Tag: blog

Reader Poll – Into the future

Hello Readers,

I’d like your advice – yes – particularly you lurkers who never comment.

It seems increasingly likely that my geographically specific domain name will become redundant – and it’s problematic even if our geographical location maintains its status quo – because it gets picked up in all sorts of Google Alerts that I don’t necessarily want it to…

So, I’m plotting and planning a change. And I have two current conceptual options (to be narrowed down to specific domains) that would move this away from being purely a site for my personal ramblings and in to something more defined. I don’t want to write my suggested domains down in case some enterprising reader snaps them up and holds them to ransom.

But here are my options:

1. I like to think that the one thing uniting all of my disparate postings and rambling musings is an overarching appreciation of “cleverness” – some things falling into the “too clever” category. I see this site as almost a repository of other people’s clever ideas. This domain would have something to do with the study of cleverness pertaining to stupid and needless gadgetry, coffee and the rest… it also begins with the letter “c” which works given my categorical nomenclature.

2. I also am entertaining a mild fascination with the Biblical character Eutychus. Eutychus is the guy who fell asleep during one of Paul’s rambling sermons and fell out a window to his death – only to be raised by Paul (no doubt through some sense of remorse for being so boring). I hope this changed Paul’s preaching. I like to think of Eutychus as the patron saint of not being boring.

3. I could go down a more boring avenue and pick some other word, or combination that would remove both my name, and location from the equation – I don’t intend to become anonymous, I like the sense of transparency and accountability that comes from using my name. I would just like it to be able to be more permanent and less tied to a state of flux.

So, your thoughts – option 1, 2 or 3…

The last post…

For today. And I think I used that title before. Perhaps. But I don’t care. 19 posts in one day (inclusive – but ignoring the fact that it’s after midnight). That’s got to be a record. I suspect maybe a third of them were actually worth posting.

It’s lucky the blog off is off though. For the sake of the others.

Higher heights

Well, I was expecting to see a spike in visits thanks to that bookofjoe linkage so I checked my stats. And there was a spike – though not from bookofjoe – instead it comes from this German? site (translated). 777 visitors. From an article about Tetris featuring this translated passage:

“Even a Tetris Olympics is on the way.Real Tetris fans will Gesumse not all that upset. They sing the song to the peddlers.And wait for the next block. (Detlef Borchers) / (It / c’t) “

I’m the “Real Tetris Fan” linked there. Bookofjoe has so far produced nine hits.

New heights

I feel like I’ve hit blogging gold. After all these years of meaningless toil it appears that the “World’s most popular blogging anesthesiologist” over at bookofjoe has visited my site – because I’ve scored a link.

Awesomeness.

Check it out.

Stylised Sarcasm

Interesting idea. I’m going to recode my website so that when I am being sarcastic I can use HTML and CSS to indicate it. Sarcasm will, when I’m ready to launch it, come out in blue. Or something.

Someone suggested that a Sarcasm tag be included in the next HTML standard.

Posts at dawn

Simone, Ben, myself and others have entered into some sort of blog off. The rules have already been rigged so that I can’t win. But I plan to anyway.

Here’s how they’re sticking it to the man (me) with the rules… but feel free to enter…

  1. Nathan’s first 50 posts don’t count. Sorry they just don’t. We need a little head start. So Nathan starts at -50. For the rest of us, we start at zero. Blogger with the most posts at 11.59pm on the 30th of June wins.
  2. Any post that clearly has no point isn’t counted. To judge a no-pointer, we look to the blogger’s blogging history. If they wouldn’t have posted it last month, it doesn’t count this month. (luckily this doesn’t really rule out anything for me…)
  3. You (I) can only count posts in your main column!

Thankfully, I can’t see this actually harming the quality of the things I post.

Convicted

I realise that at times I am stubborn, obstinate even, in discussions on this blog. But I really like to argue.

So this is a bind.

There’s at least one person who has exiled themselves from commenting because I’m arrogant.

And that’s convicting.

I do really like to argue – though I have a habit of divorcing myself from the implications of the argument and just enjoying the progressive development of ideas.

