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