I’ve been tossing back and forth about the nature and length of blog posts recently, and while I was going to give the entire topic a pass and go on happily typing a few recent events have made me decide to actually talk about it. The first of which was a discussion among coworkers regarding an article called: "Write Articles, Not Blog Postings". The second was a very good opinion piece on the topic by another coworker, taking the topic to the next step and discussing the blog as a delivery platform. The third was my own struggle to even complete a post (you wouldn’t believe how many unfinished drafts I have) and the last one was a recent list exchange that resulted in tl;dr’s from a few friends whose opinion would have been extremely pertinent (and in at least one case particularly desired).

The question I’m trying to answer is “How long should my posts be”, and the classic answer to that is “it depends”. There’s the question of topic, the question of depth, the question of time that I have in my day and the question of rigor. All of these fall together into something better described by a state diagram than a simple post, and everyone ends up with their own particular preference.

Apparently my dad won the Feenberg Prize.

For those of you who don’t do physics, this is apparently a big deal in the Quantum Multi Body Theory world.

Here’s an interview with my Dad about his award.

I will shortly be headed out to drive to Ithaca to cringe as my sister gets married. I am taking with me a batch of quarg, two tupperware containers of quarg that’s not done yet (yay hot car), four pounds of cherries, a bag of peaches, some plums, my blading foo, my laptop, freelancing doccos, camera, phone, handsfree set, half my music library in CD format, iPod nano, digicam, digicam charger, a selection of cheeses from PennMac, maybe something from stamooli’s, Biscotti from the biscotti company, Clothes, toiletries, suadesoles, backpacking pack, packing bag, two pairs of hiking shoes, shoe polishing equipment, compass, passport, stuff to write letters with, and a partridge in a pear tree.

And apparently the driving route is taking me right through the Allegheny National Forest. Awwww yeah. Definitely a stopping point if the weather’s nice, on the way there or back

Growing up bilingual, but mostly English, with sisters with a similar background, results in a bit of a strange sublanguage between siblings where we talk in German, but use American colloquialisms translated verbatim. It’s amusing, because it makes no sense to other Germans, and really only someone with a similar background can even make guesses at understanding us. KT might actually have a chance. So would JE

I have a strong inner core and understanding of what’s “proper”. Behavior, social expectations, etc. There are certain things you do, and certain things you do not do when someone is celebrating their wedding (of course, usually I ignore them, but that’s another story). It’ all well and good to call the bride beautiful, the groom handsome, the reception great, the food remarkable, but to use such adjectives is to reduce their worth through repetition. Practically everyone’s going to be doing that, after all. It’s… expected.