The Butt Ugly Weblog

My blogging tools

There are a lot of different blogging tools, but these are mine. We often concentrate too much on technology: debate the merits of publishing platforms, argue on licenses, et cetera. Lately, there has been a lot of debate in the Finnish blogosphere whether the term "blog" somehow implies the use of a particular tool.

No.

These are all the blogging tools you need. These are the hands I use to write; this is the eye I use to filter the world. I tried to get a picture of my brain, but you'll have to settle with my eye, and what is visible beyond.

Everything else is extra - "syntactic sugar", as some people used to describe Object Oriented programming languages. Blogging is confused easily with the underlying technology, but this is not so. Because blogging originated with the technically savvy people, yes, a great many of the more important bloggers in this world these days are technologists, and like to write about technology.

But as with much of the internet (which was the ultimate geek domain for many years until AOL), the geeks are just the frontrunners. They go and build the roads for the others to come, the ones who do not care or understand the technology; people who just want to have their voice heard.

That's how the world is. We build, others follow. You will hear us talk about technology, but do not confuse the basic human need to speak, to be heard, with something as simple as a blogging platform. This is the reason why I care so much about bloggers: blogging gives You and Your voice (and I mean YOU, my dear reader) a possibility to be heard in a far more better and efficient manner than ever before in human history.

Free speech. Ain't enough of that in the world yet.

(Thanks to Nea Gustafsson for the image of my hands. Used with permission.)

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