Sentential Links #93 (The Neptunium Edition)

Ninety-three! And with that number, we have now produced one Sentential Links post for every one of the naturally-occurring elements, and are now into the ones that are generally produced only in nuclear experiments and such. Or something like that. I'm sure I have a chemistry or physics-minded reader who will correct me here, pronto.

Anyhow, the links:

:: Without us to care, the universe is nothing but a lot of empty accidents. But if humans care and remember, marvel at the shape of galaxies and the variety of butterflies, then those things do mean something.

:: Sometimes I think I've been alone so much in the last few years I've become fossilized, but so what.

:: The bottom line is that the kind of blogging I do, and the stuff that I'm passionate about, isn't a major draw as far as traffic is concerned, and I'm not willing to make the changes I'd have to make to have a shot at broader appeal and more traffic.

(OK, I actually have more to say about this one than usual. I feel the same way about eighty percent of the time. Maybe even more. Sometimes I get frustrated that my traffic remains firmly ensconced at around 225 hits a day -- with the commanding majority of those being Google hits, and the commanding majority of those being to ROWR! posts -- but generally, this is what it is, take it or leave it. I was never big at "blogwhoring" when I was newer at this, and now, five years down the road, I pretty much refuse to do any blogwhoring. I don't participate in comments threads elsewhere in hopes that people will click the link back here. I don't e-mail other bloggers with "Hey, I just posted on this". I figure I'm kind of like Crash Davis, who, when he finds out that Annie Savoy is interested in him and in Nuke LaLoosh, gets up to leave and says, "After twelve years in the minors, I don't try out."

Of course, it's easy to maintain that stance most of the time, but even Crash is visibly hurt when he gets brought into the office to be the recipient of the "This is a manager's hardest job" speech, which is why I think a bunch of people were annoyed at Atrios's "Blogroll Deletion Amnesty Day", or whatever it was that he called it.

I also don't really think that Blogistan is a "meritocracy"; in fact, I generally find that I don't believe much in meritocracies at all. I've seen too many people working for others less talented than they, and I've read of too many instances of people's work not being recognized for the quality work it was until well after they were gone. I generally don't think people give enough credit to the role luck plays in their lives.

A real example from my life: one thing that I've been doing a lot at The Store is learning basic carpentry skills. So I'm working hard to learn carpentry. But I wouldn't have realized I was actually interested in carpentry had I not been hired over three years ago not just to work at The Store, but to work in the specific position at The Store for which I was hired. And that was just by the pure luck that I happened to send in my application at right around the same time that my then-future managers were starting to get enormously frustrated with the guy already in that position. That guy doesn't get fired, I don't get hired for what I'm doing now. And then I'm not learning carpentry. And so on.

Same thing with blogging. It's not just that the best rise to the top. If Atrios had launched his blog a year later than he did, I doubt very much he'd be one of the top dogs in Left Blogistan. And I've never been either on his blogroll, or linked in a post of his.

OK, where was I? Oh yeah, Sentential Links. Sorry about that.)

:: Absolution requires a commitment not to repeat the sin.

:: You my have heard of a term called "white skin privilege". (I'd look up a reference but I don't have Internet access - see below). Whether you do or don't, and I'll contend that there is something to it, the greeting you see, I suspect, is an acknowledgement of a people looking after their own.

:: I've been impressed by the quality of Get Fuzzy for a while now, but in recent weeks, it seems that it has really hit its stride. (Goodness, has it ever. The whole storyline with all the extraneous animals showing up in Rob's house has been absolute gold.)

OK, that's all for this week.