Tag Archives: blogger
I thought this year’s Janus posts — one looking back, one looking forward — would be unusually late, but it turns out they’re only one day later than last year’s pair (assuming I post what I’ve just started writing today). Hosting my furry nephew Bentley over New Year’s accounts for the (thoroughly delightful!) delay this year and last.
As usual, this post looks back at the previous year, 2023, and tomorrow’s post (assuming I write it and post it) looks forward to what 2024 might hold in store (guesses and hopes).
And, of course, there are stats and charts.
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25 Comments | tags: blog, blogger, blogging, Happy New Year, January, Janus | posted in Life
Last month when I published the Blog Anniversary post I lamented how yet another WordPress “update” had made it harder for me to copy the monthly post hit stats to my SelectedPosts database so I could make charts. The new table widget doesn’t allow selecting and copying [big frown].
Turns out my browser can be cajoled into making a screen grab that successfully interprets the image as a table with text, so it’s possible to capture the data, but looks to be a royal PITA, so it may be that the monthly hit stat ship has sailed.
But then I realized I had yearly hit stat data readily available.
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5 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blogger, blogging, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing
It’s that time again, my blog anniversary. It’s been twelve years, more than 1300 posts (plus a few dozen pages), and almost two million words (1.7 and change). That’s a fair amount of water over the dam. That said, the river flows a bit slower these days.
This 12-year anniversary comes on the heels of the 10-year anniversary of being retired. While the perceived importance of tens is a very human conceit (you’d expect the Simpsons and Mickey Mouse to attach that same importance to eights), twelves have a nice mathematical importance — there are more ways to evenly divide it: 2, 3, 4, and 6 (compared to the 2 and 5 of tens or the 2 and 4 of eights).
(That nice divisibility is handy with our 12-hour clocks and 12-month years.)
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9 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blogger, blogging, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing
Well, it sure went by quickly! Time really does speed up as you age. I used to think it was due to the relative length of hours to your lifespan, but I’m forced to accept how much of it comes from the mind literally slowing down. Not a great feeling for someone who long placed much of their self-worth in their intellectual abilities.
But, looking back, that the year passed by so quickly and for the most part unremarkably, is what seems to stand out most to me. It was a year… that was.
It didn’t have much that struck me as notable, but I do have some charts…
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9 Comments | tags: blog, blogger, blogging, Happy New Year, January, Janus | posted in Life
One: OTOH, holy cheeseburger with onion rings, it’s this blog’s Eleven Year Anniversary. Not to mention, just last week, the nine-year anniversary of retiring from the rat race. Perhaps it’s because Summer Solstice has passed (and now the light is dying), or maybe that my mom would have been 98 (the day after Tau Day), but I find myself more reflective and thoughtful at this mid-year turning than I do, despite the influence of Janus, at New Year’s.
Other: OTOH, I’m steeped in ennui and have never felt less like writing a blog post. The question is whether the pressure of the anniversary overcomes the desire to putter, read, or nap. I’m writing this (and presumably you’re reading it), so it looks like the day won over the mood.
So… Happy Something day. Here’s a standard disgruntled anniversary ramble…
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27 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blog blah, blogger, blogging, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing
That’s weird to me. I’m from the 1950s and can measure my life in scores of years (three-and-mumble). I was an avid science fiction reader by the 1960s, so recall an era where we wondered if the year 1984, let alone 2001, would be anything like the famous book.
As it turned out, in both cases: No. Respectively fortunate and unfortunate. The future turned out less extreme (but no less “interesting”). Both demonstrate the difficulty of prediction, a problem science fiction illustrates more often than not.
That said, the other face of Janus looks forward…
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57 Comments | tags: 2022, Alastair Reynolds, blog, blogger, blogging, James Webb Space Telescope, Janus, JWST, words | posted in Life, Writing
I hope everyone has been having a wonderful Chillaxmas. Yesterday was the last of the Twelve Days, so now it’s time to wash the dishes, take down the lights, and toss out the tree (or disassemble it, box it, and return it to the attic or basement, whichever applies).
Now it’s time to put on our two-way Janus hats to look backwards at Old Man 2021 as well as forwards at Infant 2022.
It’s also time to indulge (if not wallow) in my lust for data and charts.
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40 Comments | tags: 2021, 2022, blog, blogger, blogging, Happy New Year, Janus | posted in Life
Welcome to a special edition of Friday Notes. This isn’t just the end of the week or even just of the month (although both are true). It’s also the end of the year!
This edition of Notes is a reflection on a kind of weird year.
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18 Comments | tags: 2021, Agatha Christie, blogger, Chillaxmas, dogs, Octavia E. Butler | posted in Books, Friday Notes
“Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!”
Attention All Readers: Later this month (or maybe even sometime next) I’m doing a purge of Followers that, as far as I can tell, have never been seen since they followed this blog.
I’m keeping anyone I recognize from recent or past conversations (or repeat Likes), either on this blog or elsewhere. (Obviously I’ll keep my lurking IRL friends; y’all are safe from the Purging Angel.)
Point is, if you’ve been silently lurking, and don’t want to get purged, now would be a good time to make your presence known!
10 Comments | tags: blog, blogger, blogging | posted in Writing
So, ten years. Over a thousand posts (1,142). Over a million words (1,381,652). Many different topics, from science fiction to science physics — those two representing both a key duality and a crucial commonality in my worldview.
What they have in common is the science — a fundamental aspect of my life almost from day one (My first two words were “star” and “light” — a prescience that both amazes and amuses me.) The duality is between fiction and physics — more generally between art and the aforementioned science. While this aspect goes back only to high school, it has become just as fundamental. The Yin-Yang of physics and humanity.
Throw in a love of books, TV shows, and movies, plus a fascination with mathematics, computers, and human consciousness, and this blog has had a lot of ground to cover. Arguably too much.
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23 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blog blah, blogger, blogging, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing
Logos con carne 