I recently discovered I was on Dave Winer’s blogroll. If you don’t know who Dave Winer is and why he is/was important to blogging, you can wait in the car and I’ll be out in a minute. Today I noticed what I believe is a new feature of that blogroll. The blogs are ordered by most recent updates.
PS: Those fortunate enough to be included are too smart to try and game this by throwing up junk.
I uploaded my tag cloud to ChatGPT and asked what, if anything, could be surmised about someone with these interests.
Based on the tags you’ve shared from your blog, it’s clear you have a wide range of interests. Here’s a snapshot of what I gather about someone with your array of interests:
Overall, someone with these interests is a well-rounded, curious individual who values technology, philosophy, creative expression, and community. You have a mix of intellectual pursuits and hobbies that keep your life both stimulating and balanced.
The word “blog” is a shortened form of the term “weblog,” which was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. The shorter version “blog” was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word “weblog” into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.
The term “weblog” itself originated from the practice of logging or recording information on the web, similar to how sailors would log details of their voyages in a ship’s log. The “web” part refers to the World Wide Web, and “log” refers to the act of recording or journaling.
So in essence, “blogging” stems from the concept of maintaining an online log or journal, which evolved from earlier forms of digital communities like Usenet, email lists, and bulletin board systems. The term gained widespread popularity after Pyra Labs used “blog” as both a noun and verb in connection with their Blogger product in the late 1990s.
ChatGPT recently informed me it could do some creative and useful things for me if I gave it access to my Google Drive files and folders. I thought about it but since I have just about everything in Google Drive I decided to wait a bit. For now I can simply upload or link to a document or file. But the list of things ChatGPT could do with this access was impressive. So I asked if it could “read” my 6,000+ blog posts.
ChatGPT currently doesn’t have the capability to directly access or interact with content on external websites, including public blogs, in real-time. However, you can share specific posts or content from your blog, and I can help analyze, discuss, or provide feedback based on that. If there are specific posts or themes you’d like to talk about, feel free to share them here, and we can dive into the details.
To which I replied, Let’s assume that at some point in the future ChatGPT will be able “read” the 6,000+ posts on my blog. (Something no human has ever done) Wouldn’t that dramatically… enhance? … our interactions?
Absolutely, if ChatGPT could read and analyze all 6,000+ posts on your blog, it would greatly enhance our interactions. Here’s how it could benefit:
- Personalized Responses: Understanding the nuances of your thoughts, interests, and experiences documented over the years would allow me to tailor responses to be even more relevant and insightful.
- Contextual Awareness: I could reference specific posts or themes you’ve discussed previously, providing continuity and depth in our conversations.
- Enhanced Recommendations: Based on your past writings, I could offer more targeted suggestions for books, topics, or activities that align with your interests.
- Insightful Analysis: I could help identify patterns or recurring themes in your blog posts, providing a fresh perspective on your work and potentially sparking new ideas.
- Memory and Continuity: Our interactions would feel more seamless, as I’d have a detailed “memory” of your blog posts, making it easier to pick up where we left off in previous conversations.
In essence, this capability would make our interactions more dynamic, informed, and personalized, making me a more effective conversational partner.
What, I asked, are the technical obstacles to having this functionality now?
There are a few technical and practical obstacles to implementing this functionality currently:
- Data Privacy and Security: Accessing and processing large amounts of personal data, like your blog posts, involves significant privacy and security considerations. Ensuring that such data is handled securely and with appropriate permissions is crucial.
- Data Integration: Integrating and processing a large volume of text data from an external source like a blog requires robust data integration techniques. This involves fetching, parsing, and storing the data in a way that can be efficiently queried and analyzed.
- Computational Resources: Analyzing 6,000+ posts involves substantial computational power, both for initial processing and for real-time interactions. This necessitates efficient algorithms and scalable infrastructure.
- Natural Language Understanding: While natural language processing (NLP) has made significant advancements, understanding the context, tone, and nuances across thousands of posts is still a complex task. This requires advanced models and potentially custom training to accurately capture your writing style and preferences.
- User Control and Customization: Giving users control over what data is accessed and how it is used is essential. This means developing user-friendly interfaces and options for customization, which adds another layer of complexity.
- Ethical Considerations: There are ethical considerations around the extent of data analysis and the potential for unintended consequences, such as reinforcing biases or making incorrect inferences.
While these challenges are significant, they are not insurmountable. Advances in AI, NLP, and data processing continue to evolve, making such functionality more feasible in the future. It will require careful planning, robust technology, and thoughtful implementation to ensure it is done effectively and ethically.
When I started blogging in 2002 it was really hard to include video in a post. YouTube was still three years away. Google had a video player for a while but streaming just wasn’t a thing. The first video files I uploaded were tiny because they had to download before they could be watched. But all that changed with faster computers and more bandwidth. And, of course, smart phones that could record video.
YouTube made it very easy to upload and share video from a website like mine. I have 677 posts on this blog that include video. Most of those were created by someone else but I’ve created a couple of hundred. My first was in February of 2006.
There are other streaming platforms besides YouTube. Vimeo, TED Talks, and WordPress has a player for streaming mp4 files. Fifty-nine of my posts use something other than a YouTube embed.
My posts with video now fall into several categories under Media & Entertainment:
Of the 200+ videos that I’ve posted here, 44 of them were me talking to the camera. Not sure these would be considered “selfies.”
Seventy-nine of my posts include audio. Interviews, funny songs, old radio jingles and commercials, etc. Some of my favorite stuff.
LibraryThing is an online database (for books) that launched in August 2005. I started using it a month later and in the ensuing 19 years have cataloged 1,000 books. I always have a book close at hand but I am not a fast reader. I love to read and do so for a couple of hours every day. Perhaps my favorite pastime. And I can’t think of anything that would tell you more about who I am and what I’m interested in than the books I have read.
