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Jul 25, 2024: Finished Listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers 📚
Jul 25, 2024: Switched the blog theme to Sumo by Matt Langford.
Jul 25, 2024: Finishing up Godot 4 Shaders: Craft Stunning Visuals, here are some 3D shaders:
Jul 23, 2024: I’m enjoying Kaan Alpar’s Godot Shaders course, and finished the 2D section last night. In this video, the animated background, greyscale, …
Jul 21, 2024: Currently listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers 📚
Jul 19, 2024: Finished Listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport 📚
Jul 16, 2024: What's next for games? Two years ago, while my son was attending an event at the library, I spent some time flipping through a book about the Unity game engine (maybe this …
Jul 15, 2024: I’m working on a tech-company name generator for a project, some examples from a recent run: Vibrant Institute The Logic Company Urban Mammoth …
Jul 12, 2024: In the NYT top 100 books of the 21st century, I’ve only read the two graphic novels and a book about comic books authors…
Jul 9, 2024: Currently listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport 📚
Jul 9, 2024: Finished Listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan 📚 It’s been a while since I’ve had the sensation of being sad when a book ends. I want to …
Jul 6, 2024: Currently reading: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville 📚 Not my first time starting, but maybe recording it here will motivate me to finish.
Jul 6, 2024: Finished reading: Further Explorations: 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A Reed 📚
Jul 4, 2024: Currently reading: Further Explorations: 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A Reed 📚
Jun 28, 2024: Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚
Jun 26, 2024: Got tickets for Fredericksburg Comic Con.
Jun 26, 2024: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚
Jun 26, 2024: Finished reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed 📚
Jun 24, 2024: Currently listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan 📚
Jun 22, 2024: Ever since I started tinkering with gamedev (and Godot specifically), one thing I’ve periodically attempted is a recreation of the mac game Spin …
Jun 22, 2024: Finished Listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff 📚
Jun 22, 2024: I’ve been waiting my whole life for this email.
Jun 20, 2024: My excellent son Benjamin(10) has created BenKardian, his two-player take on the classic solitaire game Accordian.
Jun 19, 2024: Sometimes I play games I still haven’t entirely kicked the Marvel Snap habit, but I feel like I’ve made peace with it. It’s a thing I enjoy, so I …
Jun 18, 2024: Currently reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed 📚
Jun 18, 2024: Finished reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy 📚 Much shorter than the …
Jun 17, 2024: Currently reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy 📚
Jun 17, 2024: Finished reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy 📚 Good stuff, I’ll probably go back to the more practical …
Jun 13, 2024: Current view:
Jun 10, 2024: Finished reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers 📚 I skimmed some chapters, but will definitely keep it around for …
Jun 9, 2024: GameDev.tv jam results for The Last Stan: I’m happy to have gotten #59 (out of over 1000) in the mechanics category, and a decent showing …
Jun 7, 2024: I don’t like this new world where swiping your credit card at a business automatically signs you up to receive their marketing emails.
Jun 4, 2024: “The Last Stan” is live on itch.io and submitted to the gamedev.tv jam. It’s a platformer, with typing. It’s not my favorite …
Jun 1, 2024: Hey, an actual #screenshotsaturday : For the gamedev.tv jam, I’m working on a platformer where you escape alien ships and defeat ground-based …
May 30, 2024: I spent the first part of my life in the Hazleton, PA area. Here’s a really cool 10 minute video about the “city under the city”, a …
May 29, 2024: I never thought I’d say this, but… I get too many emails from Run the Jewels.
May 28, 2024: Whole Earth 📚 Currently listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff 📚 A year or two back, I listened to Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, …
May 28, 2024: Finished Listening: The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2 by Steven L. Kent 📚
May 24, 2024: I think I’ll try to make something for this year’s gamedev.tv jam(which kicks off tonight), if the theme is interesting. Ten days to work, …
May 19, 2024: I’ve made a few minor fixes to Zummoning recently: Cards get dealt in a smoother, less jerky manner Help text now stays on screen for as long …
May 19, 2024: Currently reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy 📚
May 18, 2024: Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or The Continuing Adventures of Miles O’Brien.
May 17, 2024: Orchestrator I spent some time last night and this morning learning about Orchestrator, a visual scripting plugin for Godot. I was mostly taking a look to see if …
May 15, 2024: GameOps I used the Pong Wars deployment as an excuse to try out GitHub actions. It’s nice! Almost too nice, like the fact that it’s free makes me …
May 13, 2024: Pong Wars I’ve published my Godot re-creation of Pong Wars by Koen van Gilst on GitHub (and embedded it below!) It’s not exactly a game– more …
May 11, 2024: People who think the web is dead or dying haven’t used the Domino’s Pizza Tracker.
