Thank you for c-i-e's 5th consecutive month of record traffic

Just briefly, before the trend comes to its inevitable end, want to thank everyone who's added c-i-e to their blogroll, tweeted posts, +1ed, commented, or just flitted through and helped c-i-e hit a new high water mark last month.

After hitting a peak back in July 2014, my monthly views were down-up-down, but April this year saw a new high, and it's a been a new high each month since.

Just to be clear, we're talking such small numbers they'd drive any brand name blogger to despair.

But still, I figured after haranguing everyone who comes by to put their money where their mouth is and fund Brady or Everytown instead of patting themselves on the back for scolding the lunatics that run their mouths reflexively after each new gun tragedy, the line would've bent sharply in the other direction.

New ☆ Tweet from @PhilSandifer

Upside of switching from Google Ads to Project Wonderful: I'm now advertising people like @cdogzilla and @idsharman instead of weird tricks.

— Phil Sandifer (@PhilSandifer) August 15, 2015

Blogged with IFTTT

#DoctorWho Blog Them All Progress Check - Summer 2015

It's been about a year since I checked my progress on blogging about all the televised Doctor Who stories. August of 2014, I was 68% complete after "Deep Breath" had aired.

The blogger's tools of the trade.
(Not pictured: hundreds of DVDs, the About Time books, all the Sandifer books on the kindle ...)

Scorecard By Doctor:

Hartnell - 23 of 29 complete - 79%

Troughton - 11 of 21 complete - 52%

Pertwee - 23 of 24 complete - 96%

T. Baker - 28 of 32 complete - 88%

Davision - 18 of 20 complete - 90%

C. Baker - 5 of 11 complete - 45%

McCoy - 4 of 12 complete - 33%

McGann - 1 of 1 complete - 100%

Eccleston - 13 of 13 complete - 100%

Tennant - 35 of 47 complete - 74%

Smith - 34 of 44 complete - 77%

Capaldi - 13 of 13 complete - 100%

Overall, 208 of 265 complete, so currently at 78% complete. Not too shabby. Of course, come September there'll be new episodes coming in to keep up with while chipping away at the older ones, so I've got my work cut out for me. Had hoped I'd be through all the old episodes by now and ready to just blog as they come out. Hah! This time next summer feels like a more realistic goal to up-to-date by.

Have a few Tom Baker, Davison, and Tennant story write-ups in draft though. The wheel of progress continues to turn. The arrival of Aurora and a change at Amazon (Doctor Who longer free to download on Prime) cut into my blogging time a bit recently. I'd have knocked a bunch more out, if I hadn't decided to give The Wire another chance. Since I could download those without additional charge, they filled up the kindle for my recent trip to New Hampshire; once I got hooked, I had to keep going ... 

Doesn't help that Who is on TV so often now either, ironically. Public TV is showing Pertwee stories as "The Pertwee Movies" Saturdays late afternoon, then Tennant stories at night. DisneyXD, which my kids frequently have on, shows Tennant stories all the time. So I'm watching DW, quite a bit, but lately I'm seeing a bunch that I've already blogged! (And my PBS station won't be showing "Planet of the Spiders," the one Pertwee I need, for months and months. Netflix tells me they don't know when they'll have it back in stock, so they moved out of my queue. Sigh.)

New ☆ Tweet from @scalzi

IF YOU DON'T WANT ME TO POINT OUT YOUR ERRORS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS STOP BEING WRONG -- me, and what I want to shout to the world EVERY DAY

— John Scalzi (@scalzi) May 18, 2015

Blogged with IFTTT

Fifteen Years a Cryptonaut

c-i-e celebrates its Pedroia Anniversary

Today marks fifteen years since Triptych Cryptic launched into the blogosphere. Like a shambling zombie, cryptonaut-in-exile (now just a tych, I suppose) continues to lunge at your grey matter. Not to chomp; only to tickle.

As always, in case I don't say it enough, I appreciate more than is, strictly speaking, reasonable or healthy when you take a moment to argue, agree, or just set me straight when I go off-the-rails. It's a big internet and c-i-e is about as backwater a string of 1s and 0s as you'll find on it. That anyone stops by at all, is a mystery and delight. Thanks for that.

