My 2023 essay is published in the Precursors section. It retains the old form described on the Precursors page, but is, I hope, a step towards more extensive synthesis.

I haven’t written anything for the site, but in my professional capacity as Senior Staff Scientist, I am doing a lot of work very much like what I intend here. The subject matter is different, multi-dimensional technical and business topics, rather than books, but the skill set is largely the same. My reading continues to expand into fresh areas and my skill at researching scientific papers is increasing. All of which is solid preparation for the work I intend to do here when time and energy permit.

The Precursors page now collects a few of “My Year In Books” essays. So the site is no longer “just a frame”.

After my first post, I decided that phase one of this project must be developing some basic competence with the WordPress platform and establishing a sound technical framework for my site. After struggling with some dreadfully bad online learning tools, I went looking for something better, and found an old standby: an O’Reilly book.

O’Reilly books have been my go-to throughout my career whenever I needed to learn a software system or language. They combine excellent conceptual presentation with practical detail. There is nothing else like them, and this is well known in tech circles. So much so that it is said, truthfully in my estimation, that “the Internet was built on O’Reilly books”.

“WordPress: the missing manual: The book that should have been in the box” did not disappoint. It provides the needed concepts and techniques to know how to get around the platform, do the main tasks, and provides a reference for more sophisticated requirements in the future. So my site is now mobile friendly, has the right anti-spam and security foundation, backups, and a basic look. I hope it provides an intriguing frame for the project.

Content and appearance are separate in WordPress—they are combined to give you a page when you ask for it. “Themes” are the WordPress tool for specifying the look. I rummaged around in themes (there are ~60,000 available) and found they are not interchangeable, and that maybe 5-10% are compatible with my envisioned content. I selected a starter theme and have 4 alternates on-deck; I will watch that space as the site evolves.

This site will be word heavy—that’s the point. But I decided to add a little visual interest by way of photos highlighting the Midwestern beauty of Wildwood, the suburb of St. Louis, Missouri in which I live. I started with a photo from late last fall of a vista in Rockwoods Reservation, a nearby park. I envision expanding this collection to show all four seasons and a variety of vistas. Most images will be from Wildwood, but I expect to add the occasional shot from other parts of the greater St. Louis Metro region as well as Missouri. I intend for the image set to be entirely local within those parameters.

So now I can turn to content. I spent a few minutes writing down some thoughts and came up with a dozen working titles. Only one of them permits me to work just from my head. All the others require significant interaction with texts. For me writing is thinking—I start with a hypothesis and work from there. If the exercise does not evolve or expand or modify from the kernel I start with—then what was the point? My career and writing experiences have taught me that this is a fruitful approach, and once I get going, there is no real limit to the range of topics or interaction that are possible.

Here begins my blog. My career as a software engineer taught me to get the smallest element working as soon as possible and then iteratively add to it. Or as my wife says, “Well begun is half done.”

I recently selected WordPress.org as my software platform. It provides all the power I could ever need and a variety of hosting options so I will own and control my content. I know just enough to post a page right now and will learn more over time–and there is a lot to learn.

I have lots of content ideas but a limited amount of time to develop them with my work responsibilities. I hope to post a few things over the next several months and share with a few people I know as I figure this thing out and where it might go.