Retrospective

[coalescent]

Do you go back and read your earlier entries? I do. Every so often I like to skip back six months or a year, and see what I was doing. This time last year (more or less) I'd just been to Caption. In two weeks I'll be at Caption again. It's not an event I ever expected to become a permanent fixture in my calendar; I don't dislike the form, but I've never really been a comics fan, so a small-press comics convention isn't an obvious thing for me to get involved with. But it's a fun weekend, and I like the people, so I keep on doing it.

Do you think of your livejournal as permanent? I do. I know some people on my friendslist don't; greengolux, at least, has said that when she moves on she'll delete her journal. Maybe I will end up moving on at some point, but I can't see myself deleting this journal. For all that I don't write that many personal entries, it feels like there's a lot of myself tied up in this corner of cyberspace. A lot of memories.

The reason, such as it is, for these ramblings is that this - right here, right now! - is the 500th post in this journal. That means I've updated roughly 0.85 times a day for the past year and a half, and I've picked up 12.5 comments per entry along the way. I'm not going to calculate how many hours that means I've spent writing posts or comments, but I'm pretty sure they've been worth it, and I'm pretty sure that's mostly due to you guys. Thanks!

Comments

[fba.livejournal.com]

Is it really a year since I first met snowking? Time flies......

[azureskies.livejournal.com]

I'd never want to delete my journal outright. I'd back it up, make it all private, whatever. But to me, writing in an online journal is just like writing in a regular diary, and I do like to look over old entries sometimes (it's why I keep the blog I've not posted in since setting up this journal just over a year ago). Deleting anything journal-ish seems like an insult to any future versions of me that might want to read it...

[andrewducker]

Move on to where? From where?

Considering how much I was annoying people with my e-mails...

[applez.livejournal.com]

My ascension to LJ can only qualify as an unmitigated Good. Given how many people I know around the world who I like to keep in touch with, I find it hard to imagine terminating my LJ. I may, however, greatly change my LJ posting habits if I found myself back in the UK or Europe ... after all, few of my SF circle are LJ-enabled.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten that was the first time you met. To me it seems long ago!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

To where? Well, who knows? I just somehow doubt that I'll still be here in twenty-five years. I won't be disappointed to be proven wrong, but it seems unlikely, is all.

Re: Considering how much I was annoying people with my e-mails...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Clearly you'd have to get them LJs before you left!

One of these days, I'm going to have a friend from every continent. ;-)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I don't know about an insult, exactly, but otherwise yes, that's pretty much my feeling, too. I really should get around to updating my backed-up copy...and I wish they'd introduce some way of archiving comment threads!

[andrewducker]

"Here"?

In Cambridge?
On Earth?
Human?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Ha! No, I'm not planning on transcending any time soon. 'Here' on livejournal, is all I meant, although I think it's more likely that the site will die than I will leave. I just have a hard time visualising LJ still going strong in 25 years.

[fba.livejournal.com]

It has been 2 1/2 years since I first met you!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Jesus. Now I feel old. ;-)

[ajr.livejournal.com]

In two weeks I'll be at Caption again.

I just had a look at the Caption website. One of the special guests this year is Pat Mills! The man wrote one of my favourite comic strips, Charley's War (which my icon comes from). I've totally got to try and be at Caption this year now.

Do you think of your livejournal as permanent? I do.

I think of mine as permanent too. I don't go back and read old entries very often, and even though I have a feeling that I'd probably find many embarrassing if I did so, I don't think it'd be right to go and delete them. In ten years time they'll surely prove invaluable in assisting my failing memory as it attempts to recall what I got up to in these younger years. In that sense, my LJ feels akin to a historical document, and so deleting it seems like a crazy thing to do.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not planning on transcending any time soon.

That might not be up to you, punk.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I wonder what technological mediation of communication will develop next? A year ago I couldn't imagine giving up on my various mailing lists, but I hardly use them nowadays. Technology has changed. I suppose it will change again in a few years, and everyone will abandon journals and blogs for the next thing. I hope the next change isn't into something that I'm not comfy with.

[(Anonymous)]

'mysqldump -a mt > ~/journal-backup.sql' works for me ;)

Dom.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure I could ever delete *anything* I wrote. I obsessively archive every single mail, journal entry, piece of crappy perl, web page, IRC conversation... The nice thing is that it's a lot easier to horde data on a hard disk than it is in filing cabinets, book shelves or apple boxes.

Hmm, actually, I don't archive my netnews postings; I just have a log of the message-ids. Do I trust groups.google to be around forever?