What am I up to off the internet these days? Let's time capsule a few tidbits:

• Reading Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty
• Last read (well, listened to the audiobook of) A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren
• Watching iZombie (but not The Walking Dead), Arrow, The Flash, Archer, Doctor Who (of course), Gotham, and my that's a lot of comic book-inspired fare for a fella who was never all that much into comic books
• Recently attended Wizard's Raleigh Comic Con
• Recently promoted to the fancier-sounding-than-it-is title of Principal Systems Analyst at the day job
• Waiting to hear if youngest brother lands a promotion that'll move him to California soon
• Not discovering much in terms of new music or catching new movies lately, but want to see: Boyhood, John Wick, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Top Five, and Only Lovers Left Alive

Things c-i-e / TC Is Older Than / Has Outlasted

America's participation an any war -- yes, even Afghanistan.
The iPod
friendfeed (also twitter & facebook)
The CW
My Chemical Romance, among other notables.
The MLB careers of Don Mattingly, Juan Pierre, & John Lackey. (The names of some 14-year NBA players are flashier: Rip Hamilton, Dennis Rodman, David Robinson.)
America's Test Kitchen & Smallville both debuted in 2001.
Shanghai Noon & The Way of the Gun debuted later in 2000.

Other Things in History That Happened on a March the 26th

Doctor Who relaunched under Russell T. Davies (2005)
The Book of Mormon first published (1830)
The Battle of Iwo Jima ends (1945)
Bangladesh breaks away from Pakistan (1971)
Dr. Kevorkian convicted (1999)
Leonard Nimoy was born (1931)
Sandra Day O'Connor was born (1930)
John Stockton was born (1962)
Keira Knightley was born (1985)
Beethoven died (1827)
Walt Whitman died (1892)
Eazy-E died (1995)
Camp David peace treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the White House (1979)

Amelia Earhart's Last Words

Last Words - Futility ClosetFutility Closet: 

May 20, 1928

Dearest Dad:

Hooray for the last grand adventure! I wish I had won, but it was worth while anyway. You know that.

I have no faith we’ll meet anywhere again, but I wish we might.

Anyway, good-by and good luck to you.

Affectionately, your doter,

Mill

This blog's 15th blogiversary is coming up soon ... it's had me going back and surfing the archives again. The exercise gets me thinking, "If this blog outlives me, what will it say to my kids about their dad?"  (It also reminds me I'm never as clever as I sometimes think I am, nor do I always communicate what I intend very well. ~groans~ )

My daughter is named Amelia, in part, because I hoped that tiny baby would grow up to be her own woman -- with the courage to explore, and to live her life to make herself happy.

She's 8-years-old now. I hope she knows already, and I never let her forget, that whatever adventure she chooses, I'll fight for her. If it's worth it to her, then it's worth it to me. I know that.

Street Graffiti (That Could Be This Blog's Avatar)

Social Media Street Graffiti = Stenciled Signs of Our Times | Urbanist

cdogzilla.net is go

Not since the Triptych Cryptic days has this blog been on its own domain; but, since google integrated blogger into their hosting service, I took the plunge and bought cdogzilla.net today.

Here's hoping that doesn't break anything apart from the g+ comments. (Which were already broken in terms of the counter not working anyways.) Old comments are lost. And I'm a bit sad about that. Still, it's a new age and you can leave new comments.

No need to update your bookmarks, the old blogspot address will redirect here. Allegedly.

#DoctorWho Blog Them All Progress Check

Heading into the holiday weekend, it feels like a good time to check what progress I've made to date in my quest to blog about all the televised Doctor Who stories (plus "Shada" and maybe a few other things).

"Into the Dalek" hasn't broadcast yet, as I write this, so up through "Deep Breath," I make it 246 total stories, of which I've blogged 171 for 69.5% coverage. There are at least four of those I only blurbed and am going give proper write-ups when I get to re-watching them, so the number's a bit overstated. Let's call it 68%.

I'm well on my way! The goalpost keeps moving, but I expect I'll keep on top of the new ones as they come out.

What have I got left by Doctor?

For the Hartnell stories, I've done all the ones that survive in full, and several that were wholly or partly reconstructed. Where I've relied on reconstructions up 'til now, with so many Hartnells and Troughtons missing, I'm going to lean on the Target novelisations a bit to help get through those gaps. I'll watch the reconstructions/listen to the audio as well, but the reviews may end up being more properly thought of as reviews of the books than of what survives of the broadcasts.

