Blogging is easy! Coding is hard.

Hello my friends,

Today I write to you with good news and yet, no news. I have been busily working on one of the parts of my "to do" list related to creating an image server for my site(s). I have a pretty good idea of how I want to do it, but it is slow. I have dual purposes, namely to make it an effective image server *and* to make it work with the same markup language as mediaWiki (the guys who write the code for Wikipedia).

Since I'll be starting out with a lot of Wikipedia-borrowed content, I hope to use as much of their markup language as possible in my own articles and commentaries. I hope this task doesn't prove to be too daunting, though I have managed to code a lot of the eccentricities of mediaWiki's markup language into my own code already. I need some time off to focus on this more closely... I have more ideas than time right now.

Oh keep your eyes posted my friends,
Sir Robyn

My "to do" list...

Oh my brothers and sisters,

I've barely begun to blog and I think that it is impossible to continue using someone else's software. Blogger is a fine product but I need to create my own blog sofware... it's what I do.

To get to where I can create my own blog I need to create:

• some nice reliable image uploading/downloading/resizing routines
  
• a nice little archive box
  
• a place for people to add themselves and followers
  
• some sort of comment boxes so that people can comment
  
• an RSS feed so people can follow my blog in their blog readers
  
• ... and some other things that I can't think of.
  

Oh this is going to be some huge pile of work but it will be worth it.

Time to code. Wish me luck,
Sir Robyn

About my Balls...

Hello my friends,

I'd like to talk to you about my balls. I'm speaking of the icons I've created for my various departments at SirRobyn.com. So far I have a nice set of balls, but somehow I think I need more... more balls. I've commissioned a good friend to help and I think this is the list of sub-departments that I'm considering. Please comment if you think I need more balls... or if this is too many balls.

Your friend,
Sir Robyn

P.S. Here they are:

Entertainment - Cinema - Television/Radio - Sports - Stage - Games

Literature - Poetry - Prose - Drama - Comics/Manga

Society - Politics - War - Law - Culture - History - Clowns

Music - Composers - Instruments - Musical Groups - Recordings

Science/Technology - Mathematics - Biology - Chemistry - Physics - Medicine - Engineering - Computers

The Arts - Painting/Drawing - Sculpture - Photography - Architecture - Fashion

Numina on SirRobyn.com

Salutations, penitent ones!

If you are not familiar with the word 'numina' look no further than this blog post. It is the pleural of the Latin word 'numen' which means 'presence' or to have the presence of a god or spirit. We can say that which is 'numinous' is that which we can not easily explain with ordinary common sense or scientific conjecture.

This department of SirRobyn.com will be filled to the brim with gods, goddesses, legendary heroes, myths, monsters and the practitioners and clergy who bid that we honor and obey these unseen works of the imagination. Prepare to forgive me my brothers and sisters for what is mythology to me may be religion to others and what is merely opinion to me... well for others may be no less than heresy.

There will be room on SirRobyn.com for all manner of opinion, however, and not just my own. As it was a thousand years ago, it is difficult in these times to invoke such names as Jesus or Mohammad without fear of fatwas, death threats or other perilous rebukes. Luckily we can not be pursued by our governments (most governments at least) for our beliefs... or lack thereof.

This site will have room for opposing points of view rather than articles that express only one empirical explanation of a person or idea. Where a follower of the Catholic faith may point to a person as a saint, a protestant might cast that same individual as a scoundrel, whilst the philosopher, from a third point of view, might view that person as a fellow thinker. Putting these views together in one place will encourage debate, thought, and with enough thought, understanding. This is my lofty goal.

May the gods be with you,
Sir Robyn

Philosophy on SirRobyn.com

Ponder this, oh my brothers and sisters,

When I first imagined SirRobyn.com it was to be a encyclopedic dictionary of philosophy. Then the problems began. How could I talk about Pythagoras without mentioning music? What is Galileo without astronomy? Could I mention Voltaire without making mention of literature? Philosophy simply touches all subjects and my vision for this encyclopedic dictionary grew and grew.

The philosophy section itself my be the smallest of the sections, but it will certainly be the dearest to me and the one that receives the most commentary. In our brave new world where technologies are reaching into every aspect of our life, we have new questions unanswered and the morality derived from the past seems not up to the task to deal with our new reality.

This section is the center and the heart of SirRobyn.com and I can assure you that you will find wisdom here.

Thoughtfully yours,
Sir Robyn

Administration on SirRobyn.com

Hey friends,

Posts with this black ball icon indicate that the post is about the general administration of SirRobyn.com Administration topics will vary from contributors to other bloggers to performance of the servers and so on.

The administrative section will also have news about the SirRobyn site itself, policies, press, kudos awards or anything else that is directly related to a site and not devoted to a non-SirRobyn topic. Tools for RSS feeds and other web related widgets and technologies will also be found here. Look no further than the administration section of SirRobyn.com to see what is happening there.

