What's the number of comments a given entry provokes meant to prove?

I find it interesting how little actual debate this blog creates, compared to other blogs with similar thematic orientation. Is that a function of the unlimited thread depth livejournal allows? A function of the audience? (Is Livejournal more about community than about discussion?) Or of the fact that whatever ideas there are is spread a little too thin to actually trigger debate (for which there would be only one day anyway)?

But anyway, happy new year, Momster!

der.

I do accept that a failure to comment may not entirely represent a failure to be interested. Lots of people read Jean Snow's blog, for instance, but very few leave comments. Since Jean has recently upped his advertising content, I suspect he judges success not by comment numbers but by revenue, clicked links, and inbound links. (I have no idea how much Click Opera would earn me if I took the same path: my inbound links are slightly ahead of Jean's.)

I'm not sure what "other blogs with a similar thematic orientation" are, and what you mean by "actual debate". But yes, I do tend to bury posts every 24 hours with the next one, and LJ's comments structure inhibits debate a bit -- after 50, everything collapses and is a pain to read. I think I'm interested in flow and freshness rather than "actual debate". I'm interested in the Scheherezade-like challenge of finding something new each day to write about, and be inspired by. It's a search for value rather than a talk radio-like attempt at provocation for its own sake.

And if you're talking about Marxy's blog, I think one of its limitations is that it's structured like an antithesis. The thesis is Marxy's own early infatuation with Japan, or the Japan boosting that goes on here or elsewhere. But, like all negation, it depends heavily on an absent "yes", and comes off looking frail and mean at times. Negation in itself cannot be the basis of a worldview.

Hahaha, we´re morons.

Hahahahaha

In this half, I was really into the article on the bath in Germany, that Sako artist who became a hamster in France.

I don't think I could mask my dislike of "pechakucha."

It makes me sad that the USA is more popular a topic than art. I know that the USA are controversial and fun to discuss, but I'd like to see Angrael and all that motivate people to become more concerned with beauty than with ugliness.

Art is universally about beauty whilst America is the embodiment of ugliness...What??
Perhaps the 'America' issue could be relegated if the sort of polarised dichotomous debate that charactarised an excessive quotient of last year's postings could be tempered with a modicum of reasoned balance. There is plenty wrong with American society and culture but I lived there long enough to realise that there are some aspects of American culture worth celebrating. This issue and the pro/anti singularity of discourse it produces are becoming a bore, it would benefit Click Opera if it were sidelined for more confab on art and culture in general.
Thomas Scott.

Eh, I didn't mean to imply that it was America vs. beauty. I just mean that the growing presence of the pro-war West, of surveillance, of aggression should inspire people to focus on and appreciate beauty more often.

There is plenty wrong with American society and culture but I lived there long enough to realise that there are some aspects of American culture worth celebrating.

I do think there's a fundemental difference of perception here between people who say "there is much good as well as bad about x" and people who say "if x is dominant, it must be opposed as a kind of moral obligation".

I am clearly the latter type of person. I feel it's a duty to become an official opposition to anything dominant. We must weaken the strong until they're so weak it's time to strengthen them again. We may, at that point, actually praise some of the very same things we currently blame. This is not inconsistency, but strategy.

do you have any numbers regarding where are most of your readers from? I bet usa.

I don't have figures, but yes, of course. My blog's fate is to be trying to promote non-American values mostly to Americans. But two definitions of "liberal" or "progressive" are

1. not to be on the side of your own culture, and

2. not to be on the side of the most powerful culture.

So that works fine; this is simply a liberal blog for Americans, a blog which plays to their sense of self-doubt.

I was going for a sillier: "americans love to talk about themselves"

how much are the scissors?

Dear LJ friend,

You will know me as mini_snape. Since LJ has made it impossible for me to post, I´ve set up this journal to replace mini_snape. I´ve added you on it, please add me back if you should feel so inclined. My other journal will from now on be on hiatus. There is more info on the how and why in the last post.

no way you are a leopard.

Hey... you don't know me well, so no worries if the answer is no - but I'm in Berlin right now visiting (spoke at the Chaos Computer Club congress about culture jamming), and was wondering if you might be interested in joining me for a drink sometime in the next day or two before I leave.

how come u got a skull with a red nose as an icon?

Ah, what I regret not doing last year is inquiring further on that Wissenschaftsakademie lecture of yours. The entry does lend itself for expansion on a comparison of Archigram’s Walking City to Howl's Moving Castle, or even of Tokyo, as an ever-fluxing neon surface-scape, to that of the world of the anime, a multifaceted world, though two-dimensional… however, the entry didn’t set the tone or have the substance to have a discussion/debate. If only there was a podcast of that lecture…

pile of rubbish, innit? currieculum or what. next year double the quantity i suppose.

hehehe...only joking...we love old nick. almost always right.

FREIND OR DIE PLEASE

THANK GOD FOR AUTOMATION SO YOU DONT HAVE TO CORRECT EACH ONE BY HAND

sorry nick just boosting your box-office. can't sleep....i won't be back until let's say april or something. passing through. your socialist brother. NPK.

Yes, I imagine you should count Karl and your own comments as padding the specs, Nick.

Hahaha happy new year.

wow you are organized!

love, or remasturbation?

You can't be so stupid as to assume a low number of comments means a lack of interest. If you weren't such a half-wit sometimes, you'd realize that the more comments an article gets, the less interested people actually are in the content of that article. It's only serving as a springboard to their own personal gripes.

When no one comments, that's when your blog is its most interesting. Honestly, sometimes you're blinded by your own narcissism.

Forgot to mention me banging you hard in the arse in a german toilet while your jap accessory GF wrote haiku