For the Troughton era I've got 12 left to cover. "The Mind Robber" is just about go live, so that'll leave me with 11. Almost all reconstructions and novelisations to lean on there; very little left to actually watch as it was broadcast. The discover of a several lost episodes since I started this project leaves me hopeful maybe something else will turn up, but the odds look awful long.

I've got 11 Pertwee stories left, and I started re-watching "Inferno" last night, so that one could be ready to publish by end of the long weekend.

15 Tom Baker stories left. I re-watched "Genesis of the Daleks" a few months ago, fully intending to write about it as soon as I was done, but I got busy, put it off, and then I felt like I waited to long. So, it's gone back into the viewing rotation. Not that I mind watching it again, but I can't afford to double the hours or I'll never finish this!  Well, since DW will probably outlast me, I hope, I'll never get to the point where I'm only writing about the new stuff as it comes out if I let that happen too many times.

6 Peter Davison stories left to cover. So close!

6 Colin Baker stories left as well. I'm dreading a few of them, frankly, so expect the return of the Drunken Blogger when it comes time to do those. "Vengeance on Varos" suffered a fate similar to "Genesis," watched it work/life got in the way and I couldn't make the time strike while the iron was hot. Hmm, "Twin Dilemma" is getting near the top of the Netflix queue ... better make sure the liquor cabinet is stocked.

So far I've only done 4 McCoy stories. The 8 left include "The Curse of Fenric," so which I'm eager to see if I'll come around on, after loathing it on previous watches. It's still sitting with an F grade in my master list, but the internet says I'm nuts and it's brilliant; so, maybe after reading all the Sandifer, Graham, and Wood & Miles I've been plowing through, my grey matter will finally be ready for it?

McGann is all set. That includes "The Night of the Doctor". You know, McGann still looks to be in fine form and now that he's been back once for the web, I wonder if it's a stretch to imagine he might one day appear on TV again in a multi-Doctor story?

Hurt's War Doctor doesn't have a story of his own, but the episodes he's in are all covered.

Eccleston is done. This makes me a little sad. Loved Eccleston's Doctor and wanted years more of him.

Tennant has 15 left, plus the bulk of the rewriting for the xmas specials I glossed over in one post. This is largely going to be smooth sailing.

Smith has 14 left. Some of those are going to be a bit of a drag, but with the the new series stories being about 45 minutes long, as opposed to the longer classic series stories, still expect to make relatively short work of those. Since I started this project during his era, and didn't really settle on a post format at first, and made some crazy guesses about what might be going on, there's probably some rewriting in my future for a few more of those posts as well.

Capaldi, I'm 1-for-1 and rarin' for more.

When I'm all caught up on the classic series, I'm going to go back through, review my grading, and play a little flickchart-style story vs. story to make sure I'm comfortable where I landed on those ones where I wavered on the line between grades.

Thanks again to those of you who have taken the time leave comments and helped share the posts around. I'm always open to criticism and appreciate the opportunity correct mistakes, but am not above wagging my tail for the occasional pat on the head either.

Cool integration or the next step in G+ swallowing Blogger whole?

Comments are GPlusified. Trying it out now because I'm assuming Google will eventually make it mandatory anyways.

So, yakkity-yak, feel free to talk back.

Readlists - Gather and share some of your favorite longer reads ...

Cryptonautical - Readlists

An intriguing way to share a group of themed articles.

Here's how the embed looks:


If you make one after seeing this, please share.

FTR, before using my own posts as an example, I tried doing this for some of Mr. Murphy's posts over at the GitM, but I guess it didn't like his WordPress theme. Which is a shame, because they're much better reading.


↬ The Morning News

Thanks, @BloggersDotCom, for the feature this morning!

Was a little surprised when my inbox filled up and @mentions started popping up one after another this morning. Welcome to all who are checking in here for the first time. If I'd know you were coming, I'd have tidied up a bit and had a pot of coffee ready.

Since you're here, please make yourself comfortable, feel free to poke around, and let me know if I there's anything I can do for you. You'll see my blogroll over on the right, lots of other pleasant (by which I mean bombastic, argumentative) folks you might want to visit as well. But don't rush off! They're not going anywhere. Sit, have a cuppa, let's get to know one another. 

