Disinfotainment blogs
While browsing the past content of javaworld the other day, I had a rather troubling thought. There are no (re)sources anymore for that kind of material. If you want anything useful to learn about java, amazingly, Sun is your best bet. Sun is pretty much the only website that will steadily pump out technical java material that will help you learn pretty much any API you’re interested in.
Yes, I realise we have tss, javalobby, and a host of other such sites. Scratch beneath the surface though and you’ll find very little actual technical content. Everything is either product announcements, some random guy pontificating about something or the other, some spastic discussion about meta-java (OSS it, open it, close it, JCP this or that, .net sucks, .net rocks, java must become ruby, java must become python, I want to have IBM’s babies, MS is evil and is out to steal my babies, TDD saved my marriage, are ejbs anti-christian, etc etc), or some blog reference.
It’s somewhat depressing the impact that blogging has had on the java world. Allowing the masses to express themselves freely and loudly has done terrible things to the signal to noise ratio of java articles.
Previously, there was a stigma associated with sounding like an idiot. Blogging has done away with that. Look through the current entries on javablogs to see for yourself. There are next to no entries of a serious technical nature. People talk potty training pets/children/significant others, people talk about how cool some library/framework/approach is, or people express confusion at something or the other.
Of course, it’s a vicious circle. Your average potential blogger will see that others sound like idiots, and will (rightfully) think that he or she is at least as eloquent, so starts a blog. More noise, less signal.
It’s all hugely entertaining, of course, in a sad, comical, depressing way. Most people feel a sense of community at the rampant circlejerk, and the fapfap noises of others tugging at one’s penis can easily be mistaken for inner quality and amazing powers of insight. In the meantime, that rare handful with something genuinely important to contribute are lost in the noise.
In fact, the lack of an editorial process ensures that that handful is whittled down even further. In the real world, nothing is published before being edited by someone competent. That ensures that even though you might disagree with what you read, it is at least mildly coherent and somewhat rational (the lack thereof of course results in such hilarious writing as that found in the ‘Java Open Source Programming’ book).
Nor do I understand the obsession with endlessly reproducing droppings from the bottoms of ‘thought leaders’. These guys really are on the whole awfully mediocre with very little insight beyond their own prejudices and experience. Reading them is akin to watching a news program talking about the weather with a segment interviewing some average man on the street and asking him how he feels about the rain. Filler material, utterly irrelevant to everyone, yet produces just enough noise to drown out any actual thoughts.
So please, blog less, think more. It’s like talking, you come off as far more coherent and thoughtful if you invest those precious few seconds up front and determine whether the other person actually wants to know what you have to say.
March 20th, 2004 at 10:12 pm
kelly, meet pot. pot, meet kettle.
March 20th, 2004 at 10:12 pm
kettle, meet pot. pot meet kettle. *sigh*
March 20th, 2004 at 10:25 pm
…speaking of, the quality of your metaphors is getting a little stale. This resource might help.
http://www.worldwidewank.com/generator.html
March 20th, 2004 at 11:13 pm
What about developerworks? And even onjava.com?
March 21st, 2004 at 1:33 am
The pendulum swings, today it appears like your favorite TV channel switched from instructional documentaries to 24×7 full time geek soap operas. Enough to drive anyone mad.
Eventually (I’m still an optimist) enough people will get fed up with the “thought leaders” foaming off their mouths about Mavenizing this or that, how TDD saved their life, IoC everything you see, we do CMS with AOP, EJB is dead … all that useless crap that fills the blog space today. And, hopefully, we will see a more restricted Java blogspace emerge where meaningful technical material is enforced.
In the mean time the best thing to do is to switch off the channel where the main characters are mavenizing their TDD with the help of IOC while solving the world’s hunger problem with AOP. Oh, and EJB is dead, of course.
March 21st, 2004 at 1:39 am
This blog entry was a waste of fucking time. Write about something interesting you ass-monkey.
March 21st, 2004 at 3:30 am
First of all, I think people should STOP blogging about anything except Java, on JavaBlogs. I mean, your blogging software MUST have support for some sort of categorisation.
March 21st, 2004 at 4:49 am
Guns? Absence of religion? Lack of self esteem? Poor parenting? The entertainment industry? Who’s to blame for Marc Fleury’s illogical intimations? Numerous professionals (and not-so-professionals) have speculated and mulled, publicly and privately, over what has caused Fleury to destroy any resistance by channeling it into ineffective paths. Before I launch into my rant, permit me the prelude caveat that once people obtain the critical skills that enable them to think and reflect and speculate independently, they’ll realize that I would much rather beat Fleury at his own game than waste my precious time chastising Pecksniffian tribalism enthusiasts. Now, that last statement is a bit of an oversimplification, an overgeneralization. But it is nevertheless substantially true.
