It is an ancient Blogger,
And he stoppeth one of three.
By thy long beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me ?
Conferences, conferences everywhere. Mathematics degree or no long-forgotten mathematics degree, I don’t know a power-law from a goddamn cheese sandwich, and I’ll tell you, all these conferences and symposia and self-congratulatory bloggeriffic circlejerkathons lately, unfailingly dotted with laptop-lugging constellations of the Usual fat-end-of-the-comet Suspects, these cadres of neo-imagineering big-brained rent-a-pundits traipsing around telling everyone how breathtakingly important and revolutionary it all is… well, sometimes it just seems a little forced to me, and more than a little reminiscent of the frenzied bandwagonesque me-too (and the gimme-gimmes) of the leadup to the collective technojizz and detumescence and smoking rubble of the fin-de-siecle bubble. Just trade ‘revenue streams and ROI calculation’ for ‘creative renaissance and DIY journalism,’ and everything old smells new again. But it doesn’t smell much like teen spirit to me.
Not to get off on a rant or anything.
Then again, maybe I’m just bored of living in Korea again, and feeling left out and a bit jealous, dejectedly imagining the wild, drunken and sexually challenging parties that erupt spontaneously when all those pent-up wordsmithing blogtypes get together. Conferences, conferences everywhere, and me becalmed. That could be. But just ’cause I consider some of those blogorrheic pundits to be Virtu-pals™ (‘your digital friend who’s fun to be with!’) doesn’t mean I can’t poke ’em with sticks once in a while.
At least that f–king war’s over, eh?
Ranting == Poetry
Sometimes a ranting monologue posted on the web takes on a certain disonance that it transcends ordinary prose and crosses the line into poetry. Here is an excellent example: Conferences, conferences everywhere. Mathematics degree or no long-forgotten …