Cdogzilla from United States has been featured, his profile bit.ly/Ky2zjQ and Blog bit.ly/KfezKf #blogger #blog
— Bloggers (@BloggersDotCom) June 12, 2012

Search me.

Curiosity sometimes gets the best of me and I throw caution to the wind to see what search terms are bringing people to this site. In the last 24 hours the top searches that brought folks here were:

Really, that's the context for 'gorilla'?! Remind me never to go to the zoo with y'all. Or get tattooed. Or go the gym. And now, given your other varied interests,  I wonder what goes on in a two man deer stand.

~shudders~

Arguments against anonymity. (See also: babies and bathwater.)

Online commenting: the age of rage | Technology | The Observer: 

Troll, well ... Orc ... close enough. 

Arthur Schoepenhauer wrote well on the subject 160 years ago: 'Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic rascality,' he suggested. 'It is a practice which must be completely stopped. Every article, even in a newspaper, should be accompanied by the name of its author; and the editor should be made strictly responsible for the accuracy of the signature. The freedom of the press should be thus far restricted; so that when a man publicly proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of the newspaper, he should be answerable for it, at any rate with his honour, if he has any; and if he has none, let his name neutralise the effect of his words. And since even the most insignificant person is known in his own circle, the result of such a measure would be to put an end to two-thirds of the newspaper lies, and to restrain the audacity of many a poisonous tongue.' 

The internet amplifies Schopenhauer's trumpet many times over. Though there are repressive regimes when anonymity is a prerequisite of freedom, and occasions in democracies when anonymity must be preserved, it is clear when those reservations might apply. Generally, though, who should be afraid to stand up and put their name to their words? And why should anyone listen if they don't?

The pull above is the end of a longer article, but I think if we can talk about the points made here, we'll pretty much cover my responses to the arguments against the use pseudonyms.

With regard to newspapers and reporting I feel pretty strongly that what bloggers, tweeters, g+ers, ffers, etc. do is not journalism. It looks like journalism at times. It may even masquerade a journalism. At times it can even be as informative as journalism, but it is not the Fourth Estate. I don't think we even need to address Schopenauer's argument about requiring the true authorship of reporting in the discussion about blogging, forums, social media, and commenting because we're not comparing apples to apples. He may have been right; however, I don't think we need to think to hard to imagine a case where revealing authorship could endanger the life or freedom of a reporter and imagine a scenario where perhaps on the only editor should be known, in effect vouching for the reporter, while allowing the reporter to remain anonymous to provide for her safety and continued reporting. People demanding the same accountability of social media users and commenters (!) are really applying the wrong standards.

Who should be afraid to put their names by their words outside of authoritarian regimes? I assume he means besides battered women? And confidential informants? And whistleblowers? How about less dramatic examples like those on the receiving end of racism? Should a black man relating his experience of accidentally walking into a Klan bar (yes, they still exist) while travelling be expected to attach his real name (address, phone number?) to the a blogpost describing the experience? Isn't it valuable still for those stories to be told, so people are aware how dangerous it still is to be black in the American south without the guy telling that story having to worry about a burning cross showing up on his lawn?

Why should anyone listen to the story told by an anonymous individual? Uh, is anyone forcing them to?  Last I checked my stats, I hadn't marshaled an army of enslaved readers. Don't want to read what I have to say? Skip it. It's really not hard.  Offended by trolls? Yeah, me too. You know what though? You don't have the right to live unoffended.  Sorry to be the one to break it to you.  Disgusted by what your fellow humans say under the cloak of anonymity? Yep, me too. (I'm also disgusted by what Ann Coulter says every time she opens her mouth and we know here name.) Still, would we know how deep and extensive the problem of moral retardation and ignorance is in this country if the commenters on hate sites like Fox Nation were afraid to speak their minds because they'd have to put their names to their homophobic, Christian extremist, and racists screeds?

Does the sheer volume of trolls and spammers ruin much of the internet?  Yes, I think I'd agree they do. It's a human (and 'bot) cesspool out there. Do I really need to pay for that though? Do you need to know my name and address to have a discussion with me about politics, philosophy, religion, or chat about what we're reading and listening to?  If so, why? Really, why? I've been here (well, at triptychcryptic.com before there was a here, but blogging, as 'cdog/cdogzilla') for a long, long time. I'll answer your questions, I'm willing to stand corrected when it's warranted. If you make a convincing argument and change my mind -- it can be done -- I'll acknowledge that.  I'll give credit where it's due when it happens. What else do you want from me?

