What Happens When I Press This Button? - Administrivia

Getting back into the swing

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:05:10 -0600

Right, so, when I started this thang, it was with the thought that I had lots of thoughts in my head that were better suited to this sort of environment than, say, LiveJournal. Mainly because LiveJournal fosters the idea of "community" and hence, more personal sharing, while an independent blog/column/whatever is exactly that -- independent. And I liked that idea.

Well, I actually do have all those thoughts in my head, yet, but for the last two months, I have gotten caught up in a strange kind of writer's block.

It's not that I have nothing to say. It's not even that I don't know how to say it. It's that, once I've written the article in my head, the actual effort of typing it out so others can read it (note how I presume others read when I post stuff :-D ) seems too much like work.

F**king Spammers

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 14:59:31 -0600

It was bound to happen eventually.

We got spammed.

I've deleted (I think) all the spam comments. Readers now must create an account if they want to comment here. Sorry.

Readers from LiveJournal who don't want to create yet another account somewhere are welcome to just leave any commentary on LiveJournal. I'll probably read it eventually, if not right away.

The Israeli Politics Story Remains Delayed...

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:28:19 -0600

...because Israeli politics keep changing every time I get a chance to sit down and look at them again.

For example, Ariel Sharon is reported to have just suffered his second stroke in three weeks, this time a significant one.

Combine this with the shifts in the political parties going on and...well, just at the moment, I'm not entirely sure where I'd start.

So, the article will happen, but not today...

Once upon a time...

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 18:04:40 -0500

...there was an escalator with a big red button, a four year old boy with more curiousity than sense, and a mother who threatened to sell him back to the gypsies.

...there was a geek with access to lots of toys. And one of the toys he had access to was a small server farm where he could play with software to provide various web content. After many years of helping others do this exact thing, he decided it was time to start providing some content of his own.

...there was another publication, also called What Happens When I Press This Button? That previous instance was a Star Trek fan club newsletter. Despite what you might think, I was rather proud of it at the time. Actually, thinking back on it, I think I still am, for all its inherent Trek-geekyness. Regardless, this is not a rebirth of that publication. I just like the name too much to not revive it, and it fits what I intend to do in this space several different ways.

"How so?" I hear you ask. Well...

This site is where I will write when I indulge my curiousity on a topic, and start delving deeper. I actually thought of calling it 'Deep Geekery', which is a tag I've used on LJ for a similar range of topics, but decided I liked this better. So it fits on two levels right there: the title nicely sums up my curious nature; and it's also similar to the question you, the reader, might be asking yourself when I'm done nattering, altho' that's likely to be more along the lines of, "Jeez, what button did I push?"

This is also where I will occasionally write about controversial topics, and hence, possibly pushing your buttons. Again, I will be trying to cover them in some degree of depth -- I'm not just going to throw a bald assertion out there to piss people off...well, not most of the time. Sometimes, I might need some help focusing my thoughts, and toss a question out that I know will get polarised responses. If you've read my LJ over the years, you've seen me do both.

So why not just keep on doing these things on LiveJournal? Good question. I'm still participating in LJ. While it's dysfunctional, it still allows a certain amount of 'connectedness' I might not otherwise have with the lives of people who are flung all over the globe.

But what I've discovered is that, because LJ has deliberately encouraged that idea of 'community', it is really better suited to the personal than the technical, political, or otherwise in-depth. So the personal is what I will continue to use it for. I will also post links there to here and syndicate to there so that people who want to can find my deeper ravings, because I do kinda like having an audience. I know some writers say that you should write for writing's sake, but if I don't think at least one other person is going to read it, I don't see much point in actually writing it down.

There may also be fiction here, after a while. I haven't written fiction seriously in quite some time, but I may do so here.

Anyway, that's what this site is about. For the moment, it's mainly my own thoughts. If people are reading it and want to join in the spirit of the deeper articles I write here by writing their own and sharing them through this site, just ask, and I'll probably let you. The original Button was a collaborative effort, and I wouldn't mind seeing this one become one, eventually, as well.