Letters to the Editor: archive

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my first post

(posted on 2007-03-22 07:49:06)

Here is the first post to my new blog. Why has it taken me a long time to start one? I have been reading and commenting on other people's blogs for years. In my day job I am an official researcher of online communities and teacher of internet technologies. Let me tell you, I know what a blog is. A number of things have held me back, one of them being that I have feared for some time that the blogosphere may be overpopulating. And I spend all my time writing anyway, often for (academic) publication.

The trouble with academic writing, apart from the fact that few humans read it, is that most people have only one topic they can be published on. There are a lot of important issues that affect us all. Our world needs inclusive discussion. I produced zines and indie music in my youth which served as an outlet for non-professional musings. So you see, all the ingredients are in place.

I am pinching the idea for the blog name from Melbourne writer Ben Butler. He may not remember this, but he told me about 10 years ago that he was thinking of starting a zine called Ben's Opinion. (A zine was a home-made paper-based magazine that preceeded blogs.) I thought that was a hilarious name for a zine, and it stuck in my head. (Maybe you have to know Ben to find this funny.) As far as I know Ben has never used the name, and so, at least until he or someone who has copyrighted the word 'opinion' sues me, I'm calling my blog Greg's Opinion.

I was about to press the Create Account button at Blogger when I thought, instead of using a commercial site, I'll program my own. I teach the underlying technologies at uni (database and web programming), so why not reinvent the wheel. It's fun and I might use it as a student project later. I knocked this simple version together in a couple of hours tonight. I can fancy it up as I go. If you'd like to comment on anything you read here, you'll have to wait until I program that in.

I have a website with php and MySql already, which I use for my Spill label. The latter is a tag for a number of musical activities I am involved in. If you're reading this, haven't heard of Spill, and want to, shorten the url in your browser's address bar and you'll go there promptly.

May my blog read well and all who read in her.

reply 1 from acb: Welcome aboard. So far, it looks like an auspicious start. Next you need permalinks and then a RSS feed. :-)

reply 2 from Greg: I added a simple Permalink feature. Too simple? It just works on "PostId" (ie the primary key of the post table) - no dates or topics or anything.

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