I'm not going anywhere. Unless I'm censored, in which case you can just carry on without me and I'll go back to my reading.

[ Last update: pseuds are a hot topic and I'm not going to even try to link all the articles and posts, so here's one just one more by Scicurious.]

My seemingly inevitable conflict with google looms ...

Google's policy is that + users need to use their legal name. I'm on + with my pseudonym, the pseudonym I've used for years as a blogger, friendfeeder, twitterer, etc. It's my online identity. I have my reasons for writing under a pen name. I'll go into those in a bit, but I'm not going to follow google's rules to use their service, so it's likely my google + account will get banned. I hope it's just my google + ... my gmail, this blogger account, my youtube account, and picasa are tied together and I'd hate to lose access to all of them.  So, if my g+ gets banned, I'll take the link over in the sidebar down and just walk away from it. At least, cdogzilla will. In the meantime, I'll take regular backups of my blog in case I fall out with, or am pushed out so thoroughly by, google that I leave blogger as well so I can recreate it on another service (Wordpress? I'll cross that bridge when and if I come to it.) or just have it as a keepsake, and not got through the trouble of starting over.

So why the pseudonym? Well, I like my privacy, for one thing. I'm not particularly concerned about stalkers, lunatics, and trolls, but someone close to me is, and I respect her concern. I'm not an abused woman or in Witness Protection with a pressing need for privacy, but on principle I feel that in the Marketplace of Ideas the ideas should be judged by their content, not by what anyone feels about the person expressing them. I do believe in accountability and in standing behind what you say. Like I said, I've used the same identity online for years, over a decade, and I stand ready to explain, defend, argue, and be argued with about anything I've said. I've said some dumb and/or inflammatory things in my time, and I've been right and I've been wrong on any number of matters of fact. Where I've been wrong, I am willing to stand corrected and take my lumps with the same identity, the same reputation, with which I made my claims. Call me cdog or call me Chris (my 'real' first name, by the way, short for Christopher) it's still me, and whichever name you call me, I answer to.

As an atheist and a progressive, I'm also keenly aware that I am a widely and virulently (in fringe cases) despised minority. (Now, I'm also a straight, anglo, able-bodied, male, so I'm not facing the same struggles or discrimination as an African-American lesbian might.) I work for a living. Me and my family rely on my income to eat, have shelter, and for the clothes our backs. I'd like to think I could go look for a new job some day if I wanted or needed to without having to worry that I would be discriminated against without my knowledge (and that's key) by potential future employers using the broadly accepted and nearly universal practice of scanning google, facebook, twitter, etc. for background on potential new hires.  

If I were asked on a job application or in an interview about my irreligious views or my politics, I would want to understand before answering why I was being asked those questions and how the answers would impact my consideration; however, I would ultimately answer them honestly. So why don't I put my full legal name on all my posts about politics and atheism?  Because I can't afford to risk being weeded out of a pool applicants by a bigot, a risk I consider high, without the opportunity to be considered on skills and accomplishments and to speak for my beliefs and character directly. (Update 7/24/11: A little tangential, but here's a recent example that highlights one subtle way being "out" as an atheist can draw unwanted attention in the workplace.)

While having no delusions of influence or importance, I have a voice and, in this blog as well as on g+, ff, and twitter, a soapbox to stand on. I like that. I like the discussions and even the conflicts to which expressing my opinions sometimes lead. I'd like think there's something democratic and valuable about that whole arrangement, something that's bigger than me and about free expression. But if google shuts me out of g+, then I'll say "screw'em" and just leave my (boring, safe, minimally engaged) real name account out there so I don't look like a total hermit but I will not share anything except entirely non-controversial opinions. I might remark on books, if I undertake reading Proust in the original French, I'll share my findings on comparing translations, or I might revisit some papers I wrote as a student and update them as essays, heck, I might even find a better niche doing that... I can imagine some reading this might rather I did that then get worked up over Republican mendacity and religious bigotry. But it would be much more limited, safe, and self-serving content that I'd expose publicly.

