Isegoria

I’ve been blogging for 15 years!

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Isegoria

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Our Slovenian guest brought it to my attention that I’ve been blogging for 15 years! I don’t have Google Analytics going back to January, 2003, when this site was still hosted on Blogger.com, but I do have data going pretty far back, to December 2005, and my top posts over the years make an eclectic list:

  1. Icelandic skipper kills shark with bare hands (2003)
  2. Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics (2008)
  3. A One-Way Ticket to Mars (2009)
  4. Stalin’s half-man, half-ape super-warriors (2005)
  5. Rich, Black, Flunking (2009)
  6. The ‘Israelification’ of airports (2010)
  7. Foux du Fafa (Foux Da Fa Fa) (2007)
  8. He-Man Opening Monologue (2007)
  9. Archetypal Stories (2004)
  10. Myostatin, Belgian Blue, and Flex Wheeler (2004)

It all started as a way to share interesting links with friends and family and evolved into a digital commonplace book. I didn’t plan on accumulating a couple million page views.

(By the way, my first post was Foreign Scientists Are Stranded By Post-9/11 Security Concerns. Our Slovenian guest asked, “Whatever happened to the mentioned Heng Zhu? I hope to find out soon.” Well, a quick search shows that he made it back into the country and into an important position at Johns Hopkins‘ High Throughput Biology Center.)

I suppose this is a good time to ask you, my gentle readers, how did you find this blog? And what keeps you coming back?

Comments

34 responses to “I’ve been blogging for 15 years!”

  1. Grasspunk

    No idea how I found you but it was a long time ago. It’s all a blur of funny names. Aretae, Foseti, TJIC, Mangan’s Miscellany and about ten others.

    Looking back it seems like blogging has regressed a lot from those days. But we tweet, which is a way faster method of getting memed.

    Your commentariat keeps getting better. I look at the comment list on the right before anything else.

  2. Slovenian Guest

    Congratulations indeed and kudos for the continued effort. I raise my glass to thee, to 15 more! And it’s been so long that I don’t remember either when or how; Isegoria always just was. Yet I only discovered your twitter account last year or so, almost a whole decade after you joined… Maybe put a little birdie icon somewhere?

  3. Charles W Abbott

    I found it while searching for Robert Conquest’s Three Laws.

    The tags for indexing by author is one of the great features here. Everyone from Ed Banfield to Pasha Glubb (Glubb Pasha?).

    There are other interesting sites and essayists I’ve discovered here and found interesting and useful, such as Paul Graham and Weapons Man.

    The pseudonymous commenting is to be deplored It seems to be increasingly normal, and may be rational. Come to think of it, I don’t know who the blogger is. Thanks, Isegoria!

  4. Ted

    I can’t recall what rabbit hole I went down on the interwebs to get here, but I was drawn to your idiosyncratic topics and nuggets. So I keep coming back, because it’s easy on the eyes.

  5. Kgaard

    I just like your taste in links. You boil down the good stuff fast. I read just about all of it yet have no idea who you are or how I found the site.

  6. Buckethead

    Using your site’s search, the earliest mention of me was a link to a comment I made on Foseti’s site in 2010.

    Google found a comment from earlier that month, on a Tesla post. I thought it was earlier, but I’ve been reading you for most of a decade at least.

    I honestly can’t remember how I happened upon Isegoria. But it was about the same time as I found Aretae and Foseti. Maybe because you quoted Moldbug, who I had started reading about then?

    Looking at some of the old comments, what ever happened to Joseph Fouche and the Committee of Public Safety? I know Foseti stopped blogging in part because he didn’t want to get dangerously popular, but it’d be nice to have him back.

  7. Buckethead

    In my narcissistic rush to find out how long I’ve been reading the blog, I neglected to say congratulations on your 15 years. So, congratulations!

    If I had to restrict my reading to one blog, this would be it.

  8. Anonymous Machine

    Can’t remember how I found you. Probably a link off another aggregating blog. Now you’re in my select list of curated blogs. Always learning something new.

  9. Isegoria

    Grasspunk, I must agree, the commenters here bring real insights. It’s no accident that I put recent comments up there along the right, where they’re easy to see.

    It’s funny that you mention Aretae, Foseti, TJIC, Mangan’s Miscellany. Am I the only one left, blogging in the same basic format? I still follow Mangan, of course, but he’s a bit single-minded about fitness now. Oddly, I’d never even heard of TJIC until Borepatch mentioned him. Later, I ended up following him on Twitter, under an entirely different name (Morlock Publishing).

  10. Isegoria

    Now I feel like a transcendent being of pure energy, Slovenian Guest. Isegoria always just was.

  11. Isegoria

    Well, Charles, I guess that is one of my most popular posts.

    I’m glad you mentioned the indexing, because it always struck me as something that should be extremely useful, but I’ve never seen much evidence of it getting much use.

    I remember reading Paul Graham’s Hackers and Painters in hardcover, back in the day — lots of “aha!” moments there. It’s sad to know we won’t be reading any more Weapons Man posts, since he passed away last year. He never got around to writing that piece on grenade-launcher tactics I was waiting for.

    As for pseudonyms, I think they serve a clear purpose, but they work much, much better if a site’s moderated with a heavy hand. Random pot-shots never see the light of day here.

  12. Isegoria

    My idiosyncratic nuggets are easy on the eyes? I never really thought of them that way, Ted…

    Seriously though, I clearly have varied interests, and I personally want well-curated information — not just links, but not long, unedited documents, either. Just the good parts — like Grandpa’s version of The Princess Bride.