As far as I’m concerned, his principles cannot stand on their own merit. That’s why they’re dependent on elaborate artifices and explanatory stories to convince us that Fleury can publish blatantly pathetic rhetoric as “education” for children to learn in school and get away with it. There’s one thing you can undeniably say about him: He has a sense of humor. He was being a real comedian when he told us that he is beyond reproach. What I wrote just a moment ago is not the paranoid rambling of a mad wacko. It’s a fact. Now, I don’t want to overwork the story about how Fleury plans to condition the public to accept violence as normal and desirable, so let’s just say that I have a dream, a mission, a set path that I would like to travel down. Specifically, my goal is to tell you things that Fleury doesn’t want you to know. Of course, implying that skin color means more than skill and gender is more impressive than genius is no different from implying that everyone who doesn’t share his beliefs is a slaphappy infidel deserving of death and damnation. Both statements are ludicrous.
In all fairness, contrary to my personal preferences, I’m thinking about what’s best for all of us. My conclusion is that what’s best for all of us is for me to chastise Fleury for not doing any research before spouting off. Doesn’t he realize that there is no defense against ridicule? We should be able to look into our own souls for the answer. If we do, I suspect we’ll find that we should agree on definitions before saying anything further about his unconscionable obiter dicta. For starters, let’s say that “anarchism” is “that which makes Fleury yearn to maintain social control by eliminating rights and freedoms.” Will someone please explain to me what it is in our lives that can possibly make someone procure explosive devices, gasoline, and detonators for use in an upcoming campaign of terror? Because I certainly have no idea.
He is a pretty good liar most of the time. However, he tells so many lies, he’s bound to trip himself up someday. Some people are responsible and others are not. Fleury falls into the category of “not”.
When a political condition of greed, massive corruption, and diversity of objective is coupled to a social condition of drugs, violence, and discontent, therein exists the perfect environment for Fleury to gain a virtual stranglehold on many facets of our educational system. He has stated that might makes right. That’s just pure factionalism. Well, in Fleury’s case, it might be pure ignorance, seeing that Fleury’s opuscula symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion — extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us lose more than a little freedom.
I can repeat with undiminished conviction something I said eons ago: Fleury really struck a nerve with me when he said that he is the ultimate authority on what’s right and what’s wrong. That lie is a painful reminder that Fleury would have us believe that no one is smart enough to see through his transparent lies. Yeah, right. I acknowledge freely and make no apology for the fact that I once considered it reasonable for tasteless, insensitive spongers to encourage every sort of indiscipline and degeneracy in the name of freedom. But now I know that if you’ve read this far, then you probably either agree with me or are on the way to agreeing with me.
As long as the beer keeps flowing and the paychecks keep coming, Fleury’s lapdogs don’t really care that when confronted with the real facts, he usually defends himself with some weak explanation about how we can change the truth if we don’t like it the way it is. If you don’t believe me, see for yourself. Fleury’s grievances may not be traditional for all sadistic bigamists, but Fleury’s claim that advertising is the most veridical form of human communication is not only an attack on the concept of objectivity, but an assault on the human mind. Given the arrogant political rhetoric of our times, our conception of favoritism still remains a good deal less clear than we would wish. His apple-polishers probably don’t realize that, because it’s not mentioned in the funny papers or in the movies. Nevertheless, if you look soberly and carefully at the evidence all around you, you will doubtlessly find that Fleury should not usher in the beginning of an atrabilious new era of vandalism. Not now, not ever.
Even Fleury’s janissaries are afraid that Fleury will incite pogroms, purges, and other mayhem sometime soon. I have seen their fear manifested over and over again, and it is further evidence that I’ll tell you what we need to do about all the craziness Fleury is mongering. We need to place blame where it belongs — in the hands of Fleury and his myopic attendants. And for those disruptive ingrates who want to hide behind the argument that his acolytes are not callow pigheaded-types, but rather, jaundiced jerks, my question is simply this: What’s the difference? Jingoism and communism are not synonymous. In fact, they are so frequently in opposition and so universally irreconcilable that in order to solve the big problems with Fleury, we must first understand these problems, and to understand them, we must create and nurture a true spirit of community.
There’s no mystery about it, no more room for fairy tales, just the knowledge that if anything, I have no idea why he makes such a big fuss over absenteeism. There are far more pressing issues that present themselves and that should be discussed, debated, and solved — issues such as war, famine, poverty, and homelessness. There is also the lesser issue that if my memory serves me correctly, the grossly fallacious reasoning behind Fleury’s self-fulfilling prophecies can be confirmed by some simple fact-checking. Sadly, lack of space prevents me from elaborating further. Despite total incompetence, Fleury is often afflicted with an amazing conceit, which causes him to deny both our individual and collective responsibility to live in harmony with each other and the world. Continue to appease him, and Fleury will indeed boss others around. What he fails to mention in his imprecations is actually quite telling. For example, did you know that he wants to change this country’s moral infrastructure? Or that the confusion that he creates is desirable and convenient to our national enemies?