I have, as a way of warning prospective commenters, introduced a disclaimer to this site. You should read it. Though it’s annoyingly written in third person…

If you’d like to suggest anything that should be added – do so in the comments… though I may disagree with you…

You should also check out the discussion I’ve been having with Dave about the ACL, government and all that stuff, for an example of an argument where I don’t really believe exactly what I’m arguing, but also disagree with some of the counter-arguments. Feel free to chime in their too…

ClosedID

Ok, I have heard your feedback (or lack thereof) and turned off the OpenID plugin. I assume that’s what’s stopping all of you commenting. Go crazy. Go nuts. Go crazygonuts. Comment away. To your heart’s content. All barriers to you sharing your feedback (except my scathing critical wit) have been removed.

Some of my best work…

This blog has, in some shape or form, been around for a while. 3 and a half years in fact. And more than 1,400 posts. Which is much longer than most of my current readers would realise. I think. So it strikes me that you may have missed some of my sterling stainless steel early work. Which seems a shame.

So I’m going to start digging some out of the archives – or at least linking to them – just so they don’t go to waste.

The one where I solve the Croc V Shark debate by talking to an expert

The ones where try to get the Wiggles blacklisted and take on some Nigerian Scammers

The one with the awesome recipes from my share house days

The one were I get spammed by a bunch of students from Washington State University

The one where we play six degrees of Wikipedia

The one where I pick on a dangerous ninja

The one where I tell the Tractor Joke – and the one where somebody else improves it.

The one where I rant about emoticons.

The one where I took on a crazy Japanese tourist and turned it into a film noir novella.

The one where some people want to build a giant crucifix shaped conference centre.

The one about environmentally friendly dating services.

The one where Craig and I liveblog a Garage Sailing Adventure.

That’ll do. For now.

Commentary

One day, just to make someone feel special, I’m going to stay up late at night and have a multi-comment discussion on somebody else’s blog just so they feel special – until they click the link and read that they’re all from me.

I think I’ll pick someone who compulsively responds to every comment they receive.

Seriously though – I have decided I should comment on other people’s blogs more, perhaps then more people will comment here. I know you’re out there lurkers. Just lurking. In the corners, or a feed reader. You know who you are.

On commenting on other blogs

Sometimes when I am a bit bored, or have some spare time up my sleeve, I choke up my browser by opening up people’s blogs and work my way through them commenting on the post at the top of the page. I don’t comment on every blog I open – but most of the comments I make in that vein are pretty vacuous and I don’t tend to return to continue the discussion or see if they’ve been replied to. But I do like you, all the people who write blogs I read. And I appreciate your efforts in distracting me from my sometimes mundane workplace existence. Here’s my blog link list from the left hand column of my page – if you’re a reader and I haven’t listed you – let me know. I have no doubt forgotten somebody…

C words

I need a word for sport that starts with the letter “c” and is an appropriate category title.

I have ruled out “competition” at this stage because I think that’s misleading.

Due to a bit of a “rebrand” of my categories it’s the only non-c category.

I can’t put up with this for too much longer, it seems I have inherited some of my father’s OCD fueled pedantry after all.

Victim of my own success

I’ve pretty much doubled traffic to my blog in the last few months. Which isn’t that impressive when you start from a low base, but it did bring an unexpected bandwidth issue. Readers, you have cost me $4. But I’m back. And these things only seem to happen when we’re on holidays. Also, I wrote this post on my phone while Robyn is driving over the Cardwell range.

Redesign

Dear feed readers – do youseselves a favour ay and check out the all new design of the still amazing and cool http://nathanintownsville.com.

I don’t want to brag, I made it myself. By myself. Using a piece of nicely designed design software called artisteer and then doing some coding stuff myself. Oh, and if you happen to use artisteer without buying the real version it’s pretty easy to remove the “trial” watermark they put all over your site.

You’ll also notice that I’ve moved to a two column design and now my much more frequently posted “oddities” from around the interwebs will appear on the right hand side only. Keeping the more serious stuff on the left.

This is because my wife told me she was sick of trawling through the odd bits to get to the good bits. Other people no doubt only read me for the odd bits so hopefully I’m keeping you all satisfied.

Categorical denial

Today was a busy day for me – what with elections being tomorrow and my job being what it is… you can check out what the candidates have promised North Queensland on our website.

I also played around with my “categories” – culling some, combining some and rearranging them into the following order… you can now also subscribe just to a category. It’s as easy as clicking on the RSS images below.