Heck, I've barely even gotten going on g+, but I like the service and I can see it supplanting my use of twitter in time. I like a handful of tweeters, but am not crazy about the service. I like Friendfeed more, but it doesn't look like it's got much of a future, sadly, despite being superior to g+ in terms of features and community. That community has, as far as I can tell, almost no exclusive users though, and as more and more ffers chase the power users to g+ and find it an acceptable, if mildly inferior product, the fact that it's growing and has a future will almost certainly result in Friendfeed dying off.  My larger concern is about google's ownership of blogger and any conflict over my online identity spilling over to here. 

The world at large, and google itself, won't miss me on g+ if I'm banned. But wouldn't it be nice if Tom Tomorrow could have an account? Megan, a victim already, has more along this line of thought.

Post of My Mosts

My Most Viewed Flickr Photos (All-Time)

Honorable Mention for the picture of the spider on my grill cover:

Most Viewed Posts on Cryptonaut-in-Exile (All-Time)

1. Everest's Rainbow Valley: not as nice as it sounds
2. Caleb Tutor, missing North Carolina man found in Smokies #Fuquay
3. Louisiana man's deer stand camera captures mysterious "human-like" figure
4. Cited for CWS (Cycling While Sexy)
5. NC Man Curses Out, Spits On Muslim Woman In Wal-Mart

Books Most Recently Added to My LibraryThing

1. Amelia Rules! Volume 2 What Makes You Happy, by Jimmy Gownley (mooched for my daughter)
2. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow
3. The Code of the Woosters, by P.G. Wodehouse
4. The Conservative Assault on the Constitution, by Erwin Chemerinsky
5. The Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America, by Jay Parini

Most Shares Held of Another Player on Empire Avenue

1. Zack Moshonas (1Z)
2. Gaming Phanatic News (GPN)
3. #TeamZen Ann Hines (ANNSHINES)
4. Mateus Lago (TCHE)
5. Ehlen WeavingTheWeb (EHLEN) -- and 4 others

Social/Sharing Sites I Visit The Most (Since Google+ Launched)

1. Friendfeed
2. Google Reader
3. Twitter
4. Facebook 
5. Google+

Most Listened To Tracks On Last.fm in the Last Week

1. The Fresh & Onlys - Waterfall
2. Mariage Blanc - Whatever You Say I Am
3. French Miami - Science Fiction
4. Sally Timms & Jon Langford - Dark Sun
5. Frank Black - Old Black Dawning

Twitterers I Follow the Most Hard (#FollowHarder)

1. @jazzdab
2. @mo11ymonkey
3. @indefensible
4. @Mike_FTW
5. @georgelazenby

Books Most Frequently Pulled From My Shelves for Reference

1. The Anchor Atlas of World History, Vol. II, by H. Kinder & W. Hilgemann
2. The Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide Science Fiction, Third Edition, Ed. by Neil Barron
3. The Trouser Press Record Guide, Ed. by Ira A. Robbins
4. TC9: Nine Years of Triptych Cryptic (The Heretic Monkey of Weblogs), Ed. by cdogzilla
5. The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Heavy-Duty Revised Edition

Most Consumed Beverages Over the Last Month

1. Water
2. Coffee
3. Diet Cheerwine
4. Diet Mountain Dew
5. Saison de Aviator

Top Ten Recent C-I-E Blogpost Titles That Could Be Band Names

10. Otter Rescue Becomes ... Otter Attack! (Or, just Otter Attack!)
9. The Bitter Taste of the Truth Torpedo
8. Double Down on Bacon
7. Elderly Self-Styled Vietnamese Robin Hood
6. Stoner Arms Dealers
5. Innovating With Gorilla
4. Autistic Apes
3. Russian Dead Alien Video
2. Bachmann Special Anointing
1. The Determined, Thunderous Poopers

An atheist blogmap – oooooh, how handy | My Not So Fictional Life

An atheist blogmap – oooooh, how handy | My Not So Fictional Life:

Snapped from My Not So Fictional Life

So an atheist blogger in the US has come up with the neat idea of starting an atheist/secularist/humanist bloggers map. Now if – like me – you lean towards that way of thinking and you run a blog that reflects that from time to time, then why not head on over to cryptonaut-in-exile and put your blog forward to be included.

