If you’re one of those who are crazy enough to visit this blog occasionally, you know that it has been blank for months… and before that it had not been updated for years. I remember back when Transmeta was in stealth mode, and their corporate web page had nothing but a single line of text, and I would still visit every month or so, just to see if they’d finally replaced that line of text with an actual Web site that explained what the hell they were doing. But I had an excuse: Linus Torvalds worked for Transmeta. I’m not a rock star like Linus, so I’m pretty sure my audience is now approaching zero.

I spent years debating whether or not to continue blogging at all – partly because I don’t believe in using a public blog as an online diary of your personal life, and partly because I don’t have the time or inclination to focus on a single big topic like politics or engineering or web design. I feared that my online writing would be a hodgepodge of self-indulgent mutterings that I would be well advised to keep to myself.

But I’ve gotten over this hangup after reading Why You Should Blog, which you should read immediately. Then, go start a blog. (Several of my friends, many of whom are less shy about keeping online diaries, have accounts on LiveJournal, where pseudonymous blogging is common.)

Incidentally, I found this essay through Reddit, a service which I have only visited once, for 30 seconds, and which I therefore know nothing about. But, as a tool for finding excellent essays to read, it’s 1 for 1, so I will have to try it some more.