As our Slovenian guest recently pointed out, I’ve been posting to this blog for 20 years! My very first post was about some news that hit a bit close to home: Foreign Scientists Are Stranded By Post-9/11 Security Concerns. (It looks like Dr. Heng Zhu was allowed back into the country. He’s at Hopkins now.)
I would recommend going back and skimming through the archives, but none of the monthly archives before September, 2006 seem accessible. Sigh. I may have to do some SysAdmin work…
In the early days, I was largely sharing Yahoo! News stories that I would’ve emailed a friend. At some point, I had dozens (or hundreds?) of RSS feeds in Google Reader. Now my feed is Twitter — pardon, X.
I’ve enjoyed sharing interesting ideas this whole time, but I particularly like having a searchable database of all these things that I can return to.
So, how long have you guys been swinging by? And why?
Your content is varied and appeals to my interest and curiosity.
I’ve been reading this daily for years, probably at least a decade. It is eclectic and usually non-politically-correct enough to satisfy my morning craving for intellectual vitamins.
I hardly ever comment, though. But the comments here are also interesting.
I have some links as early as 2009 & 2010
Yeah, David, it looks like you mentioned “Isegoria” back in 2009. You were also one of my first commentators when I opened up comments back in 2010. I cited your Photon Courier back in 2007 — and it’s a story I still bring up today: Quantity Has A Quality All Its Own. I then cited Ask “Why” Five Times.
Been looking in from time to time for a few years. Told my eldest son at one point this was the best info source on tinterwebz.
I like the variety and in particular extracts from books I am probably unlikely to read, and a lot of the comments and observations are good too. Happily, too, there doesn’t seem to be too many slagging off others.
(International note: Slagging off is a Brit term for groundless, unpleasant criticism)
Congratulations! I said five years ago on a previous anniversary that if I could only read one site, this would be it. This is still true. I feel like I’ve read dozens of books that I actually haven’t thanks to your efforts, and I know that every post here will be interesting.
You first linked me in 2010, back when I was still blogging. I can’t remember whether I had started reading you before that, but I believe I had. Most of 15 years! Sometimes when I have a moment – rare enough – I miss the old blog days. But I read every post here, and that will have to do for now.
Well done. I’ve probably been reading you for about 15 years.
You called the Death of the Blog in 2013.
Additional congratulations to all the commenters. I get most of my internet via feed reader, and this site’s comments are the only ones in my feed. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the kind words, Buckethead! (You first commented here in 2010, by the way.)
James James, naturally I had to look it up, and your first comment is from 2012. I can believe you lurked for a year or two before piping up.
I don’t remember calling Death of the Blog in 2013, but that seems about right. It still seems like a social network could provide what blogs provided, without losing the strengths of the modern platforms.
Congrats.
Long-long time daily reader here. Your work is much appreciated.
Albion, “best info source on tinterwebz” is high praise indeed! Your own first comment (“what is this bollocks about?”) goes back to 2017, by the way.
Thanks, EGS!
Fred the Gator, I think you captured the vibe here. Glad you enjoy it!
Thanks, Lucklucky! I guess you’ve been swinging by since 2013.
You are a long-time reader, Faze! Since 2011.
Been enjoying your writings for about a decade — thanks! Still feels odd that I don’t know who you are :D
Here’s to the next 20! Cheers!
I was going to quip that I don’t know who you are, either, Garrett, but then I found all your vacation photos on Twitter/X…
Anyway, I like the freedom that near-anonymity provides me.
Cheers, Handle! I may have to optimize the site for Augmented Reality, if I’m going to keep it going for another couple decades.
I have been learning a lot from this blog for more than 11 years. Thank you for educating me!
Isegoria, if it’s any help, I have a .json file that apparently contains all comments starting from the first two in Nov 2005. The Python script that got this also seems to cache the HTML of the posts starting with “why the bible has so many prostitutes” in Sep 2006.
The script was written to extract and put in a web page all comments from particular commenters.
BTW, the posting with the most comments (47) is:
https://www.isegoria.net/2019/05/a-giant-firehose-that-takes-in-pharmaceutical-company-money-at-one-end-and-shoots-lectures-about-social-justice-out-the-other
Truly impressive.
Were you not shadowbanned your popular reach would be vastly greater, but I have paid close attention and come to believe that some of your readership are shockingly prominent.
WordPress will survive Apple Vision Pro, if as a niche application.
Looks like I first linked to you (on Robert Conquest’s Laws of Politics) back in June 2013, but I know I’d been reading your blog for a few years before that. You have had consistently excellent taste in what you excerpt and write about, and that’s kept me coming back (sometimes on a daily basis since I never got into RSS feeds) over and over again. I really need to resuscitate Random Nuclear Strikes blog, but I’ll admit just reading your stuff has scratched that itch sufficiently for me to laze about these past few years.
Pournelle said Isegoria was smart and interesting, and Pournelle was right. Decent man too.
Looking back in my sent emails I see I was recommending this site to friends and family by 2015, but I think I started reading it well before that.
I always find your articles interesting, even when they are on subjects in which I have no particular interest.
And your ability to excerpt just the key parts is remarkable– whenever I click through to the original article, I always feel like I’ve already read the whole thing, because none of the stuff you skip is crucial.
Looking forward to the next twenty years, God willing!
Congratulations on your 20th Isegoria !
I would say I’d be coming by about 10 years.
I’m blaming Handle, but it’s probably Moldbug. It was a trip reading UR after Iraq OIF, let me tell you…and oddly what led me to UR was a comment of Moldbug’s on Andrew Exum’s Abu Muqawama blog.
Then I find Land and NRX later.
I’ve been a consistent visitor since about 2013 while in the midst of a political/religious epiphany from which I have yet to recover. I still regularly check out Jim, Social Pathologist, William Briggs, and Vox Day, but so many of the wonderful blogs from that era are defunct, banned, or dead.
Your consistence and presence with this blog has been not only enjoyable, but edifying. Congrats.
Thank you, Gaikokumaniakku. I try to edutain.
Felix, I can access older content from the dashboard; it’s just not propagating to the public site properly.
Jim, I do wonder to what degree I’ve been shadowbanned. I routinely see my Twitter/X follower count drop and then come back up, without any new followers being announced to me. Hmmm…
That Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics post is some popular, evergreen content. I’m glad it led you here, David. And I’m pleased you appreciate my taste in content.
Bruce, if Pournelle said I was smart and interesting, I missed it! (Don’t fact-check this too carefully…)
Mike, I’m delighted that you appreciate my Princess Bride-like philosophy of providing just the good parts.
VXXC, I can remember when Moldbug hijacked my brain.
Abu Muqawama? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.
Thanks, Phileas. I hope you keep enjoying it — and maybe get a bit of edification, too.
Isegoria: “Jim, I do wonder to what degree I’ve been shadowbanned. I routinely see my Twitter/X follower count drop and then come back up, without any new followers being announced to me. Hmmm…”
It isn’t so much about “follower count”, really. It’s much more that your reach is artificially suppressed on all “algorithmic” platforms. Yet fret not, for you are in very good company: they have been putting their thumb on the scale for quite some time.
P.S. Don’t use a public tool to check whether you are “deboosted” or the like. They don’t work.