Tangled Mind

In the next few days I will be deleting my LiveJournal account.

I will no longer be crossposting reviews to LiveJournal: they will only be posted on Dreamwidth.

This is why: http://www.metafilter.com/164293/LiveJournal-represents-social-media-without-borders

Everything is already here on Dreamwidth (and frankly I am barely using either site any more): still, it feels like the end of an era.

1. Am back from holiday! It was lovely, and instructional¹.

2. Thoroughly unimpressed with recent LJ changes -- more specifically, LJ's attitude towards those who've objected to the changes or the way that they were announced².

3. Hence, entire journal now mirrored on Dreamwidth (tamaranth), and I shall be posting from there with automatic crosspost to LJ. Still working on subscriptions / accesses, but I'd like to be prepared for the sudden or gradual demise of LJ.

4. Much to do before, er, 2012. But have already done some of it: a run, some laundry, some cat-cuddling, Doctor Who viewing³.

5. Aaargh, have not created an account for the cat!

6. Probably not as high-priority as writing up recent reading (Reamde⁴, Sasharia: Once A Princess, The Hypnotist) or catching up on email or acquiring fresh catnip for my feline overlord.

---

1. Have learnt not to book non-self-catering in the off season; not to reverse down twisty mountain roads without a spotter / rock-clearer; not to expect hot and cold running felines outside tourist resorts.

2. In Russian, on a developer's personal LJ, with blithe (and impolite) disregard for user protests.

3. Not quite as sentimental as expected, though could've done without the last ten minutes. Also, lost count of esteemed authors turning in their graves: Clarke, Adams, Lewis, Tolkien, Bradbury ....

4. On a micro level, immensely enjoyable and a compelling read; on a macro level, when will author learn how to do endings, or for that matter female characters?

... so my delightful photo of Ish (with addendum that, unless la_marquise_de_'s house has become the locus for an especially forlorn phantom, Horus can be heard but not seen if I'm outside) has been kept from an avid audience.

Cats: fine. LJ/Flickr: not fine.

[sorry, I do seem to be posting a lot today: I'm transcribing a long interview and posting/LJ is a pleasant break! As is wiping out humanity: background task.]

Following earlier posts today (first one, second one) concerning inclusion of material from LJ posts in a book ...

... I've identified what feels wrong to me about this, and it's that the act of posting to a blog -- especially to LJ -- is intended to provoke dialogue, whether positive or negative. If I'm writing just for me, it's private (or more usually scrawled longhand somewhere). Anyone posting anything to LJ has the expectation, of response. And if that post is republished elsewhere in a medium where there is no easy and immediate way to respond, then an important part of the reason for posting has been removed.

(When I'd had LJ for a few months, I wrote a post and then OK'd it, unedited, for inclusion in a printed fanzine. The response to the fanzine publication made me aware of how differently I'd write if I were writing for print: less in-jokes, less provocation, probably rather less light-hearted. Part of the reason for the difference was that if somebody didn't like, or didn't get, what I was saying in print, it was a lot harder for them to ask, criticise, complain, poke fun at me than it would be on LJ.)