Tag Archives: Janus
I usually publish a pair of Janus posts in early January, one looking back (with charts and stats), one looking forward (with intentions for the year). This year I’m “juuust a bit outside” the strike zone.
I got a respiratory virus just before Christmas, and it took me out for Christmas and the song-celebrated Twelve Days after. Mid-January I was dog-sitting and decided to take the whole month off from the interweb (and, to a large extent, even the computer).
Now I’m back. With charts and stats.
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3 Comments | tags: blog, blogger, blogging, charts, Janus, stats | posted in Life
The other face of Janus looks forward to the Christmases yet to come. Or words to that effect. The last post looked back at some highlights from 2023; this one looks forward to the hopes, plans, and guesses for 2024.
Hopes and plans are easy enough, but when it comes to guesses, I’ve never thought much of futurists. I don’t have much truck with “could” and “might” when it comes to the actual world. Science fiction is my favorite fiction, but futurists claim to be prescient, and I very much doubt it.
Regardless (and heedless), some hopes, plans, and wild-ass guesses, for 2024.
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1 Comment | tags: blog, blogger, blogging, Happy New Year, January, Janus | posted in Life
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
It’s hard to express how weird the year number 2023 seems. (I can go on about it a little because it’s Janus-uary, but I’ll try to not mention it again.) Honestly, I never expected to live this long. My lifestyle was never oriented towards longevity. I sought the brief exciting flight of the firework over the slowly dying coal ember.
Yet here I am, with 70 on the middle horizon, already outliving some of my peers, struggling to stay sane in a world that seems to have lost its way, and generally wondering WTF now.
I guess it’s like being permanently in recovery. One day at a time. Deal with today, let tomorrow come in its own time. And so, onto, into, and unto 2023.
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14 Comments | tags: blog, blogging, Happy New Year, January, Janus | posted in Life
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
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
It’s a New Year, so it’s time for that Janus backward and forward State of the Blog Post. (I did plenty looking back in the previous post, so today I’m looking mostly in the other direction.)
As I’ve mentioned, I framed 2020 as a year for changes. Many of them got sidelined (or outright derailed) but the year did result in some decisions that matter here. I find I’ve gone beyond my rope when it comes to what I’m going to begin always referring to as “fantasy bullshit” (FBS).
That’s not to say fantasy bullshit is all bad (some is fun; some might even be necessary), but I am going to start calling it what it is.
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19 Comments | tags: 2021, blog, blogger, blogging, fantasy BS, FBS, Happy New Year, Janus, realism | posted in Life, Opinion, Rant
So. 2020. The start of a new decade. That’s just a bit surreal for me. I can remember wondering if 1984 would turn out anything like the novel. The future did turn out a bit like Orwell’s vision — it just took until 2016 or so to get there. It isn’t so much that Big Brother is watching (although, that too), but how our government corrupts and perverts facts and truth.
Good fiction is insightful about the human condition; good science fiction is insightful about our future. Over time, as advertised, the prescient film Idiocracy goes from SF comedy to anthropological documentary. Many others went from fiction to fact. (Fortunately, at least so far, The Terminator has not.)
Suffice to say, this year will seem surreal in more ways than one.
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5 Comments | tags: 1984, 2001, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2020, blog, blogging, George Orwell, Janus, Mandelbrot, Nineteen Eighty-Four, WordPress | posted in Life
Today is the last Day of Christmas. If you’ve been following the song, your house is filled with leaping Lords, milking maids, two groups of musicians, and an awful lot of birds. But now you can usher them out, take down the lights and decorations, and put the tree out on the curb for pickup.
I’m guessing some of you did the de-decorating on December 26th and didn’t even buy your true love a partridge. On the other hand, the 2015 Christmas season apparently begins on August 31st (and includes “Black November”), so it’ll be back before you know it!
Until then, it’s time to get back to the grindstone.
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37 Comments | tags: 12 Days of Christmas, blog, blogger, blogging, college, Gibbs' Rules, grindstone, high school, January, Janus, millstone | posted in Life
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