Yeah, I set up this blogmap to give atheist/secularist/humanist bloggers a way to put their blog on a public google map, then I -- P. T. Barnum Genius Level Promoter that I am -- told almost no one* and didn't even mention it on my own blog. Luckily, a few of the folks I tapped on the (virtual) shoulder via the Atheist Blogroll and let know about it submitted their blogs and it has started to grow. Still lots of states, regions, countries, continents, and hemispheres unrepresented, but it's early yet and I'm hoping it'll grow at a pace where I can continue to manage reasonably quick turnaround from submission to addition.

I've already added several new blogs to my Follows, or Greader subscriptions, and/or blogroll as I've read through the submissions and found some intriguing posts.  Thanks to those that have submitted, big thanks to Emily for the mention, and thanks in advance to those of you that will take a look and submit.


* I did tweet a few times using the #atheism tag and I specifically @ mentioned two of the bigger names in Atheist blogging that I know of, in addition to leaving comments on a few of the newer blogs on the Atheist Blogroll, so it's not like I was completely mum about it.

Mosaic (and other dynamic templates)

cryptonaut-in-exile in mosaic

Preview of the mosaic view applied to this blog.

Blogger's got a snazzy jazzy new set of dynamic templates you can use to view public blogs, like this one, by simply adding "/view" to the end of the url. Or, for Chrome users, there's an extension.

Eleventh Blogiversary: Looking Backward (and Ahead)

It's been (roughly) eleven years since that fateful spring day when, from a humble Brooklyn apartment, a couple of good friends and I launched Triptych Cryptic: The Heretic Monkey of Weblogs. We started on my Geocities account, though we'd moved elsewhere long before Yahoo shut that down. We were joined over the years by a few other friends, carrying on until we finally called it quits last year. I started cryptonaut-in-exile before TC ended, but didn't consolidate my TC posts (many of them anyways) from the archives into this site until TC was gone. I'm not quite sure where to peg my blogiversary because I may have mislabeled my second post as my first in the export/import process. I'm pretty sure on TC we listed March 26, 2000 as our start date, so even though the first post wasn't mine, I'm still thinking of that as the blogiversary worth noting.

Anyways, I've been doing this one way or another at least 11, if not 12, years. (Had a blog pre-Triptych Cryptic as well, but that's lost in the mists of time.) While I miss the camaraderie of ol' TC, I have to say I'm kind of proud of this solo effort. Sure, I make typos when I'm too eager to hit 'Publish,' and I've bored and irritated a few people, but it wouldn't be reflective of my personality otherwise, right?

I'm forty now, almost certainly more than half way to my grave so it could just as easily be said I'm dying as much as living -- not to be morbid, I'm going somewhere with this -- and it doesn't look like I'm ever going start, never mind finish, the novels I was sure as a youth I had ready to burst forth from my overheated imagination. This blog then looks like it will serve as my written legacy. I don't particularly care if I have a tombstone or a marker somewhere after I shuffle off this mortal coil. However, upon reflection, I would kind of like a holographic video recording, à la Tasha Yar's but, should technology not deliver, I'm hoping this blog will be something my progeny will be able to access for a glimpse into my thoughts and interests. (Sorry about the language, future little ones, if you're out there, I was occasionally foul-mouthed.)

As a kid, I loved going through my grandparents' old stuff. I wanted to see pictures of them when they were young, and learn about what was going on in the world that had an effect on them. Even as a kid, I was fascinated by the idea that who we are is shaped by our environment and by our genetic inheritance. I could see in the old, black and white photos of my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles as kids themselves, how they looked so similar to how my brother and I looked at the same age. My paternal grandfather's very posture in one picture from his WWII days in the Navy looked like it could have been of my dad or any of my uncles. If they looked like me, walked like me, talked like me, how much did they think like me? So much of that is gone now, dispersed or destroyed. Even my memories, sadly, get jumbled or buried so deep I'm not sure they're there. If my kids are like me, I think they'll be curious about the interconnectedness of things, of people, and I hope to leave them something more than a few scraps of evidence to satisfy that curiosity.

There's the possibility, of course, that this blog will be as inaccessible to them as recordings on reel-to-reel tape are to me now. I don't know how people will interact with the internet five years from now, never mind 50. Maybe I should think about doing an annual blog-to-print just in case ... since all my books will (hopefully!) end up with Blake and Amelia eventually, that might be the best way to hedge against a rapid technology shift.

So, Google, stay in business, don't make me move this stuff around again. I'm counting on you to be like Levi Strauss and Macy's, at least, if not Keiunkan.