May 10, 2024: I recently updated my /games page so that each game has video.
May 6, 2024: Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris 📚
May 5, 2024: The kiddo and I had a good time at NOVA Game Developers Meetup this afternoon! It was fun to play games, show what we’ve worked on, and chat …
May 4, 2024: Today is Free Comic Day, for those who observe
May 1, 2024: It’s like they really see me.
Apr 29, 2024: GWJ 68 Results Honestly, I had convinced myself that I was going to rank higher in Godot Wild Jam #68, at least in the originality category. Being in the top third …
Apr 25, 2024: Here’s footage of gamedev and streamer ObsidianBlk playing The Zummoning!. He’s got some (entirely fair) critical feedback, which I …
Apr 25, 2024: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris 📚 Part 2 comes out next month, and I want to refresh my memory of the characters and …
Apr 25, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 8: Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman 📚
Apr 21, 2024: Zummoning Redux I’ve made many improvements in the new version of “The Zummoning” submitted to Godot Wild Jam. Unfortunately, the name isn’t …
Apr 19, 2024: More Zummoning I’m cleaning up “The Zummoning” for submission to Godot Wild Jam this weekend (The GWJ folks usually disallow games submitted to …
Apr 16, 2024: If this works, then this blog post was published with Godot!
Apr 16, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman 📚
Apr 15, 2024: “The Zummoning” (which only occurred to me when I realized I had to name the thing) has been submitted to Ludum Dare 55. It needs a TON of …
Apr 14, 2024: I think I’m onto something promising, but I’m not feeling confident that this will actually be a fun game and not look like ass by the jam …
Apr 13, 2024: 19 or so hours into this 72-hour game jam, and I’m only just starting to code. So far, I’ve spent time researching demons, sketching out a …
Apr 13, 2024: What privacy laws only apply to ages 13-15?
Apr 11, 2024: Working on a Godot recreation of Pong Wars. I might write this up as a tutorial?
Apr 9, 2024: I struggle to resist: Monte Cristo on a restaurant menu bread pudding on a restaurant menu audio humblebundles
Apr 7, 2024: Currently reading: Make Your Own Pixel Art by Jennifer Dawe 📚 I’ve started a few video tutorials on pixel art, but didn’t manage to stick …
Apr 6, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman 📚
Apr 5, 2024: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a new report on banking in video games and virtual worlds, which might be interesting to gamedev …
Apr 4, 2024: I love that electoral-vote.com basically looks the same as it did in 2000.
Apr 3, 2024: It seems like my schedule is clear enough that I’ll be able to participate in Ludum Dare 55, April 12-15. It was fun last time. My goal on this …
Apr 1, 2024: At the kiddo’s taekwondo class, where it’s “blocking week”. Somehow, it’s never “ducking week” or …
Mar 30, 2024: Achievement unlocked: pirating the Webelos Handbook. (I swear, we have a copy in the house, I just can’t find it)
Mar 30, 2024: We rejoined Netflix this week, and I’m a little surprised by how big the included library of Android games has gotten. Any recommendations? …
Mar 28, 2024: Spoons, Brakes This feels a bit like cheating: but immediately after my last post on the topic, I built a paper prototype of the Spoon Theory game using index cards. …
Mar 28, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman 📚 He’s not “taking a bath”, he’s in the bath tub.
Mar 24, 2024: The hardest part is starting I still like my spoon-theory game concept (as amended), though there’s a lingering skepticism over whether the thing I’ve described will …
Mar 22, 2024: I assumed that replacing our aged wireless router (whatever Verizon gave us, 12 or more years ago?) would improve performance, but kind of surprised …
Mar 14, 2024: A Solution Me, a couple of hours ago: Is it possible to take what I’ve described and actually make it fun and challenging? Or, will the right path (or a right …
Mar 14, 2024: Idea File Found this list of ideas I had posted to Twitter over some number of years. It’s not all gold, but I still like a few of them: a first-in, …
Mar 14, 2024: Spoon theory game: initial concept and prior art Here’s my initial concept for the spoon theory game: Each level/puzzle is a grid, with a starting location and one or more “must do” …
Mar 10, 2024: Finished reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer 📚
Mar 9, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman 📚 This is my favorite storyline in the whole Sandman series– probably …
Mar 9, 2024: BuJoBook Finished reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll 📚 I skimmed or skipped some of the more philosophical material (like a chapter on …
Mar 8, 2024: Currently reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll 📚 I’ve been using a bullet journal for a couple of years now, but lately, …
Mar 7, 2024: I was thinking about watching Midsommer, but reading the Wikipedia article was just enough horror for me.
