I’ve been on the Internet since the late 80’s, so it may seem strange that my first blog post ever is in 2014. Back before the “Eternal September,” the Usenet was an incredible marketplace of ideas. It had more of a Bulletin Board System feel than a modern Internet forum. I like the concept of interactive communication between people exchanging ideas they care about. Blogs, other the other hand, seem dictatorial and narcissistic to me. People are supposed to come to my blog just to read my thoughts on whatever I care about? That’s not my style.
I’m not comfortable with the idea of spewing forth every inconsequential thought and feeling for everyone to read. This is probably why I still don’t have a Facebook account. I started using Twitter, but only as a kind of a bookmarking system. I’d retweet things that I found interesting just so I could refer back to them if I ever needed. I began to make connections to people who shared the same interests. I began to view Twitter as a kind of unorganized forum where each message had a 140 characters limit. Great for quick thoughts, but too limiting to have any kind of meaningful dialog. I also began to realize that posts on Twitter were fleeting. Yes, I suppose tweet histories are searchable through Twitter, but not many people use Twitter as a research tool. A Google search isn’t going to bring up a conversation where something insightful was communicated in a tweet a few years ago. If I’m going to share information and ideas, it’s going to have to be on a different medium.
I created this blog to be a kind of online filing cabinet of ideas and experiences that may be beneficial to other people. I don’t have a plan or grand vision for this blog. I’m used to N=1 experiments, so here goes...something.
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