28 March, 2004
Blog-birthday
March 27th, 2001 was the day of my first blog entry. So today, my blog is three years old. Hurrah! I would post a retrospective, "best-of" list or something, but really, would you care?
Oh, wait, since when did I start caring whether you liked what I blogged or not? So here's a timeline of the posts I consider most interesting or noteworthy for other reasons. This collection is also interesting in the way the frequency of "interesting" posts seem to be increasing -- is it because they're more recent, so I lack perspective on them, or because I'm getting better at writing? You tell me.
- 2001:
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- March:
- April:
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- Officially resolve to stop posting everything from Slashdot
- I revel in being included in the Dilbert newsletter and getting a story posted to Slashdot. I'm so sad.
- "Also, I may be in love" -- my first relationship-obession post
- My Columbine rant
- July:
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- I begin to have an opinion about politics for the first time
- August:
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- My first blog-crush. Happily acted upon later...
- September:
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- "Goodbye, WTC. Goodbye, world as we know it." I never posted anything more about September 11th. I still don't have enough perspective. Maybe in 2006.
- November:
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- First appearance of the wholesale bookmark dump, soon to become a regular feature.
- December:
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- Not mentioned in this post, but something quite important began in earnest at that party.
- 2002:
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- January:
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- First post of somebody else's lyrics (I'm totally addicted to bass).
- February:
- March:
- April:
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- A quick one-liner becomes the longest-running top-story on this site (more than a month), thanks to an over-running site upgrade.
- June:
- August:
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- In a startlingly self-involved post, I come to the conclusion that only a(nother) disco-geek will do for me. Still looking...
- October:
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- In a month full of posts, I point out that before the 10th planet was going to be Sedna, it was going to be Quaoar
- ...get sarky about politics and Colin Powell's relationship with Dubya.
- ...sentimental about earthworms
- ...and briefly obsessesed with Jeremiah Cohick (who is still really cute)
- November:
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- I celebrate being really, really gay.
- And write beautifully, even if I say so myself, about fog
- ...then spoil the effect by ranting about the fire alarm
- December:
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- Release of Spree, my second play -- I never blogged about the first. I like them both.
- I revel in the tropics, and think way too hard about Christina Aguilera.
- 2003:
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- January:
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- I revel in University, too.
- A rant against Britain's totally unworkable attitude to paedophilia, and the parallels between attitudes to paedophilia now and homosexuality 30 years ago. This article generated endless commentary, and my position on this issue was echoed four days later by the Economist, which I considered a ringing endorsement.
- A precursor to later posts.
- February:
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- "If you're happy and you know it, bomb Iraq", a completely different post not related to the previous one.
- A still-hilarious link to a US congressman ragging on France.
- March:
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- A brilliant exposition of the world's ruling class (not by me)
- 100 things about me. Contains first post of my later credo: "freedom is more important than morality."
- Meta 8 was great.
- War begins in Iraq, and I am in favour.
- In my personal favourite post, I pose a question from a test I was taking in a dream.
- April:
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- I get inspired about WebTorrent, an idea currently being developed by others.
- My justification of my stance on Iraq
- "Memory", a poem.
- June (notice I never post anything interesting in May?):
- July:
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- The infamous identity crisis post, the followup to "Happy", generated more panicked phone calls than any other post (three).
- I get my first job after university.
- ...and a place to live. It seems like they were both so simple, in retrospect...
- August:
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- The Edinburgh festival.
- First extensive post about gay marriage. Many were to follow, and my opinion changed.
- A long article about homosexuality and education.
- September:
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- I complain about Perl, humourously.
- The infamous blog-my-lunch post
- October:
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- I blog the names of the nine premiership footballers accused of rape, igniting a (relative) firestorm of comments and e-mail centered around my "freedom is more important than morality" stance regarding the sharing of information. A huge traffic spike and follow-ups for the rest of the month.
- I connect freedom of information to being a geek, and question why this is such a popular world-view for geeks.
- My thoughts on the Information Revolution, and where history is pointing to as the future of software development in light of this. One of the most important thoughts I've ever had.
- November:
- December:
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- My position on love.
- I reiterate my purpose in life. Combine with future of software development for what I'm doing right now.
- 2004:
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- January:
- February:
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- My (dismissive) explanation of what Fair Trade really means.
- I confront my simmering heterophobia; the comments thread spiralled out into an argument about whether Christianity was a force for good or not. This month had the most comments of any month to date, by dint of having two interesting comment-worthy posts together.
- March: