Why am I writing a blog?
I've decided to start writing a blog -- at least in one sense of the word. Actually, I hesitate to call this a "blog" at all, since that has the unfortunate connotation of poorly written adolescent gutspill; but I must admit that, at least in the sense of "informal temporal personal commentary", this qualifies as a blog.The name I've chosen should give the reader a clue as to my intentions: Daemonic Dispatches. To quote from the OED:
daemonic [...] adj. Of, relating to, or of the nature of, supernatural power or genius.I'd also add another entry under daemonic, namely "Relating to daemonology or the BSD operating systems", since this allows me to avoid the immodesty of claiming that I possess a supernatural genius.dispatch [...] n. A written message sent off promptly or speedily.
In short, I'll be using this as a venue for informal communications, generally relating either to FreeBSD or my academic research. I believe that this will be useful both to myself and to others, since I often come across interesting results or ideas in the course of my research which I do not consider to be worth of formal publication (although others have disagreed) but which I still feel a desire to communicate. This can be accomplished in part via direct correspondence with other people working in the same area; but placing such material here has the advantage of making it available to a much greater audience (assuming that search engines index it).
In addition to allowing me to communicate some points of interest with others, placing such notes here will hopefully assist me in finding them at a later date. I'm sure every researcher has been in the position of finding a problem, knowing that they had solved it several years prior, and yet not being able to find that earlier solution. (The problem is even worse if you never wrote down the solution in the first instance.)
To answer my rhetorical question: I'm writing a blog, not because I think that the details of what I ate for lunch (a cheese sandwich) or who I'm dating (nobody) will be of interest to the world, but rather because I think the incidental gems uncovered by my research will be of interest to a select audience.