eventually I noticed something: not infrequently, if something led me to take "time out" from my "work," and spend an hour or two chatting informally with someone, I felt better—specifically, less tense—afterwards. In fact, it finally sunk in, that would often enable me to go back to "work" more cheerfully … and do better at it.
Once I became conscious of this, I did something about it. Actually, I became more consistent in something I was already doing … without consciously realizing why. Since I saw that I didn't spontaneously devote enough time to social interaction, I started planning it.
This has evolved to the point where, currently, there are three people with whom I have scheduled weekly conversations. The nature of the conversations is not so very different from ones that might occur without prearrangement. But when two people agree in advance to talk at a particular time, then it happens more often. For me, and these three friends, at least.
I am very grateful to these people. With their help, I like to say, I have managed to turn myself from a "ridiculously extreme introvert" into a [merely] "extreme introvert."
There's room for improvement. Not necessarily more of the same modality, though I don't rule that out. I've been thinking about my use of Internet "social media" (such as Dreamwidth itself).
There are some limitations, pretty much built in, as to how personally meaningful—how deep, if you will—such interactions tend to be. But perhaps, if folks figure out how, those limitations can be largely overcome. I hope to say more about this, soon, in another journal entry.
Happy holidays, y'all!
What? You think it's a little late for that? Give me a break: it's a holiday tomorrow, here in the USA.
Anyway, this will be [part of] my version of a "holiday newsletter."
Since I'm posting it here in my Dreamwidth journal, rather than distributing it via email, it is potentially visible to the whole Internet. That constrains the scope some: I'll be very hesitant to post any personal information about anyone but myself.
I see this thing as having three sections, each representing a category of my activities: computer programming, writing, and social interaction.
Computer programming: I do a fair bit of it, though I'm thoroughly retired from doing it for money. I do it for fun, and hoping that it will be useful—to me, at least.
For a while now, I've been doing most of this in a programming language called Clojure. Best guess: most of the people reading this won't have heard of it; if you have, give me a shout!
I've written a program that calculates my income tax, and currently I am finishing the updating and testing for the 2022 tax year.
Writing: my scribbles on various topics may mostly be found at my personal home page at The Well. The newest items, at present, are linked from the Fiction and Poetry page.
That's two of the three sections that I promised you. The last one, "social interaction," will be left for another journal entry (or, who knows, maybe more than one!).
And while I'm actually on that trip, new journal entries are even less likely. I am likely to be saving up some thoughts, though, to be entered into the journal after I return.
And the date for that -- when I expect to be back in North Carolina -- is on or about Friday, August 23. So in fact, you might not see new entries between now and then.
For those who have my telephone numbers and might wish to contact me, note the above departure and return dates, since in that range of time -- unlike most of the time -- my cell phone number will be the one to use. I will have reasonable access to email while traveling, though replies might be even slower than usual.
Y'all behave yourselves, now.
Yesterday, I shared with you some reader comments that I found on Breitbart, on the subject of what would happen (according to the commenters) if President Trump is impeached. What did they think would happen? In a word, violence.
I also said I "might" follow up with some comments and/or questions of my own, about those Breitbart comments. And today, I shall, in a baby-step sort of way. All I have for you today is one question ... and I'm only going to ask it, not answer it.
The question is one which, I imagine, you might have voiced after reading yesterday's entry. Namely: "Why is he telling us this?"
What I said was true: those comments were, in fact, posted on Breitbart. But not everything that is true is worth saying. If I reported the comments to you, I must have had some point I wanted to make. What was it?
But like I said, I'm not going to answer that -- not today. Instead, I'm going to turn around and ask you the same question. Well, not exactly the same question: I'm not asking you to try to guess what was in my mind.
Or even more simply: rather than asking you whether you think there's a good reason to do it, let me just ask you whether you think it's a good idea to do it. And why or why not?
I'd really like to hear from you on this. Ideally, by posting a reply right here on Dreamwidth. You don't have to be a Dreamwidth member in order to do that. Just click on "Reply", below.
I'm thinking it might be a good idea to change the way I use Dreamwidth. Here are some of my goals:
In aid of all that, I am also experimenting with using a different "technology" for posting. Probably more like the way that most other folks do it: just type my post into the window here on the site, using the "Rich Text" tab.
(You see, I have a well-established tendency to convince myself that I need to do things the hard way. Or, I should say, a hard way; often, I invent my own.)
So we'll see how it goes.
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branchandrootdancing_serpent