Mar 7, 2024: Finished Listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚
Mar 5, 2024: Spending the evening at Fairfax County Government Center, shuttling election materials between the loading dock (where I found this sign) and offices …
Mar 4, 2024: Currently reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer 📚
Mar 4, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman 📚
Mar 1, 2024: A jam of my own One thing I’ve learned about myself after participating in a couple of game jams: I like having deadlines. So, I’m going to try setting a …
Feb 29, 2024: Brakes Escape update I’ve done a round of post-jam tweaking on Brakes Escape. The game no longer simply stops generating new platforms (and walls!) once you hit a …
Feb 26, 2024: Currently listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚
Feb 25, 2024: Surprised that, for a published-this-month technical book, Thrift Books had more inventory on hand and a better price than Amazon.
Feb 23, 2024: Results are in– I was hoping for higher scores generally , but I’m pleased with getting #14 in the “fun” category. I am …
Feb 20, 2024: “Flash of light-mode content” is the new flash of unstyled content.
Feb 19, 2024: Godot Wild Jam 66 postmortem Some lessons learned from my recent game jam experience: Don’t wait until the very end of the jam to download the export templates bundle (see …
Feb 18, 2024: Brakes Escape, my submission to Godot Wild Jam #66, is live on itch.io. There are a couple of bugs, half-baked feaures , and other compromises made in …
Feb 18, 2024: Escape game Previously, I posted two ideas for Godot Wild Jam 66. I ended up spending a few days on the first one and realized I didn’t like where it was …
Feb 14, 2024: I’m the PTA volunteer keeping an eye on our elementary school’s “tech club” again this session, and this time they’re …
Feb 14, 2024: I’ve been pretty lazy about static typing in GDScript - but it’s pretty cool to see that there are performance benefits.
Feb 13, 2024: Want to read: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚 The first book was great, and I’m excited to read what happens next. Maybe …
Feb 10, 2024: Nah I’m good Samsung
Feb 10, 2024: GWJ ideas Current thinking for the jam, either: starting over from scratch on the NS-Tower-inspired game I’ve tinkered with on and off (see a GIF of it …
Feb 9, 2024: Godot Wild Jam #66 I’m signed up for Godot Wild Jam #66, with a theme of “Escape”– which is pretty straightforward, as far as game jam themes go. …
Feb 8, 2024: This post from @manton prompted me to finally try out Bluesky– so far, it feels kind of like the uncanny valley version of Twitter? I’ll …
Feb 7, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman 📚 (actually, re-listening to Act I of the Audible adaptation of The …
Feb 3, 2024: Finished reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew 📚
Feb 3, 2024: #screenshotsaturday My son and I are still making tweaks to the roguelike that resulted from following @selinadev@indiepocalypse.social’s tutorial: a new spell, …
Jan 31, 2024: The lyrics to “Parents Just Don’t Understand” aren’t as lighthearted as I remember.
Jan 28, 2024: Currently reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew 📚
Jan 25, 2024: One of the more annoying differences between gdscript and Python: that Python capitalizes True and False, and gdscript does not.
Jan 24, 2024: Finished reading: Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith 📚
Jan 24, 2024: Currently reading: Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith 📚 Checked this out for the kid, but I’m a grown-up and I can read it first if I want to.
Jan 23, 2024: Finished Listening: Story by Robert McKee 📚
Jan 23, 2024: Screen shake makes pretty much anything better.
Jan 19, 2024: Donelike I did the thing! I finished all 13 parts of Selinadev’s Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. There were a good number of things that were new to me: …
Jan 15, 2024: I generally don’t care much for professional sports, but I definitely feel some nostalgia for the time before sports betting was everywhere.
Jan 14, 2024: Anti-deliverabity I received a (legit) notice of eligibility for this Verizon settlement in my junk email folder. I know there are best practices and a class of …
Jan 14, 2024: Currently reading: The Treasure of the Black Swan by Paco Roca 📚
Jan 13, 2024: Finished reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom 📚 Honestly, I skimmed quite a bit– some parts seem more geared to engine …
Jan 13, 2024: #screenshotsaturday I’ve finished part 11 of roguelike tutorial. Now, you can delve deeper into the dungeon, and the player gains experience points and levels. …
Jan 13, 2024: This pepper has a pepper in it!
