Welcome To My Blog

I was originally resistant to the idea of doing this. Who is going to care about what I have to say? Why should I bother spending the time to write this stuff when I am working on a PhD? Where am I going to find the time to write while working on a PhD., which already involves quite a bit of writing? What about my fiction writing?

That last point was actually what sold it for me. I have tried, repeatedly, to get published as a science fiction author, in such august magazines as Asimov's, Analog, and Amazing Stories. But what I wrote and submitted always needed more work. I don't mean the usual "an artist never thinks it's done" kind of work, but more the "this just doesn't sound... right" kind of work. And of course, as you can tell from 'tried', it was always rejected.

The real purpose here is to keep me writing. If I am writing all the time, then it stops being a special thing when I break out my fiction writing hat. Sure, it's a bit different in terms of content and style, but if I get used to writing for x amount of time, then maybe I can write fiction just as easily as these blog posts. So in the meantime, I hope you, the reader, find some of what I have to say interesting, and we'll see how this works out.

This blog is going to be a mix of things. I'll be doing politics, science, technology, games... basically whatever strikes me. If something turns up that is particularly good or that people are particularly interested in, maybe it will get more specialized later. One thing I am going to be watching for is factual accuracy. I am a scientist, and nothing annoys me more than an unsupported argument, at least one that is phrased as factual. So I am going to try my best to make sure everything I talk about as a fact is a correct fact, and I hope that any discussion will do the same.

That's it for this opening. Tune in next time for...