Welcome to P2. If you’re logged in, you’ll see a quick post box on the front page. The one hang up is that everything from the front page gets posted in the “asides” category. If you’re writing something longer, login and use the regular post editor, and assign categories. Ditto for anything with video or audio.
I think the new comments setup is awesome. They’re all listed in-page, so replies and such are much easier. Let me know what you think!
I’m thinking of switching Addison Road over to a new wordpress theme, P2. It has some features that I think will increase the rate of posting, and quick interaction of comments. Check this out, and then tell me what you think in the comments.
Thumbs up.
as nike says, “just do it!”
We don’t deserve it, Mike. We’re not good enough. (But I’m sure you know that)
look at that, wordpress was only beat out by facebook and twitter with this idea.
of course, Addison Road should go this way… it was a great idea when every other social network went this direction, why not the blogosphere?
Anthony wins, for the “Most Wholesome Gravatar On Addison Road”.
(My last Gravatar was a photo of me high on ecstasy, so I know all about wholesome)
I don’t know Anthony, but have thought (before tonight) that this is the cutest, happiest Gravatar ever.
I actually understood the P2 video and it looks super cool.
I’m gonna say this now because I may never get to say it again. How ’bout those Texas Rangers??
Go see Star Trek.
And marvel at the greatness that is J.J. Abrams…
i like it
I know, I know. It looks awful. It will look awful for a little while. I’ll add the pretty later.
We just upgraded to version 2.5 of WordPress, which means everything broke. If you want to see why, check out the new admin section of the blog, if you’re an author. It’s simply fabulous, kiddos. GORGEOUS! And, since I spend most of my time on the backend (heh heh), I decided to do the upgrade right away.
Enjoy, or, mock and deride. Either way.
It looks better on my iPhone, that’s for sure.
so, I’m actually kind of liking the simpler, text-oriented layout of this default theme. What do we think, fewer pretty pictures?
How do we log in?
there’s a link on the sidebar of the front page.
It looks great on my abacus.
Sharolyn, you are funny. I like you.
sure loads faster…
a big part of that is the upgrade to 2.5. They handl their object cache in a whole new way, and they are more efficient in how they interact with MySQL.
I like this format.
I would just like to say that my links are working on my other blog.
And, yes. I am a two-blogger now.
sweet! they probably have better technologies than me.
I can assure you that is not the case, because it is my blog. LOL.
New feature – subscribe to comments on a single post via email.
FINALLY!
LOL! :) Perhaps I’ll use this feature to stay updated on any new translations of the “no tithing” video.
I can’t think of a better use of technology.
Sharolyn, you’re gonna love me.
Try posting a link. No code, no wrapping it up in the little “a” tags, just paste a web address into the comments (without the http://). It will automatically shorten it and link it for you, just like magic. Who likes to rock the party?
maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=901+E+Alosta+Ave,+Azusa,+CA+91702&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=37.871902,77.695313&ie=UTF8&ll=34.129711,-117.889996&spn=0.00968,0.018969&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr
cool! What if you want the link to read a different word? Try the old way?
the old way.
What happened to asides?
they’ll come back … we’re using the default theme right now, which doesn’t have a lot of the goodies. When I have time, I’ll get us back to the good stuff.
You know. When Sophia turns 23.
OK, should be fixed now. Enjoy the awesomeness, my sweets.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for fixing the layout of the recent comments section. I read that more than any of the other drivel on this site.
As a sign of my gratitude, tell APU that I’ve authorized a $1 raise for you. Just send over the paperwork.
I live to serve corey. Yes, the comma was left out intentionally.
Also, because I’m getting old, the comment box now has Reader’s Digest Large Type sized font, so that I don’t have to squint to see it.
I almost always hit command-plus a couple times before typing comments and then just reshrunk the text back down after spewing forth my ignorance. Thanks for letting me get right to the spewing without any extra steps that might give me time to think before typing.
Michael, Michael, Michael…”fewer pretty pictures?” My vote on that is: NO!
Corey, you are funny.
I’m glad asides are back.
Asides = posting with a fear of commitment.
It’s the NICMO of bloggin!
For the confused, N(i)CMO = Non-committal make-out.
This is the first make-out reference I’ve ever heard for a computer. :)
mobile update: full disclosure
I think that this whole thing, this whole twitter, last.fm, myspace, xanga, podcast, youtube, meebo, friendster, del.icio.us, icq, instant messenger, wordpress, flickr, mobile blogging, stickam, facebook thing is all really just about one thing.
The search for social connection is the search for meaning.
Pick a person 15 to 25 years old. Anywhere in the country, any city, any school. It doesn’t matter if you know them or not. You can find their favorite movies, what books they’ve read, who they’re dating, where they live, what music they’re listening to, how they did in their classes this semester, what major they’re thinking of taking next, what they did over spring break (with pictures!) their room number, their cell-phone number, and most of the time, exactly where they are and what they’re doing right now. Right. Now. Does that sound creepy? It should sound creepy.