  13. Isegoria

    I’m glad you like my taste in links Kgaard. As you may have noticed, the blog really isn’t about me, but it’s definitely about things I find interesting.

  14. Isegoria

    Thanks for the high praise, Buckethead.

    I miss Foseti, too — especially since I was a fan back before he even was Foseti.

    I was definitely on the short list of folks discussing Moldbug back then. Good time, good times.

    I’m not sure what Fouché is up to these days, but if you squint, you might see him lurking in the comments, under an unassumed name.

  15. Isegoria

    It’s good to have you aboard, Anon. Keep learning!

  16. Jeffrey S.

    This has been one of my favorite websites for years and I probably have gotten more interesting links from you than just about anyone else (Sailer is the only other person who might come close.)

    I used to read Foseti regularly and Aretae (I actually met Aretae for lunch once in Chicago — he’s a character!) and another guy I liked a lot who took his blog down called “Sonic Charmer.”

    But only you and Sailer are still going…keep up the excellent work. You are amazing.

  17. Isegoria

    Jeffrey, thanks for the kinds words! And, yes, Aretae is a fun and interesting guy!

  18. Clark Cooper

    I come for your reliably interesting material on many topics that I would never thought to have searched for.

  19. Leaving a Reply

    I think I got to you via Winchell Chung somehow, possibly more than 10 years ago.

    My one request would be to change the light gray font that you use for quotations, because it makes it very hard to read. I’ve given up on more than one post here that I had found very very interesting but could not continue reading because of the light gray quotes.

    Thank you.

  20. Isegoria

    At first I thought, there’s no way I was reading Winchell Chung’s Atomic Rockets site a decade ago. Then I checked. I first cited “Nyrath” nine years ago, while discussing the language of clear thinking.

  21. David Whitewolf

    Congratulations from one of the crew of Random Nuclear Strikes, a blog of similar vintage, albeit more sporadic posting nowadays. I confess I have often refrained, especially recently, from posting my thoughts on our blog because I’ll find you’ve done it better already. No idea how I found you but probably Slate Star Codex.

  22. Graham

    Congratulations!

    I dimly remember reading you in the mid 2000s for several years — no idea how I found you then.

    I stopped reading many blogs after that 2001–7 era, not sure why or for what other stuff now.

    I found you again a few years ago [sometime between 2012–14?; I don’t know if it’s possible to search for my own comments to check that]. I don’t remember how that time either. I remember commenting something to the effect of remembering your site and being glad to find you still going strong.

    And I am. There are a lot of sites I keep in mind but few I check daily. You and naval blogger Cdr Salamander are my only two everyday checks in recent months. Huge fan of Z and Sailer among others, Derb too, but sometimes I just don’t have the will to engage too deeply. Despair sets in.

    I keep coming back because it seems you and other commenters are people with whom I am broadly sympatico on a range of topics, but there’s scope for disagreement, and because you give us just enough and well-chosen links to current civilizational crisis without neglecting other interests. You’ve led me to pop culture, SF, space, other scientific topics, and political philosophy matters among many other things. It’s a great site and I look forward to more.

  23. Graham

    Just to follow from Charles W. Abbott, for what it’s worth, this is just about the only place on the web where I consistently comment with my real name, albeit just given name. I think I’ve broken the practice only once or twice ,and I even remember flagging that to you for info.

    It’s just the kind of place where I want to realname myself. Exceptionally rare if not unique.

  24. Faze

    I may have come to this wonderful “commonplace book” through the Fresh Bilge blog, or possibly Two Blowhards. But what a pleasure it is to stop here every day for something new and enlightening. You do a fantastic job keeping the subjects lively and unexpected. All my best to you.

  25. Wais

    Congratulations, and I keep visiting because there is always something interesting here, although I never comment (first comment).

    I found you through the game blogs, but I don’t know when exactly.

  26. Slovenian Guest

    Also a shout-out to what I consider Isegoria’s unofficial sister site, one militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/, where Isegoria (when linked) is always referred to as the “Outstanding Internet web site Isegoria”!

  27. L. C. Rees

    A blog I was once affiliated with was linked from here. I found the algorithm here had a decent sense of eclecticism. The only thing it doesn’t feature is Patreon links for the Adopt a Pretender program.

  28. Borepatch

    I can’t remember where I first ran across you, either. Maybe Foseti (miss him, too) or Aretae (ditto). Wish Buckethead would blog again, but he has small kids he’s enjoying so understood.

    I have to say that you remain a daily read after all these years, which is pretty damn impressive.

    BTW, I think my first link to you is here. “Aretae to Isegoria to Fred”. Not a bad way to end (or open) an inning …

  29. Isegoria

    I went back, Graham, and found your first comment, on the spiritual core of The Lord of the Rings. (It reminds me how the Internet taught me how casual a Tolkien fan I was…)

  30. Isegoria

    I definitely used to read 2Blowhards, and I commented there from time to time.

  31. Isegoria

    I can’t say I’ve had much of a presence in the “game” world — that’s not the kind of game I tend to discuss — but if someone there sent you my way, excellent.

  32. Isegoria

    If you find yourself affiliated with another blog, L.C., let us know.

  33. Isegoria

    I guess I was mentioned in the comments at Slate Star Codex a couple times.

  34. Isegoria

    It looks like I linked to you, Borepatch, a few days before that. Wow, almost eight years ago!

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