About

What is this all about?

Why do people feel a need to have their opinion on everything heard, whether they know anything about the topic or not? Why do I?

Well, that's a question for psychologists or even psychiatrists, and I am certainly not one (but I know some). Let's just say that, if it is a pathology, it can probably be considered a minor one.

Incidentally, Kundera had an interesting take on the "need to write", which is similar, but not identical to being a permanent fixture in blogs, Reddit, Discord and various comment section. A word on that here.

In my case, the drive can be most easily and accurately summarized by this comic by one and only xkcd, a.k.a. Randall Munroe

So, you will see here mostly rants, with an occasional "status report" (like those from 2004 when I was in Paris for half a year), or ... well, whatever.

And, BTW, you will often see links to external sites here, those to which I react, of course, but also to various information sources, most often Wikipedia. (Stop it right now: I know all Wikipedia shortcomings.) After all "blog" originally meant "web log" - not "log that happens to be on the web", but "log (diary, journal) about the things found on the web".

Just to warn you, I am not some grumpy cynic who is never satisfied with anything and knows it all. Well, I am old and grumpy, but I am also a romantic. To support that claim, here is my absolute favorite among Randall's work, a beautiful piece of scientific romance:

So, if you did not learn why is this blog there, at least you saw three examples of Randall's work.

Cheers!