Post by Tony Ravenscroft on Jan 1, 2021 12:32:17 GMT -6
It is January 1, 2021. I have had worse years than 2020, but it nevertheless sucked big wet rocks. And though I am often hopeful for 2021, as a student of economics and social psychology, it's impossible to overlook how the year could be even worse (e.g., it's really easy to compare 2020-2021 to 1929-1930).
I know there are a few Guests that stroll around here. Most of them are probably search-engine bots. If you don't happen to be, then I hope you have some intelligence and you have some knowledge and you have something to say. The beauty of Proboards.com/Boards.net (which hosts this forum) is that they have a lot of server space that they rent out to large cash-earning forums that pay them. In amongst that elephant herd are the mice and ants (like us) who benefit from the software, the support, and being able to have our code living happily in the odd crannies.
Another such benefit explains why I settled here. I was running Googol for some obscure bit of information (a common facet of my many hobbies/obsessions). I followed a lead to a Proboards forum. It had been set up in 2004, had a brief flurry of activity by maybe a dozen people, then was abandoned by 2005. Yet there it sat, unmoderated, and perhaps to be maintained for decades, as free as a tree.
So I figured, "What the heck -- if I put up a website, it's only going to last so long as I keep paying. If I want to pass a site along, it'd be a PITA. And if I die suddenly, every last word of my effort will be gone." I'd thought about putting up a blog (through Blogger or such) because those to seem to persist for long years after the originator gets bored or tires of being forced to work for infinitesimal fame or develops an actual personal life.
And I had wanted to hope for the future possibility of dialogue, of creative ferment, likely with people I'd never before met but we'd been brought together by similar interests. Most blogs come across as columns, like in magazines or newspapers -- not reporting with any tiniest intent at objectivity, rather editorial pronouncements followed by some brief answer-back... not really dialogue.
That's why I settled here. Not a whole lot of likely fame, but not a whole lot of work -- that's a pleasant balance.
I know there are a few Guests that stroll around here. Most of them are probably search-engine bots. If you don't happen to be, then I hope you have some intelligence and you have some knowledge and you have something to say. The beauty of Proboards.com/Boards.net (which hosts this forum) is that they have a lot of server space that they rent out to large cash-earning forums that pay them. In amongst that elephant herd are the mice and ants (like us) who benefit from the software, the support, and being able to have our code living happily in the odd crannies.
Another such benefit explains why I settled here. I was running Googol for some obscure bit of information (a common facet of my many hobbies/obsessions). I followed a lead to a Proboards forum. It had been set up in 2004, had a brief flurry of activity by maybe a dozen people, then was abandoned by 2005. Yet there it sat, unmoderated, and perhaps to be maintained for decades, as free as a tree.
So I figured, "What the heck -- if I put up a website, it's only going to last so long as I keep paying. If I want to pass a site along, it'd be a PITA. And if I die suddenly, every last word of my effort will be gone." I'd thought about putting up a blog (through Blogger or such) because those to seem to persist for long years after the originator gets bored or tires of being forced to work for infinitesimal fame or develops an actual personal life.
And I had wanted to hope for the future possibility of dialogue, of creative ferment, likely with people I'd never before met but we'd been brought together by similar interests. Most blogs come across as columns, like in magazines or newspapers -- not reporting with any tiniest intent at objectivity, rather editorial pronouncements followed by some brief answer-back... not really dialogue.
That's why I settled here. Not a whole lot of likely fame, but not a whole lot of work -- that's a pleasant balance.