Sincerely,
Sir Robyn

P.S. Click on the black ball to go to the SirRobyn.com main page.

Science and Technology on SirRobyn.com

Greetings programs!

My blog postings with the purple ball are related to science and technology at SirRobyn.com. It is perhaps these areas where I have the highest pedigree, having been trained in computer science and mathematics. Unlike a traditional encyclopedia, this section will have more emphasis on new and emerging technologies with opinion, commentary and various media to give you the picture of what is coming and what is yet to come.

I hope to spend most of my personal time commenting in this section, so I hope you enjoy the ride.

Sincerely,
Sir Robyn

Geography on SirRobyn.com

Aloha travelers,

Blog entries and articles with the turquoise ball indicate that we are talking about geography. Developments in my geography section include the addition of Google maps and a gargantuan listing of every spot on earth in my database. The topic pages for my geographic locations promise to be spectacular. They are of course a work in progress, but you can have a look at the topic entry for Paris, France.

When completed, topic entries will have facts about the location, a better map interface, links to points of interest within the topic location, and links to whatever we can assemble in terms of text and other media. Over time we intend to add travel recommendations as well. This area will get a lot of attention soon.

Keep your eyes posted for more from the Geography Department!

Aloha!
Sir Robyn

Society on SirRobyn.com

People of Earth!

Society and all aspects thereof are discussed at the Social Studies Department in SirRobyn.com. Politics, history, war, and all the good an bad in the way we relate to one another will be found in this section.

Some extra added goodies for the Social Stuedes department will include current event news stories and subscribers will be able to add commentary. I expect it to be very cool.

Take me to your leader!
Sir Robyn

The Arts on SirRobyn.com

Hello artisans!

The Fine Arts Department at SirRobyn.com is dedicated to tactile and visual media. It is hard to separate art from other things (even blogging) and particularly difficult to separate it from topics that it engenders. As your host and humble developer, will attempt to wrestle away music into its own department. Also, the arts of a multi-media nature, i.e. TV, radio, film, video games, will fall into the Entertainment Department. Oh my brethren, do not despair to find that literature also has its own department too!

What is left? Well, consider that we have painters and their works from every century. We have sculpture, architecture, body art, photography, and fashion. Surely all of these will make for a very robust department indeed. So much of everything we see in our modern world was designed by the hands of an artist.

Enjoy!
Sir Robyn

Entertainment on SirRobyn.com

Hey fans!

Well of course SirRobyn.com would not be complete without including everything we do on this earth to entertain ourselves. While in some ways this section will be the lowest common denominator of this site, it is nonetheless likely to be the most popular and the most often visited.

What will be here? Movies, movie stars, TV shows, TV stars, sports, sports heroes and just about anything else you can imagine that keeps us entertained. Facts and figures about your favorite forms of entertainment and the entertainers that make them will be enhanced by clips, interviews, trailers, and whatever that I, your humble information gatherer can provide.

Everything a fan could want.

Sincerely,
Sir Robyn

Literature on SirRobyn.com

Felicitations, noble readers!

Well the literature department of SirRobyn.com is for those that read. You'll find biographies, excerpts, poems and plays and even free downloadable books that you can pop into your Amazon Kindles.

I'm not sure how I know everything I know, but being a bit of a reader myself, this section excites the heck out of me.

Your friend and humble narrator,
Sir Robyn

Music on Sirrobyn.com

Hey you cats and kittens out there!

Sir Robyn is a friend of music. So much so that I became a student of music from before I was in high school. I've always kept a guitar around and play for people when I can. My pedigree includes a load of music theory classes and some post secondary courses subjects as diverse as sound engineering, music history, computer music, composition and decomposition (a grad level course).

At SirRobyn.com I'll put my humble pedigree to work to build something that is considerably less humble. I can not speak of the length and breadth of it at this time oh you cats of considerable desire for new beats... but I can say that it will be an extensive resource of information.

Hit me two times! Uhhn, uhhn...
Sir Robyn

Video blogging explained...

Hey fans!

Unfortunately, I will not be explaining to you how upload videos. I will only be showing Bambi and Mary. For the rest of you, read a book!

Your friend,
Sir Robyn

P.S. Here is a video, to enjoy!

A new blog post with a twist!

This is a picture of me, Bambi (the cute one) and Mirabel (also cute, but no flower in her hair) enjoying eggs Benedict on a beautiful Easter Sunday afternoon.

Hey fans!

This blog entry is going to have a picture! OMGWTFBBQ!!! Can you believe that it only took 'til my third blog post to put a picture??? Unbelievable to me!!!

Cheers!
Sir Robyn

My second blog of the day...

Hey fans,

Today is one of those special days where I post two things. Can you believe it? The trees are still blooming and the sun is out and it is such a gorgeous day for laundry and blogging.

Easter Blogging Sunday

Today is the first Easter that I have ever blogged. I am showing others, so that they can also blog on Easter. I have never done this on a Sunday... or on a hill, or with hibiscus trees in the back yard, or on an Easter.