Standards and Practices

I've been gradually reforming the site. Over time I've altered the layout, put in rotating headers, a "favicon" (before they were ubiquitous!), random quotes, "highlights" for what seem like good posts, and most recently a bunch of links. Last fall I dropped that lower-caps only thing (it is actually harder). But a slight change in content might be needed as well.

The thing is that the format of this blog is somewhere in between obscure science/history linking and actual writing in the form of wildly irresponsible theories. I have been primarily motivated by what I don't want my site to be. By the time I hear about an interesting story it has usually been around enough that linking to it would be derivative and lame. Once in a while I get the jump on them, but there are more than enough link-type blogs out there in the world, all talking about exactly the same things, without adding one more. Also, there is absolutely no way I would want to produce one of those far-too-personal descriptions of the minutiae of my life, nor an overwrought soapbox for my political views. Any of these things can occasionally be done well...but not by me.

On the other hand, it isn't like I can realistically churn out high-quality exposés on North Korean newspapers everyday. So it seems like I have 3 options: (a) do nothing differently, try to post more; (b) feel less responsible for the stuff I link to, worry less about not being original; (c) lower my standards generally, more anecdotes, more short observations.

I think I'll be going with (b) and (c) for a while and see if I get too watered-down. But I won't be writing any wimpy entries about my feelings. Because I don't have any.