556th Friday Blog Roundup

Daily Dot killed their comment section. I’ve read their post about it twice, and I still don’t really have a clear picture of why. It seems to be some sort of amalgamation of troll-like comments meets people don’t want to leave comments meets why leave multiple places for people to discuss when they’re talking about the posts on Facebook meets… something else?

All I know is that this fundamental part of blogging — in fact, what made blogging a discussion vs. having someone talk at you — is disappearing.  I don’t just mean the conversation itself; that’s been obviously on a decline as people read from mobile devices.  But this sense of closing the door to conversation.  It would be like someone saying, “Fine, you’re not going to talk?  Then I’m going to stick ear plugs in.”

Whether or not people left comments, it was nice to know the door was open.  Now I just have to write posts about their posts.  Or hunt down the discussion elsewhere.  Or not talk about it at all.

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It’s Harry Potter’s birthday.  Happy birthday, Boy Who Lived.  You’re now 35.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Strokes” (Beyond the Parentheses)
• “Bioethicists in U.S. and Australia Call for Fertility Industry Regulation, More Transparency” (Silent Sorority)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Life and Love in the Petri Dish is doing treatments again, and specifically worrying about her reaction to lupron.  She dreaded taking it, but she isn’t having the same depression this time around.  She writes, “I keep wondering – why is this time so different than my prior two experiences with depot lupron? And all I can guess is that having Magpie means I am so very happy, that plunging me into a chemically-induced menopause can’t shake it.”  It’s an interesting post on how infertility thwarts all of our expectations.

Non Sequitur Chica has a string of random thoughts, and I’m willing to bet that if you click over, you will connect with at least one (though likely more).  For me, it was the piece about playing the pregnancy game.  I do that and didn’t even realize how it’s different between summer and winter.

Lastly, A Woman My Age has a post about her son’s fictive kin cousins, the children of her husband’s best friend.  Seeing her son play with them, she reflects on how much she wanted another child and how much her child wanted a sibling.  It’s a post about an unfulfilled heart.

The roundup to the Roundup: Another comment section closes.  It’s Harry Potter’s birthday.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 24th and 31st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.