You don’t have to go looking; they’re already broadcasting it for you. They’ve put it all down in easily scannable, pre-formatted columns. You can get it delivered to your morning email. It’s a flood of full disclosure, a blow by blow account of every single thing that happens, every single day.
They update facebook every 15 minutes with accounts of what they’re doing. They text their twitter account with book titles and bowel movements. They stare into a tiny webcam, and openly divulge the intimate details of friends and lovers. Then they upload it to a server, where the link gets passed around faster than a business card and a fake lunch invitation at NAMM.
The flood of self-disclosure is epic.
This is what I think. We took away the meta-narratives, the structures that gave significance to the mundane actions of life. We told them that there was no reliable test for truth, and they believed us. We told them that good and bad had no meaning apart from what we decided they should mean, and they believed us. We told them that the dust between their fingers was the end of the world, the full substance of reality, and even though they knew it had to be a lie, they believed it. We stripped away everything that gave purpose, structure, dignity, and value to life, and left them nothing but doubt. They are grasping for meaning in a world where we have left them none.
And they, and we, all of us, found ourselves on Descartes stoop, listening to him lecture on the one true thing; if everything else is false, if the world and its tenants are the elaborate deceits of a cruel demon, then one true thing would still remain. Cogito ergo sum,
“I ponder. I exist.”
And we fling this one true thing out into the world, to listen for echoes. We strain to hear the shouts of others in this dark wood, to find comfort in the fact that, if we are lost, we are at least lost together. We spit out the running dialog of our ponderings, because they are the only evidence we have that something real exists.
And every time someone hears, and responds, that ephemeral tendril is drawn between us, between the thinker and the listener, and it gives meaning to both. The connection is meaning. We may not know what is true, or good, or real, we may doubt everything and anything, we may doubt even the words that we hear from the person we listen to, but the meaning isn’t in the words. It’s in the speaking and hearing. The connection is the meaning. The validation of existence is the meaning. Thin, fleeting, fragile, impossible to parse, yet it is still meaning.
Because it is so thin, and so fleeting, it takes quite a lot of it to matter.
William H. Auden was one of the great poets of the last century, maybe one of the greatest poets of the English language who ever wrote. In his poem “September 1, 1939“, written on the occasion of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Auden writes about the futility of modern life, in its relentless and ever-failing pursuit of meaning.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
In this same poem, Auden asperses love as a great deceit, saying that it is not enough for a person to be loved; what a person really wants it to be the only person loved. To be at the center of the connecting tendrils of meaning. To fling every act of disclosure out into the world, and to have it lauded and embraced, and not only that, but to be lauded and embraced while everyone else is ignored. If love is the escape from the meaningless existence, then it cannot be the kind of vacuous, self-embracing love borne out by massive self-disclosure.
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
But Auden holds out some hope. He hangs it on two words. The search for meaning ends in despair if the the goal is to be “loved alone”. If existence is to have meaning, it can’t be because of a flood of disclosure, or the apoplectic grasping of echoes to the exclusion of others. Instead,
You can’t possibly know how relieved I am that you had this in your back pocket the whole time. Ninety percent of me was sure something like this was coming, but the other 10-percent was thinking, “Those damn 19-year-olds have finally gotten to him. My God, I’m watching the decline of the human race in one person.”
I think what you’ve nailed is what has bothered me from the beginning about the myspace/youtube/facebook/ad infinitum phenomenon: It’s all about me and how much I want you to love me. It’s so desperate and full of longing and tragic. I just want to take these kids aside, stare into their eyes and say tenderly, “I know I’m going to sound like your mom when I say this, or maybe even your grandma, but…To make a friend, be a friend.”
[quote comment="94600"]You can’t possibly know how relieved I am that you had this in your back pocket the whole time. Ninety percent of me was sure something like this was coming, but the other 10-percent was thinking, “Those damn 19-year-olds have finally gotten to him. My God, I’m watching the decline of the human race in one person.”
[/quote]
Oh come on now, you have to admit, “mobile update” day was pretty damn funny all on it’s own, without needing to have any higher purpose.
>>>Because it is so thin, and so fleeting, it takes quite a lot of it to matter.
Word. Definitely hit the nail on the head. Most young people would rather just hang out with friends than do ANYTHING else. I love this post. And I’m with Aly–As I was reading through the bazillion other posts, I was thinking to myself “OH NO. He is NOT doing this…”
Good work, Mike. I aspire to someday think as deeply as thee.
This is great…. although I was sorta into it as comedic internet performance art.