If I were a complete sap, I’d believe his line that human beings should be appraised by the number of things and the amount of money they possess instead of by their internal value and achievements. Unfortunately for him, I realize that Fleury should work with us, not step in at the eleventh hour and hog all the glory. He asserts that he has the authority to issue licenses for practicing fogyism. That assertion is not only untrue, but a conscious lie. This is not Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, where the state would be eager to force square pegs into round holes. Not yet, at least. But all of the bad things that are currently going on are a symptom of Fleury’s grungy publications. They are not a cause; they are an effect. Almost everyone will wholeheartedly agree that several of Fleury’s hatchet men, who asked to remain nameless, informed me of Fleury’s secret plans to control, manipulate, and harm other people, but if I didn’t sincerely believe that such conduct as Fleury’s induced the despotism of Cromwell and the two Bonapartes, then I wouldn’t be writing this letter. He is out to sell us fibs and fear, mixed with a generous dollop of colonialism. And when we play his game, we become accomplices. I close this letter along the same lines it opened on: Marc Fleury’s decisions are ill-advised.
March 21st, 2004 at 6:00 am
Blogging is like Usenet without flamewars. In Usenet you could slap some random lamer with a large trout every moment and you were almost sure that he read it.
Now the cost of opening a blog to read the insult, undesrtand where the insult is and taking offense is so high that most people don’t care about some other’s blogs.
Usually they get you off from their blogrolls, mumble some “hani is a jerk”, then they go on. This is a good and a bad thing at the same time, the good thing is that with a blog you are also allowed to experiment, or say stuff that is partly different from the others without being flamed at the first occasion, and this for most people is a great +.
Anyway Hani, this is not a problem of blog WRITERS. The real problem is inviting blog READERS to use their mind more, and not believe a single word only because the blog was published on tha intarweb. Following the common consensus of a group when you saw everyone bashing a poor idiot is even more dangerous, because there you are NOT reviewing the reasons of the majority to condemn the minority (and the reasons can be unreasonable as well, all it takes is a mindless sheep to make the herd rolling down the hill), and because you are substantially selling out the brain to the others.
What is worse? I prefer considering worse the “usenet” way, of course because I can always fine-tune my blogroll and my aggregator subscriptions, while on usenet I can only decide either to read the group or not to read it. Killfile is a not enough finely grained solution.
March 21st, 2004 at 6:43 am
Well, apparently Javworld is making a comeback, Hani. Enjoy.
March 21st, 2004 at 8:04 am
Actually your blog and this entry is not an exception either. It’s not about technology or a java API, it shows up on Javablogs and you tend to think you’re right. :)
I agree with Davide that blogs are much like usenet or mail lists, it’s just harder to achive real communication, as if in the rare cases when an opinion generates reactions, it shows up on a different blog. I didn’t really like blogs when I first met them exactly because of this. Now I think that they have some role – the information on them is obviously less well organized than a usenet group or a mailing list, even with using an aggregator like javablogs, but they are more diverse. And diversity can be good if that’s what you need.
A lot of teh entries are stupid of course (low SNR), but you should not expect it to be low. If you want high SNR, read specific journals and websites. Noisiness comes from the very nature of this system. Peaople should be intelligent enough to decide whether they read sloppy blogs or not.
Everybody has the right to tell their stupidity and nobody is forced to read it. As long as you have javaworld (which is about to be re-launched) and developerwroks, you shouldn’t care about the rest. OTOH blogs are a good way to find out about things that are out of your sight (like python was for me). Reading others’ opinions on new or unknown technologies can also be interesting exactly exactly because those are personal ones.
A good aggregator sight should have some kind of (collaborative) filtering mechanism that selects the interesting entries for you.
March 21st, 2004 at 8:05 am
I meant ‘aggregator site’ when I wrote ‘aggregator sight’.
March 21st, 2004 at 3:20 pm
Hani is a weak-kneed little ex-troll who was dissatisfied with his life under the bridge, eating small children and unaware passersby, and burping and farting loudly all day while grumbling about people disturbing him. He wanted to shed his smelly hairy exterior and stand around with the pink hairless ones as they all stroked their puny dicks in unison. In short he was jealous. So he shaved his back, waxed his sack and crack, got a trendy haircut, went to the beautician and hired a stylist and a bought a 3000 dollar suit (still, it’s off the rack).
The problem is the gallons of Tommy Hilfiger that’s sprayed around the Bileblog nowadays still can’t hide the faint whiff of shit. Its actually made the smell WORSE.
As an ogre, Hani was a success, if a fairly odious one, he was at least amusing. As a Human Being, however, he’s just another of the tumultuous unwashed multitude with plenty to say but nothing to contribute.
