“zombie does get angry sometimes”

We’re heading home today, and I’ll post more when I get there. For now, dear reader, you might like to read this article, by Scott Jaschik of the new Inside Higher Ed, on last night’s blogger meetup.

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reminder: mla blogger meetup

Don’t forget about the proposed blogger meetup at MLA. Email me (ghw {at} wordherders {dot} net) if you want to participate.

If you happen to be wandering around New York or Philadelphia over the next few days and see someone who looks like this, be sure to say hello.

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blah, blah, blah, or…

…gender and blogging, part 3. (See part 1 and part 2.)

Much gnashing of teeth is taking place in the comments section of this Crooked Timber entry.

The Little Professor asks, “[I]sn’t putting abstract speculation before data collection sort of like, oh, putting the cart before the horse?” My thoughts exactly. To put it another way, we cannot have a debate about the causes for X until we have established that X exists.

Some of the comments to this entry suggest that a drug is needed for the irony impaired.

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movabletype, you broke my heart!

Dear MovableType,

The ‘herders recently dropped $100 on getting the latest version of you (and I paid another $40 to get my own higher education version to use on CHLT), and now we’re starting to think that what we have now is actually worse than what we had before.

Your comment function doesn’t seem to work right. The TypeKey authentication system, which ought to be easy peasy, is confusing and apparently buggy. You encourage people to download and install MT-Blacklist, but when it doesn’t work (and trust me, there are lots of problems), you respond to questions with “We don’t support 3rd-party plugins.” Note that this particular plug-in is only available on your site. Why would you tell people to download and install something from your site and then refuse to help them when it doesn’t work?

If I were just starting out blogging, I’d be dropping you like a hot potato right now and asking for my money back (and perhaps going with Expression Engine or WordPress) because your software looks like it sucks: it’s not working right, the instructions are inadequate, and your customer support abdicates responsibility. Back when you were free, I was understanding, but we paid money for you. What happened? I have hundreds of blog entries stored in MT format, so I’m hesitant to switching to something else.

However, I’m not completely opposed to the idea, either. So are you gonna help us out or what?

Sincerely,

GHW

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