So well said Mike. I wonder/worry about this phenom a lot. I recently said to my strikingly-well-adjusted 17-year-old niece, “Doesn’t all this myspace stuff seem like one giant, self-absorbed, nonstop scrapbook all about oneself?!” (Which was my loving auntie version of what I was really thinking…saying something like “Knock it off!” or “Grow a brain!” or ” For the love of God do something more worthwhile with your time than tell your friends on the east coast what you’re having for lunch!” isn’t usually a good conversation starter.) I was relieved when she said “Oh yeah, totally.” She has her myspace page, she texts her friends, she ichats much, but overall, she’s headed in the right direction and I’m certain she would not only be able to cope but truly thrive if all her electronic communication devices were no more. I think she’s the exception vs. the rule though.
Another aspect of the myspace/blog/instant messaging/etc.etc. etc. world that really chaps my nearing 40 hide is the huge increase in flirty talk (at best) and verbal porn (at worst) amongst the younger set. In one short generation, we’ve gone from “Matt said that John said that Todd thinks you’re cute” being whispered between classes at the lockers to kids spouting off what they’re thinking about what they’d like to do with/to anyone/everyone they “meet” online. I worry that today’s kids are even less equipped than previous generations in knowing how to truly relate to and care about others. I guess time will tell.
I’ve been cruising around the facebook groups that all o the incoming freshmen at APU for ’07 have created, and I’m amazed. They have already made friends that are going to be in some of the same classes, learned a ton about their roommates, discussed different professors, majors, minors, dorms – everything. When they walk onto campus in the fall, the sea of faces they are immersed in will not be unfamiliar. They will find themselves thinking “hey, I saw that person on facebook.” Creepy? Can be. But what a great tool to connect people. That’s all that people want – to feel connected. (Well, maybe some select sociopaths want other things to, but that’s beside the point.) And I love that our students can connect by throwing sheep at each other and complaining about their 7:15 am piano class. Way to go, young’uns.
I just hope that they will be able to throw sheep at each other in person once they get here in the fall. Because these connections will be meaningless otherwise.
The thing that still scares me a bit about this kind of interaction is that there’s always a 3rd-Person-ness to it. I would treat you a little differently if we were standing face to face than if you were a jpeg and a bio on a social networking page. That one degree of separation allows our nature some greasy liberties.
How interesting…I was just this morning reading Dallas Willard’s “The Great Conspiracy” (written 10 years ago, mind you), and he warns against the pummeling fists of incoming demands on our attention from so many different sources.
Michael, you are not just a professor and you are not just a musician. You are a philosopher at heart, aren’t you?
[quote comment="96057"]You are a philosopher at heart, aren’t you?[/quote]
It depends on the meaning of the word “are”. I mean, can anything truly BE, or is it just a perpetual becoming?
Let’s smoke some hash and talk about it for 20 years, then publish a thick and inscrutable tome that undergraduates will pretend to understand.
Ryan Boren is a very nice guy (I’m assuming) who works at Automattic, a company that makes some very nice tools to protect us from spam. Ryan has also been a part of the development community for WordPress, the software that runs this blog. Ryan is a new media guy, all about the blogging, the twittering, the Web 2.0′ing, the social networking and whatnot. Very social.
Ryan supports some of the cost of the blog by suggesting books to buy in his sidebar. I don’t know if these are books Ryan is currently reading, or books that Ryan has recently looked at on Amazon, or just books that Ryan thinks his readers might like. But I will say this – somebody has been a little too social.
Ryan, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but I don’t think Hydrogen Peroxide will cure Herpes.
Actually, Mike, you’re wrong. Hydrogen Peroxide will cure Herpes. But you can’t just douse your “Cash and Prizes” with the stuff. You’ve got to set it on fire, too. That’s where the lack of appeal comes from.
Ah. So it’s the same cure we used to use for witches.
And crabs, yes.
I thought the only cure for herpes was death.
sharolyn, 
Nick and 5 others are discussing. 
june and 5 others are discussing. 
Carrie, 
Stick 9:16 am on 22 May 2009 Permalink
Gonna take a little getting used to… not sure I like the Asides having the same “weight” in the running list of posts.
Stick 9:17 am on 22 May 2009 Permalink
But yeah, the comments thing is much cooler.
Bobby 10:24 am on 22 May 2009 Permalink
Long Long Long Long page. But other than that I like it. 10 posts is probably a decent limit and still keeps everything from the current week or so on the front page.
sharolyn 9:20 pm on 22 May 2009 Permalink
I have no idea where I can buy a casket.
michael lee 11:23 pm on 22 May 2009 Permalink
Yeah, the company that was reselling that advertising space decided it would be awesome to include a link to an adult site, so I shut it down.
sharolyn 12:42 pm on 23 May 2009 Permalink
I’ve always liked you, Michael Lee.
michael lee 4:01 pm on 23 May 2009 Permalink
Addison Road has a very strict pro-caskets, anti-boobies policy for our advertising.
Ironically, Addison Roadies also have a pretty strict anti-casket, pro-boobies stance in real life.
michael lee 11:46 pm on 24 May 2009 Permalink
OK, they removed the adult links, we’re all good, you can now safely peruse wholesale caskets at your leisure.