Delicious LiveJournal Links for 6-13-2008

• Announcing Dreamwidth Studios
  A bunch of ex-LJ people are taking the code, fixing all the broken things, and starting over. I hope it works for them!
  (tags: blog fandom internet livejournal communication dreamwidth)
• Diane Abbott's 42-days speech
  Fantastic speech on why 42 days of detention without charge should not be brought in. Shame it failed.
  (tags: politics terrorism police UK)
• Book publishing under Creative Commons
  Academic Andres Guadamuz talks about how he negotiated releasing his book through both publishers and CC licensing
  (tags: publishing books creativecommons)

Compromise

One thing that I've spent a lot of time thinking about is how much to change for other people, and how much to expect them to change for me.

On the one hand, I've spent a lot of time trying to be me, getting over the unpleasant bullying I put up with from the ages of 11-17, the general societal emphasis to conform, etc. Nowadays, I'm very happy being me (in general - I'm no more perfect than the next person), and the last thing I want to do is try and pretend to be someone else.

On the other hand, the last thing I want to do is upset the people I care about. I like having friends, and the last thing I want to do is drive them away.

The observant amongst you will have noticed that there are two "last things" there, which leaves me with a conflict. And as usual, when dealing with those terribly frustrating things that we in the industry call "people", the answer tends to be a very fuzzy and personal one.

That is, I have to weigh up how much I'm willing to change myself, versus how much I'm willing to offend someone. When you look at it that way, it's not surprising that most people stick to "their own kind", spending time with people with similar values.

I've been discussing this recently, and found a variety of attitudes, from the hard-core libertarian "I'll do whatever I like, people should just put up with it or leave." to the hard-core political-correctness of "If you care about me then you wouldn't do these things that hurt me." To be honest, I find both of these attitudes rather dogmatic and unlikely to work well when faced with the complexities of life.

Instead, I find myself walking a balancing act, deciding what values are important to me, which ones I'm willing to compromise, and how much by. Some of it falls under simple, general, politeness - I try to avoid swearing in front of a fair chunk of the population, for instance. I avoid spoilers in front of most people, but I make a special effort in front of Guy, because I know he hates them. I don't wave pictures of crustaceans at Ed. I don't wave pictures of spiders at Julie (and I'd like to hope that you wouldn't wave them at me). On the other hand, I'm not about to take up going to football matches, or watching Hollyoaks for anyone - nor am I going to change the way I dress, outside of the occasional specific situation.

Every case is an instance by itself. Balance, balance, balance.


[Poll #1204346]

New layout

Having had the old layout for an age, I finally got around to changing it. Another simple one, with a reasonable amount of contrast. I tried it without the column on the right, and it was too wide on the screen - my eyes wouldn't naturally flick back to the left-hand edge without losing their place.

This one is "Flexible Squares". I quite like it.

Quote of the Day

"Australia and the US got into a fight over who got the mother-stabbers and father-rapers and who got the Puritans, and the US lost."

From here.