There's a bit of a backlog in posts I intended to make, but exams have sort of got in the way. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before, these whimsical little posts lose their magic after a few days in my head, so I don't think I will post a lot of what I had intended.

There's lovely flaimbait to be found at Why Your Moveable Type blog must die. The author doesn't express himself too tactfully, and so it's quite easy to dismiss him as a troll, but he does raise the interesting issue of whether blogs are the scum of the internet. The rant is directed at MT blogs, but remarks on the inherent futility of blogs are abound. A related rant is this one, which offers more in terms of an semi-objective argument.

While many are quick to point out that there are good blogs out there, the argument is that the majority of blogs are a waste of space and so "must die", as the author colourfully puts it. The strongest argument against blogs is that they mess up Google. The claim is that most blogs simply provide links to a site and offer some pithy commentary that is usually quite trivial, and pretty much what everyone else in the world who is blogging is saying. This is of course greeted by cries of "too bad for Google!" by avid bloggers, who exert that it is their right to express themselves and that it's not their fault that Google gets confused.

One comment from the above site is "..people feel great after they post something on their blogs and they feel as if they have used their "right of expression" to the fullest..". Probably not intended as a generalization, but I thought I'd reflect a little on why I do this. I don't think it's the right of expression so much as the act of expression itself - there is a certain joy in expressing your thoughts in a concrete form, no matter how trivial they may be. I often treat the blog as a journal of my thoughts and experiences, from the facetious to the dead serious, so that no matter if no one else in the world could be bothered to read it, at least I can look back at what makes up my life at this very moment.

Being the introvert that I am, I am often consumed with thoughts, conversations and debates with myself, and opinions. In real-life I am non-confrontational and I think that by and large that is reflected in my blog, since I am always afraid of expressing my true opinion, lest someone else come and disagree. And of course, the act of expression is very cathartic when something is troubling you. I suppose we can deal with it in different ways. I tend to try and mull over it again and again in my head, so sometimes I try to express whatever haphazard thoughts I have in words.

As I have mentioned before, I originally intended this to be filled with truly profound stuff, philosophical exercises and the like, as well as anything related to programming. This was before I came to the conclusion that I am not really that bright, and therefore I can't really say anything meaningful on such subjects. All I've offered programming wise is "why I like C#", which is not quite I had in mind.

The second site actually has categories of blog authors. I believe I fall into quite a few of them -

• Reverse Voyeur? Spot on. I delude myself in thinking that people actually read this and find it informative and/or entertaining, and would love for passers-by to comment here, because that would make me feel like someone is listening.


• Tragically Geek? It's like you know me. I wouldn't call myself a (stereo)typical geek (I certainly don't know or don't intend to know anyone called "ph33rfr33k", for one), but the remarks on social skills are pretty much accuarte.


• Aspiring writer? Not generally, but sometimes I think I kid myself into thinking that what I'm doing is serious writing and expression of thought.

I am aware of the irony of this point probably perfectly fitting the description of pointlessness and what have you, but there you go. I truly believe that if anything, my blog can become the epitome of failure among weblogs, much like I am the epitome of failure among people.

So I think I've concluded that yes, this particular blog is useless, a waste of space, and that I as the author suffer from delusion and social isolation. But I shall blog anyway, not out of defiance, not out of a sense of "I can blog, so I will, and if you don't like it, tough!", but just out of a need to feed my own ego, to make myself feel more important, as if I've actually accomplished something with spending time posting here. Reality may be otherwise, but delusion my friends is a far more powerful device.