TITLE: Miscellaneous Blogging Thoughts
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 25, 2007  7:45 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
... at the end of a long day.

<OL>
<LI> I must be an old hand at blogging now.  I let Knowing
     and Doing's
     <A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-07.html#e2007-07-09T19_28_38.htm">
        third anniversary</A>
     pass without comment.  And I let my
     <A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-04.html#e2007-04-06T18_20_28.htm">
        500th post</A>
     -- and my
     <A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-04.html#e2007-04-27T18_04_34.htm">
        512th</A>!
     -- go by with no fanfare.  </LI>

<LI> I continue to be amazed by Google and the blogosphere.
     While preparing to visit my old hometown for my
     upcoming
     <A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-07.html#e2007-07-20T19_38_28.htm">
        high school reunion</A>,
     I googled "Scott Merrell ARC" in hopes of finding out
     if the named Mr. Merrell still owned and operated ARC
     Sheet Metal, where I worked as a part-time sheet metal
     apprentice and installer of ductwork during several
     high school summers.  Scott had met me at local chess
     tournaments and took me on for a job for which I had
     no training or particular native talent.  He patiently
     taught me a few skills and endured a few mistakes.  I
     thought it might be nice to stop in to see Scott after
     twenty years, introduce him to my wife and daughters,
     and maybe give him one more shot in his pet Lasker's
     variation against my Petrov's Defense.  It was unlikely
     that a small local sheet metal shop would have a web
     page, but it cost me nothing to try.

     I found only one relevant link -- the first link on the
     results page, of course -- but it was not for the shop.
     Instead it included a
     <A HREF="http://thispageintentionallyleftblank.net/index.php/site/comments/hey_mr_milkman_keep_those_bottles_quiet/">
        blog entry</A>
     written by a friend of Scott's son, which quoted the
     full text of the son's eulogy for his father.  My good
     friend and former boss died this past March after a
     long battle with lung disease.  (In addition to being
     a chess hound and a professional sheet metal man, he
     smoked far too much.)  The eulogy almost brought me to
     tears as it reminisced about the decent man I, too,
     remembered fondly and respected so.  I have no simple
     way to contact Scott's son to thank him for sharing
     his eulogy, but I did leave a comment on the blog.

     Not many years ago, the idea that I could have
     learned about Scott's passing in this way and read the
     eulogy would have been unthinkable.  The connection
     was indirect, impersonal in some ways, but deeply
     personal.  For all its shortcomings, our technology
     makes the world a better place to live.  </LI>

<LI> I don't write a personal blog like the one that
     quoted Scott's eulogy, this entry and a few others
     notwithstanding.  Dave Winer expressed one of the
     powerful reasons for writing a blog in his essay
  <A HREF="http://www.scripting.com/2007/01/01.html#theUneditedVoiceOfAPerson">
        The unedited voice of a person</A>.
     A blog like mine provides an outlet for thinking out
     loud, developing professional ideas in front of an
     audience, and sharing the small insights that would
     likely never appear in a refereed publication in a
     journal or conference.  Writing without an editor
     creates a little fear, but soon the fear is
     counterbalanced by the freedom that comes from not
     having to carry someone else's reputation into the
     written word.  By having readers, I do feel the weight
     of expectation, as I don't want to waste the valuable
     time of others.  But the voice here can be mine, and
     only mine.  </LI>

<LI> Besides, I like Winer's explanation for why comments are
     not the be-all, end-all of a blog.  I've always told
     myself and anyone who asked why I don't have comments
     that I would soon, but I have remained too lazy or busy
     to set them up.  The lightweight, shell-based blogging
     tool I use,
     <A HREF="http://nanoblogger.sourceforge.net/archives/2004/06/">
        an old version of Nanoblogger</A>,
     doesn't support comments out of the box, and in fact seems
     to require magical incantations to make a third-party
     add-on to work with it.  And I don't have the time or
     inclination to write my own just now.

     But I don't actually mind not having comments.  I sometimes
     miss the interactivity that comments would enable, but
     managing comments and combatting comment spam takes time,
     time that I would rather spend reading and blogging.  </LI>

<LI> Last summer, Brad DeLong wrote a fun but more academic
     essay,
     <A HREF="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/07/the_invisible_c.html">
        The Invisible College</A>,
     for the Chronicle of Higher Education Review that
     describes well why I like to blog.  Even without comments
     enabled, I receive e-mail from smart, interesting people
     all over the world who have read something I wrote here,
     discussing some point I made, offering alternatives, and
     suggesting new ideas and resources to me.  My academic
     work benefits from this invisible college.  With any luck,
     some of my ideas might reach the eyes of non-computer
     scientists and start a conversation outside the confines
     of my discipline.

     Oh, and he's spot on about that procrastinating thing.  </LI>
</OL>

Back to paradise.
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