The Blogging Dan

Offended
The thought that other people who are not me reading my blog (well, reading is probably not the operative word, as I'll elaborate) makes me feel guilty and ashamed. I guess it's a strange thing to say - of course, why else would I bother? But I don't think of it like that. I felt a little guilty because this blog is self-indulgent and uninformative. It made me question if I'm 'doing a good enough job' until I shelved those thoughts as ridiculous. I don't have to be meticulous.

Defensive
I struggle with this blog. That is to say, I struggle to write on this blog. That is to say, nowadays at least, I struggle to write coherent flowing sentences on this blog or anywhere else. I put it partly down to an extremely haphazard mind which allows me to burst utterances in snippets, but inhibits me to produce readable and interesting descriptions of what I do and think. Myself and my (blog-virtuoso sister) blues came from the same farm, but we must have been kept in different barns. I reason that it's why I take to twitter etc, also the reason why I like coding and links (I'm of the opinion that, nowadays at least, it is almost more important to keep an arsenal of hyperlinks in your brain to be able to retrieve information quickly than it is to store the information inside your brain). When I actually think about how I sound to other people, I often reach the conclusion that I must sound like a verbal scattergun, or random words caught by the listener on the other end of a very bad telephone line.

If this blog contained well-considered articles about my opinions on the events in the news, or well-constructed stories about my life, then it wouldn't be my blog. I'm good in other ways. I also know that my blogging 'ability' depends strongly on what I perceive as interesting for other people. Most of my time nowadays is taken up with my various 'projects', all of which involve computers:

1) learning Python, and recoding all my MATLAB image processing scripts
2) watching hours of underwater video of gravel moving around
3) developing a computer program to do face-detection and affine transformations (face warping - I know this has already been done, but its so much fun and a challenge to do an open-source one)
4) learning and using Canon Hackers Development Kit (CHDK)

Yes, America has turned me into a bigger geek than ever and, admit it, you're not interested in any of that, so what you get is pictures. All of which, as a parting shot to my perception of your flagrant and outrageous disinterest, are offshoots of my hobbies ;-). I'm a complicated guy. I'm also Kip from Napoleon Dynamite (and probably Napoleon Dynamite as well, come to think of it).

Offensive
Most of my blog posts are pictures and videos for a good reason - because I assume you, dear reader, are like me - you don't want to read words - you want instant gratification; a snapshot of my life. The eye can't help but look at a picture thrust under it, but it takes effort and time and a fresh mind to read (a statement which underlines the 'separate barns hypothesis' - see here). Also, images tell a much better story than I could ever tell.

The other thing is - man, this is sounding like one of my rambles, and a long sick note - my blogs (let's not forget Zesty) are a creative outlet for me. I need to create all the time. I constantly need to be doing something new. I finally got round to buying myself a guitar the other week - I've been playing for years, but ask me to play a song that you'll recognise and I'll struggle. That's not because I listen to or play obscure music, its because I spend hours and hours 'experimenting' with sounds. Don't get me wrong, I can play ok - I happen to think I'm a musical genius and I know that one day when I get bored of science, I can easily forge myself a career in entertainment. This blog is the write-up of an experiment which has no clearly-states objectives. However, I'm not sure if I'll change the way I blog, because this blog is about as me as I am.

Dumbledore's Pensieve


Well, I couldn't leave without a picture ;-) Also, a good illustration of knowing where your knowledge is, but keeping your thoughts outside your brain to your benefit.