Jan 12, 2024: This history of gamification within games was more interesting than I expected. These are the game-y things like experience points, levels, and …
Jan 11, 2024: Seeing chatter about a new BBEdit release has me a little nostalgic. I used BBEdit Lite while HTML-ifying recipes for Hershey in the 90’s. …
Jan 6, 2024: #screenshotsaturday I’m up to Part 10 of @selinadev@indiepocalypse.social’s Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. What’s new? Potions to heal with Scrolls of …
Jan 4, 2024: … and that is the most words I’ve written for public consumption, in quite a long time.
Jan 4, 2024: Blogging retrospective Via CRASH THE ARCADE, I learned of Matt Mullenweg’s birthday wish: I want you to blog. Publish a post. About anything! It can be long or short, …
Jan 1, 2024: Finished Listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog 📚
Jan 1, 2024: Currently listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog 📚 I picked this up after finishing Herzog’s memoir, both because the story sounds …
Jan 1, 2024: Gamedev Goals for 2024 In the next year, I’d like to: Watch less YouTube, watch more Udemy, more O’Reilly Learning, more books, more blog posts and independent …
Dec 31, 2023: Ending the year by starting a course of paxlovid…
Dec 31, 2023: Finished reading: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog 📚
Dec 30, 2023: I couldn’t stay away– I once again have an account on the gamedev.place mastodon server. The main thing I missed was …
Dec 30, 2023: Roguelike, Part 7 I just finished part 7 of the roguelike tutorial. New stuff: Baddies! … that chase you … and can also die (but you can die too) A user …
Dec 26, 2023: Currently reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers 📚 Christmas present from the kiddo!
Dec 26, 2023: Currently listening: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog 📚 Forgot to add this, I’m about halfway through. Contains more …
Dec 25, 2023: CBS is missing an opportunity to point out that that they have Drew Carey followed by Mariah Carey
Dec 20, 2023: fixed it I usually don’t consider myself very “handy”, but I’m proud of the job I did today switching which side the refrigerator door …
Dec 19, 2023: I’ve been working through SelinaDev’s Godot 4 roguelike tutorial and I like it so far. I just finished part 4 (of 13). There are no …
Dec 17, 2023: Finished reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt 📚
Dec 14, 2023: Not sure I buy the “dominos falling” theory, but interesting/sad that Firefox might be about to fall under the USWDS 2% threshold for …
Dec 11, 2023: As of yesterday, Doom is 30 years old
Dec 10, 2023: It’s interesting that Newsblur, Pinboard.in, and micro.blog all make bookmark archiving part of their premium offering. Maybe it’s an easy …
Dec 8, 2023: I was a happy Newsblur user for a number of years, but decided to give it a break for while, trying out non-cloud options like Rad Reader. But, none …
Dec 8, 2023: My favorite bit in the new Aesop Rock album might be where he spends a bar explaining the previous line (from ‘100 Feet Tall’, a story …
Dec 4, 2023: twenty thousand milliseconds I’ve submitted twenty thousand milliseconds to the 20 Second Game Jam. I’m not even necessarily sure it qualifies as a game. Maybe …
Dec 1, 2023: Bonus complaint: mastodon polls don’t translate over, they just disappear– compare this to how that conversation appears on micro.blog.
Dec 1, 2023: A month on micro About a month ago, I migrated my mastodon account over to this blog (via micro.blog’s built-in support for ActivityPub). How’s that going? …
Nov 30, 2023: What are your favorite websites that aren’t around anymore?
Nov 27, 2023: I’m not sure we’ll watch Merry Little Batman, but it brings me some joy to see Jingle Bells, Batman Smells in an official DC production.
Nov 27, 2023: Decker I’ve likened Godot to Hypercard before– they aren’t directly comparable, but my experience using Godot brought back a sense of …
Nov 23, 2023: Currently reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt 📚
Nov 22, 2023: My excellent co-worker Adam created this online tuner for community radio stations: www.ldial.org (which is also excellent)
Nov 22, 2023: Troubleshooting before coffee I spent at least 30 minutes trying to figure out why the score in my game wasn’t updating past the first point. It would go from 0 to 1, but …
Nov 22, 2023: This is a good bundle of security books. I can vouch for Threats and Security Culture Playbook being worthwhile, and Software Transparency is on my …
Nov 21, 2023: Testing out Lillihub!
