November 19, 2003 20:49 | WebBlogging

BlogMemory, categories, redesigns

I created a new set of default MT templates which I will use whenever I set up new blogs for folks (which seems to be taking up much of my time these days...). Last night I decided to bite the bullet and eat my own dog food and applied them to mine. Some issues to be resolved: box model hack advanced quantum mechanics math (hello IE 6! I hate you too.), font choices (meh), color choices (what's wrong with violet?!), etc...

Just now I was going through my categories, refactored some entries into more appropriate ones and deleted the never-or-too-rarely-used ones. While doing this, I of course "rediscovered" some old posts. Which got me... concerned... Hmmm...

This weblog is a mere one year old. It has about 500 entries. Not much by some standards, but it IS a heck of a lot of text I have written. Some of them are garbage, but some are, if I may say so, pretty good. I mean from my perspective anyways. I have some good ideas, no? ;)

So why concerned? Ok, concerned is the wrong word... It's just that, by the cheer action of "blogging it", I "forget it". Sort of. Not really but anyways. The good stuff isn't "earmarked" or "featured". It is lost in a mire of observations, link-dumping etc...

I wrote a few weeks back about splitting my blog into two, and caught some flack for it. There are many issues to doing this of course, but I really think it depends on what one is trying to achieve here... I'll make no bones about it: I want to 1- share bits of my life with anyone who so cares to follow along AND 2- share some of my deeper thoughts with some folks who don't necessarily want to wade though my daily flotsam. But I shelved the idea, temporarily, for deeper thought. I very much like categorisation (I am german afterall and as a child I had more fun putting away my Legos than actually building stuff with them...), but I also now have great misgivings about deep categorisation. (Insert huuuge discussion of search versus navigate.)

In any event, i will continue to ponder a "split" (the extreme implementation of which would mean an extraction of posts from here to the eventual "other" blog), and for now, the violet stays. :P

Comments
Wed, Nov 19, 2003, @ 21:01
1- steve

down with violet !! and yes you have *some* good ideas !! ;-)


Wed, Nov 19, 2003, @ 23:00
2- Aaron of Montreal

Categories, unless they are for retrieving relatively mundane items like "svg" or "beer", are not for finding things.

They are for wandering the trails and discovering things. They are for sharing the associations that you make between items.

The rest of it is really only interesting for doing things like making bar charts and, judging by my own experience, that loses its luster pretty quickly.


Thu, Nov 20, 2003, @ 0:02
3- Warren Wilansky

I like that you had more fun putting away your Lego than play with it! I recently (about 2 years ago) got back all my Lego when my cousin left Montreal...and between you and me (and the rest of the world) i take it out every few months and try and build a massive building....


Thu, Nov 20, 2003, @ 2:48
4- mike

I'm all for splitting. If there is ever going to be a higher level of discussion on any blog, it can't include what one had for breakfast. The intellectual/professional one would be more focused and be more likely to create a discussion because there wouldn't be irrelevant posts from your aunt and I bet you would start sharing more stuff on the personal one as well, because you wouldn't be self-censoring as much for the split audience.