Fiction gets most of my reading time (692 titles) but in recent years I have developed a taste for nonfiction (245 titles). Together, the work of 351 authors. Most popular:
Robert B. Parker (51), John Sandford (46), Michael Connelly (36), Lawrence Block (32), Elmore Leonard (28), Sue Grafton (23), John D. Macdonald (23), Ross Thomas (21), Robert Crais (19), Mick Herron (17), Bill Granger (15), John Grisham (15), William Gibson (14), Carl Hiaasen (14), Neal Stephenson (13), elson DeMille (12)
I give each entry in the database one or more tags and that probably provides the clearest picture of my interests. (Note: tagging is more art than science)
I purchase most of the books I read because I love highlighting passages which was one of the main reasons I started a blog in 2002. When I finish a book I transcribe the highlighted passages as well as creating a blog post. Think of these as really short Cliffs Notes. Lots of examples here.
I only keep a book if I think there is chance I’ll read it again (I’ve read each of the John Sanford Prey novels half a dozen times). All others are donated to the local library for their annual book sale.
I couldn’t guess how much I’ve spent on books in the last fifty years. I’m sure Amazon has that number for the last 30 years, but I don’t regret a penny. Fiction is my virtual reality and non-fiction the better part of my education. With a book close at hand I am never bored.
Lots of my acquaintances prefer audio books and I’ll confess to some bias on this topic. Having someone read a book to me is not the same as reading the book. Might be a better experience for some but it’s not the same as hearing my mental voice tell the story. I love the smell of a book…the feel of the turning pages…the physical experience of reading.
That’s the title of an article in The Atlantic back in 2022. It’s behind a paywall so I’ll share a few of my favorite excerpts (and a few thoughts). The piece is a year old so some of this might less (or more) relevant.
The reporter traces an evolution/devolution of “social networks” to “social media.”
Instead of facilitating the modest use of existing connections—largely for offline life (to organize a birthday party, say)—social software turned those connections into a latent broadcast channel. All at once, billions of people saw themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.
Blogs (and bloglike services, such as Tumblr) [hosted] “musings” seen by few and engaged by fewer. In 2008, the Dutch media theorist Geert Lovink published a book about blogs and social networks whose title summarized their average reach: Zero Comments.
I was blogging long before social networks or media. And I read lots of blogs. I recall being…mystified?… by the idea of social media.
“social media,” a name so familiar that it has ceased to bear meaning. But two decades ago, that term didn’t exist. […] “…social networking became social media around 2009, between the introduction of the smartphone and the launch of Instagram. Instead of connection—forging latent ties to people and organizations we would mostly ignore—social media offered platforms through which people could publish content as widely as possible, well beyond their networks of immediate contacts. Social media turned you, me, and everyone into broadcasters (if aspirational ones).” […] The network, which had previously been used to establish and maintain relationships, becomes reinterpreted as a channel through which to broadcast.
As a one-time broadcaster (radio) I understand the appeal of reaching an audience.
Social media showed that everyone has the potential to reach a massive audience at low cost and high gain—and that potential gave many people the impression that they deserve such an audience.
I loved blogging. Still do. But damned few people ever read this blog. And I got even fewer comments. Disabled that feature years ago. “The rush of likes and shares felt so good because the age of zero comments felt so lonely.”
I registered smays.com in 1997 (26 years ago!). I believe mays.com was owned by a gentleman in Seattle and on a trip in 2005 we met for a beer. At that time he was a 42 year old attorney. Married. Child free. He had a very successful radio career that started in Oklahoma City and wound up in San Francisco. After law school he He went to law school. He wasn’t using Mays.com at the time but I couldn’t talk him into selling. Still doesn’t seem to be in use.
As near as I can tell there are no 3 or 4 word .com domains. (Unless you buy one). Five-word .com domains appear to be less scarce.
This piece in The Verge (by Monique Judge) touches on many/most of the reasons I never stopped blogging.
In the beginning, there were blogs, and they were the original social web. We built community. We found our people. We wrote personally. We wrote frequently. We self-policed, and we linked to each other so that newbies could discover new and good blogs.
Social media wasn’t a thing that existed back then, so all our pontificating on various topics took place on our personal weblogs, and the discussions happened in the comments section of said blogs.
The biggest reason personal blogs need to make a comeback is a simple one: we should all be in control of our own platforms.
Personal stories on personal blogs are historical documents when you think about it. They are primary sources in the annals of history, and when people look back to see what happened during this time in our lives, do you want The New York Times or Washington Post telling your story, or do you want the story told in your own words?
I do think of my blog as a history of sorts. What was I reading, watching, thinking since 2002? This is where you’ll find it (if anywhere).
We are now in an age where people come on the internet to be the worst possible versions of themselves, and it’s an ugly sight to behold.
Not here.
In the past 20 years I’ve encountered countless wanna-be bloggers that never really get around to posting consistently because they get sidetracked by “setting up” and futzing with their blog. Endlessly searching for the perfect tool; the perfect layout; the perfect hosting service. They’re like “photographers” who never get around to taking photos because they’re so busy setting up the dark room. The illustration below is perfect.
If a person were to read my ~6,000 blog posts, spanning 20 years, he/she would know me better than anyone who has ever met me. That person does not exist and I suspect never will.
Perhaps one day an AI (“I prefer the term ‘artificial person‘”) will read them and want to discuss what I wrote/shared.
I won’t be around but perhaps this future AP will be able to create a synthetic version of me, using everything I’ve shared (YouTube, etc) and we’ll have a nice chat.