Charlottesville VA, 2001

I’ve known my way around HTML since the mid-1990s, when it transitioned from version 2 to 4 and when Netscape was still a viable browser. During my first two years of college I picked up CGI and PHP, ultimately settling on Grey Matter as my blogging tool of choice. At the time (2002-2003) Noah Grey maintained the code himself, but he has since left the internet. The system was ideal for the student web space I had available, which offered minimal server-side scripting and no databases. Fortunately, none of my early blogging exists. I don’t recall how much of it there was, but I’m sure it was awful.

Norfolk VA, 2003

By the summer of 2003 blogging was mainstream among my peers. Several friends used LiveJournal, which at the time had implemented an invite system. I ended up using LJ for a solid three years, with temporary ventures at the now-defunct ModBlog and now-ubiquitous BlogSpot. LJ may not have had the best visual styles (though these could be improved with some tedious modification), having most of one’s friends on the same system is the main draw. I’ve since imported most of those old entries; here is a representative sampling:

Honolulu HI, 2005

• New Age Pool Results in a mock sports broadcasting tone. A definite you-had-to-be-there moment.
• Stream of consciousness event recaps.
• An odd mixture of objectivism, food and dating.
• Lengthy memoir-style entries in multiple parts.
• Attempts at abstract blogging.

Dubai UAE, 2007

I began 2006 by installing WordPress on some cheap server space and started Patrick unscripted in it’s current form. WP’s extensibility and ease of use won me over from the start. I probably redesigned the site every 6 months, mostly for the pure enjoyment of it. The blog took a decidedly grammatical and observational bent:

• Calvin window stickers.
• The difficulties of finally growing up.
• Technological activism.
• Improbable life goals.
• Thoughts on the nascent 2008 presidential campaign, in 2007.
• The return of the memoir.
• A little math on the rise of Wikipedia.

By the end of 2008 the blog became a stream of links that interested me (ironically labelled “digressions” long after there was no journal to digress from). Link sharing is, of course, facilitated by other services (Facebook, Tumblr, etc.) so there’s hardly a need to maintain a personal blog for that sole purpose.

It’s been a good run, but it’s time to move on.

Image stolen from Shepard Fairey, text from some hippies that Tom Wolfe was hanging out with in the 60s.

Since it’s a slow news month, I don’t care about the olympics and the conventions aren’t for another two weeks, I think I’ll kill time by watching some of my favorite fantasy and sci-fi trilogies.

I’ve started with history’s longest New Zealand travel advert, which has remained improbably high on IMDB’s top 250 for the last 5–7 years. Although each movie improved on its prequel, the SFX are beginning to show their age. Characters are still wooden and prone to make absurd non-sequitur pronouncements.

Speaking of non sequiturs, digital travel guide publisher Schmap selected my photo of the Pavillon Colbert for their Paris travel guide (hover over the Musée du Louvre and cycle through the photos if you don’t see it right away). I’m also happy to see creative commons licensing for making content sharing simple.

Lastly, some wanton math humor:

• Some people still believe the earth is flat. Oddly, this misconception isn’t as old as many think.
• NYT’s Solzhenitsyn obit is 8 pages long.
• McCain makes his first visit to the internet, which, according to corrupt Senator Ted Stevens, is a series of tubes.
• Iran’s scientists may be on the verge of developing nuclear ballistic missiles, but they suck at photoshop.
• And in case you missed Trinity Day, here’s some background information on the detonation of the first atomic bomb.
• Beginning 9 August, The Orwell Trust will publish George Orwell’s diaries online, 70 years to the day after he wrote each entry.
• Bowser’s minions stage a mutiny.
• Typefaces have a conference to discuss membership requirements. Much funnier than it sounds.

Edit: Belated hat tip to Kristina, who noticed this ages before I did and included an anecdote about how left-leaning the WaPo is.

In the last 50 pages of In Defense of Food, he parses this guidance into an only slightly more complicated algorithm, the highlights of which are:

• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number or that include high-fructose corn syrup. I’ve been unable to find any bread in the supermarket that meets these criteria; the Whole Grain White Bread Pollan excoriates in the book contains over forty ingredients.
• Avoid food products that make health claims. The AHA seal of approval decorates the packaging of Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Trix, yet no sane person would consider these to be healthy breakfast options.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle. Meaning, stick to minimally-processed produce, meat, dairy and the like.

I’ve taken a few steps in this direction recently, and I may become even more drastic by going to farmers markets.

ALSO, if you want an avatar to display next to your comments, head over to gravatar.com and sign up.

That’s Ferdinand Ries’ 2nd Symphony, by the way. I promise this isn’t becoming a YouTube-regurgitation site.

This Weezer music video gleefully channels some of the funnier internet memes of this millennium.