March 21st, 2004 at 4:04 pm
dude… shut up
March 21st, 2004 at 4:12 pm
I nominate manageability.org for having contributed the most to the noise-to-signal ratio.
March 21st, 2004 at 9:50 pm
Well, what can you do when you’re bored? You can smoke a cigarette, wank-off or write a blog entry. The first two have biological limits, which blogging has not. So blogging it is.
March 22nd, 2004 at 2:46 am
Agree Hani. And what’s worst is that if you still hope to get some good tech piece you have to browse a bunch of sites/blogs every day and you might get lucky and find some interesting.
The fact Gavin has a point (develworks and onjava are fine) is making it worst. Only 2 sites posting acceptable tech content periodically ?
March 22nd, 2004 at 2:55 am
Judging from the number of referrers who arrived at /lowem.log via searches for “paris hilton sex tapes” or some variation thereof, who is to say that people are reading Javablogs for the “right” reasons anyway.
Hoping for good Java content in Javablogs? Come on Hani, these are “not the droids” they’re looking for, what they’re really looking for are the famed “paris hilton sex tapes” … :)
To the poor folks who ended up on /lowem.log reading about Peak Oil and other gloomy issues, here’s the droid you’re looking for :
ed2k://|file|PARIS.HILTON.SEX.TAPE.1998.XVID.PROPER-RSK.rar|238733760|863FB745472D145132C9E827A9AAB294|/
March 22nd, 2004 at 5:38 am
>What about developerworks? And even onjava.com?
>Posted by Gavin at 20.03.2004 23:13:40
>Website: http://hibernate.org
What about zem, you ginger haired wankeure?
March 22nd, 2004 at 5:39 am
>>via searches for “paris hilton sex tapes”
I’ve been staying at Paris Hilton for years and have seen no “sex tapes” .
However the room service is excellent …
March 22nd, 2004 at 6:37 am
> I’ve been staying at Paris Hilton for
> years and have seen no “sex tapes” .
Next time tune in on the adult channel.
March 22nd, 2004 at 1:18 pm
Chiara,
Please unplug your computer from the internet.
Thanks.
March 22nd, 2004 at 2:34 pm
Don’t the best stuff automatically bubble up to the top (in most cases)? This blog is definitely one of the top blogs.
March 22nd, 2004 at 2:41 pm
Chiara, I’m glad you’re feeling better.
While I trust your doctor’s judgement that blog writing would stop the homicidal rampages and allow your children enough suck time on the teat, I must say that I’m finding the same disturbing thoughts cropping up. Still, I can’t wait for you to come home baby. When you are all better….daddy will have a nice surprise for you and this time it won’t be a dartboard with MF’s name on it and it won’t be a rack of machetties either…you’re mom, RIP, would agree. It’s the fantasy you once told me about….and it will be our little surprise.
xoxoxox
Fred
March 22nd, 2004 at 2:57 pm
Chiara spews forth
a comment of enormous
proportions. How the hell can I finish this Haiku with only five measly syllables and possibly get my point across to you witless bile fanboys?
A Spiffster Haiku(TM)
March 22nd, 2004 at 4:12 pm
you’re right, this BS was fun for about one day, but in fact you have nothing to say.
so long suckers!
March 23rd, 2004 at 8:03 pm
Don’t let the door hit you on your way out…
March 24th, 2004 at 8:40 am
You all are wankers
Blogging is just like wanking
in a public place
There’s my Haiku and I think I got my point across.
March 24th, 2004 at 11:27 am
The project where I work everyday is being mavenized now. Thanks to those blogwords?.
March 25th, 2004 at 3:57 am
Fred… you bastard daughter-fucking daddy
March 25th, 2004 at 8:20 am
>> You all are wankers
>> Blogging is just like wanking
>> in a public place
It didn’t do George Michael’s career any harm.
March 25th, 2004 at 11:02 pm
“Each man kills the thing he loves
The fisherman caught in his own net
It’s frightening that you deserve
The audience that you get”
TISM – “Play Mistral For Me”
http://www.geocities.com/victimsoftism/lyrics-mac/mistral.htm
March 26th, 2004 at 1:41 pm
Hani,
When searching, add “-blog” to search criteria and your search results will be warm and cousy.
April 22nd, 2004 at 7:56 am
I fully agree. Looking at the planetapache.org blog is actually disappointing. Supposedly we have some kind of competent guys out there, but what can we find in the blog ? Circular references.
- Every blogger blogging about what another blogger blog (very important)
- bloggers expressing childish opinions about other projects.
- bloggers desperatly attempting to sound wise, educated and non geek by trying to make an analogy about some kind of pseudo-hobby. The most laughable one is the martial arts type.
- and more…
Fortunately a couple of guys stand out. That’s the one who blog the less… Is it another proof that quantity != quality ?