Nov 21, 2023: Currently reading: How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk by Douglas W. Hubbard 📚 Two chapters in, and I really appreciate learning about: The …
Nov 21, 2023: Currently reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom 📚
Nov 21, 2023: I need to study this some more, but there are some good ideas in this cATO playbook, and the manifesto it links to: …
Nov 21, 2023: Considering learning C#. I don’t even know who I am anymore.
Nov 19, 2023: Deadly Class Finished reading: Deadly Class Vol 12: A Fond Farewell, Part Two by Rick Remender 📚 Some of the late-middle volumes were a bit of a drag for me, the …
Nov 15, 2023: Long after I’m dead, there will still be articles using this picture I took in 2004 www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2…
Nov 15, 2023: Personal SEO I’ve been spending some time trying to clean up search results for my name (yeah, kind of douchy, sorry), and one thing that’s been vexing …
Nov 10, 2023: Back to making One week turned into three weeks, but I feel like I’ve worked that particular digital addiction out of my system (and diving in to Snap has …
Nov 6, 2023: Bowling with bumpers is underrated. It’s a little more like billiards.
Nov 1, 2023: DragonRuby, which usually costs $48, is free right now, as part of the 20 Second Game Jam
Oct 30, 2023: 13 years ago we were at the Rally to Restore Sanity. Have we restored the sanity yet?
Oct 28, 2023: I let myself get sucked into Marvel Snap this week, so spent more free time playing games instead making them. I have started experimenting with Godot …
Oct 25, 2023: Currently reading: Deadly Class Vol. 5: Carousel by Rick Remender 📚 The first four volumes were a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a sort of …
Oct 25, 2023: On the same day I learn about this gallery of Internet Artifacts, I also come across this bit about the worlds oldest continuously-seeded bittorrent …
Oct 22, 2023: As part of Space Day the kiddo and I got to check out the observatory at George Mason University. 📷 🚀
Oct 21, 2023: Probably my last post about Ludum Dare 54 maybe The results are in, and… it’s nothing to brag about. I do like that innovation is my strongest category again. I don’t know exactly …
Oct 21, 2023: I took the plunge– this is now my “home” on the fediverse. I think micro.blog has a healthier vision for social media, and I’m …
Oct 21, 2023: The post-jam, cleaned up version of Don’t Get Crushed is now on itch.io rosskarchner.itch.io/dont-get-…
Oct 19, 2023: Got a flier in the mail from Chris Decarlo for Sherrif, which reminds me of his history of rapping campaign videos: youtube.com/@CDRapper…
Oct 19, 2023: I’m not lazy, I’m just protecting the ecosystem www.nytimes.com/2023/10/1…
Oct 18, 2023: Currently listening: Story by Robert McKee 📚
Oct 18, 2023: Finished Listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary 📚
Oct 18, 2023: I’ve never really worn sunglasses, and now I’ve got my first prescription pair. Meanwhile my regular glasses are at the optometrist to get …
Oct 18, 2023: Even a “bad” Futurama episode is usually pretty good– but the worst are the ones that try to be relevant for the time they were …
Oct 16, 2023: Currently listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary 📚
Oct 16, 2023: Currently reading: Deadly Class - Regan Youth Media Tie-In by Rick Remender 📚
Oct 16, 2023: Don't Get Crushed updates 🎮 Here is some weekend progress on Don’t Get Crushed (post-jam version, to be released after the review window closes): Fixed the janky …
Oct 14, 2023: Jumping Game progress 🎮 Not much visible progress since I lasted posted this game, but I have implemented both the spring platforms and the “slam” mechanic (which …
Oct 13, 2023: I temporarily experimented with importing my Mastodon followers to micro.blog. Sorry about the follow-spam!
Oct 13, 2023: From a recent trip to the new LEGO Discovery Center in Springfield, VA 📷
Oct 13, 2023: After a couple of days on wordpress.com, I decided it wasn’t for me. So, after a journey in the wilderness, I’m back on micro.blog!
Oct 12, 2023: Morning progress 🎮 So far, I've addressed a few items from the feedback list: There is now a visible score Players can restart the game after dying using the up arrow …
Oct 11, 2023: Ludum Dare 54: Don't Get Crushed Don't Get Crushed was my submission to Ludum Dare 54, my second-ever attempt to enter a game jam. The game didn't end up much like what I was …
Oct 11, 2023: Oh no, not again It's 2023 and I'm starting a blog. Again. Why? I'll write more later, but in the past I've enjoyed have a blog as a sort of public notebook, for …