[(Anonymous)]

-- Dom (sorry about that).

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the 500. It took me something on a year and a half to get to 1000 but then, I post far too much trivia and should stop. This year, however, I missed my LJ birthday ... my second year completed. I guess this means it's so bedded into my life I don't notice it in that way any more. As to how long I'll stay here ... as long as people are reading and joining in the conversation, I guess.

I don't reread my stuff, not at the moment, though I can't say what I'll do in the future. I just don't find me that interesting, I suppose. But I am happy to leave it for others to read, though what they'll make of it, goodness knows.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Hard rapture? You try anything and I'll show you a 'hard rapture'. Bitch.

(In other news, I am disappointed that 'now all * until the end' is not a meme.)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

A year ago I couldn't imagine giving up on my various mailing lists, but I hardly use them nowadays.

Yes, exactly - except for me the obsolete tech is Usenet rather than mailing lists. I still read newsgroups, but they seem to have become...less vital. It's a shame, because I think there are things that the older tech does better than LJ. So it goes, though...

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

I love to look back at my old entries and read through what I was thinking and feeling like at the time. I'm coming up to 3 years now - I started this just before I moved back to Oxford - and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

It's hard to know whether LJ will still be here in 25 years time. I feel like we're starting to assume a shorter half-life for technologies before they become obsolete, but who knows - perhaps LJ will migrate to the next level and take you with it.

Backing up my journal is one of the things that I know in my heart I should do. I'd be really sad to lose what I've written over the years. But I just never get round to it. Perhaps I should play with some of the tools in lj_nifty.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

but then, I post far too much trivia and should stop.

Heh. I worry that I post far too little about my personal life, and should start. :)

The only sensible answer I've ever come across to the question of what you should post in your livejournal is 'whatever you want.' Like you say, it's really about the conversation.

[colours.livejournal.com]

Four years on and still going strong - I'd be mad to delete it :o)

I don't know whether I'll be able to keep it going indefinitely, as much as I like to think so, but I really appreciate being able to look back on past years. At the end of the day, I write my journal for me to read, because I'm the person who reads it the most :oD

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Four years

I like it when you say this. It makes me feel all young. ;-)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

perhaps LJ will migrate to the next level and take you with it.

I dunno. The idea of a weakly superhuman AI based on livejournal doesn't really bear thinking about. :)

Backing up my journal is one of the things that I know in my heart I should do.

Mmm. The linux client I'm using at the moment, Logjam, has a feature that is supposed to 'synchronise offline copy'. Unfortunately, when I try to run it it gets stuck and tells me it can't read the encoding in some of my entries.

[colours.livejournal.com]

*has early adopter superiority feelings*

;o)

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

I might end up saving some entries for my own personal records, but I certainly can't see myself leaving the contents of my livejournal hanging around on the web long after I've finished using it. And I have a feeling I will finish using it at some point. Everything changes. I hate the thought of being in my fifties, sixties or seventies, and having people I don't know reading stuff I wrote 30, 40 or 50 years ago (not that I can imagine anyone being interested in it). Is no one else creeped out by that thought?

[colours.livejournal.com]

I find the idea of people who know me vaguely reading it far more creepy than complete unknowns. But then I largely guard against that anyway by using the friends-only thing, so it's not really an issue.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Don't be silly. I'm using it therefore it is. :P

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

Somehow I don't mind being read now by complete unknowns or by those I vaguely know (or know well for that matter). If I did, I wouldn't make my public entries public.

There's just something odd about the thought that my livejournal might survive as a completely public document long after I've ceased using it. It surviving as a private or semi-private document is a different matter.

Thinking about it, I think it's less to do with the thought of having people read it years in the future, and more to do with the fact that leaving it around feels like I haven't tidied up after myself properly. When the time comes, I'll probably choose which entries I think are worth keeping/archiving, and tidily delete the rest. It's what I do with everything else, so why not LJ posts? Some of the stuff I put up is only meant to be ephemeral anyway.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Google disagrees. Are you going to argue with Google?

[(Anonymous)]

Google, i think you will find Mr Harrison, can CHOKE ON HIS FUCK.

-- Tom

[(Anonymous)]

I certainly can't see myself leaving the contents of my livejournal hanging around on the web long after I've finished using it. [...] I hate the thought of being in my fifties, sixties or seventies, and having people I don't know reading stuff I wrote 30, 40 or 50 years ago.

Has anybody told you about The Archive (http://web.archive.org/)?

Is no one else creeped out by that thought?

Welcome to the future; do not expect it to be nice.

-- Tom