The End of an Era
Well...
I gave in...
stephanieandmicah.blogspot.com
See you on the other side...
Comments (0)
Well...
I gave in...
stephanieandmicah.blogspot.com
See you on the other side...
Comments (0)
Platt-Phenomenon
I have realized something over the past few years of having (or trying to have) a blog. There is a very sensitive formula of to making a good blog. You ready for it?
s = b / f
b = q * p
q = t - a
p = m * c + y
Okay lets break this down.
s: Success of the blog. That one is pretty self-explanatory.
t: Time. How much time do I, the author, have in my life.
a: Activity. How much is going on in my life? Life changes, fun events, trips, unexpected crises and so forth
q: Quantity. Basically the frequency of the updates.
p: Participation. How many people are hitting this site on a regular basis and contributing.
m: Me. This is a measurement of my motivation.
c: Content. Is my stuff any good?
y: You. This is a measurement of your contribution through comments.
f: Freak-out-variable. More on this later.
As you can see there are some really interesting and complicated relationships here. First, the obvious ones. (t-a) is pretty clear. There needs to be a careful balance of enough stuff going on in my life to write about while still leaving me time to write it. If 'a' gets too high then the blog is one of the first things to go. If 'a' gets too low then the spacing between posts gets so large that 'y' falls away. Then we are just left on 'm' which, to be honest, can get pretty boring. You see a high 'y' value gives 'm' a boost. Now 'p' can be carried for awhile my a strong 'm' with little to no 'y' but that won't last forever. 'q' on the other hand is completely outside of anyone's control. A extremely high 't' works well with a moderate 'a' but if 'a' drops too low in relation to 't' then 'q' gets so high that 'c' starts to suffer. No matter how high 'm' reaches, if 'c' is at zero then nothing…
You would think that this is a simple formula. The higher 's' gets then the better the blog. Not quite. While it is true that say a value of 's' of 42 is better than 41, 42 is not necessary better than everything below it. This is because of 'f'. 'f' can manifest in many ways. Lower values of 'f' are usually great. At those levels 'f' is usually an indication of a change or decision which can make for a great post. However, as 'f' increases in value it can actually add to the value of 'a' which more than likely will reduce 'q'. This becomes a huge detriment obviously if 'q' is reduced to zero.
Now you may say, "Micah, what's the problem? So a high 'f' is bad."
"Not so fast reader," I would say, "I have not yet told you of the platt-phenomenon."
The platt-phenomenon is a strange beast. As 'f' increases to intensely high values it can actually bring 's' closer and closer to zero. In addition, as long as 'b' retains any value at all greater than zero then 's' will never reach nothingness. The platt-phenomenon refers to the fact that infinitely small values of 's' can actually be more entertaining than higher values. You know it's true. Everyone likes to watch a good freak-out. As 's' gets closer and closer to zero, posts tend to become more like funny videos of people getting hurt trying to skateboard down a flight of stairs. The platt-phenomenon is all around us. The producers of American Idol know this well. In fact the platt-phenomenon is named in honor of Larry Platt of American Idol fame. (Think "Pants on the Ground"). Idol knows that there are two kinds of people that viewers tune in to see. The incredibly good and the infinitely bad.
Now as many of you know (both readers I currently have), Stephanie and I are expecting our first child. I view this as a perfect time to restart this blog. One thing I know for sure is that we will have a good mix of great, fun posts about pregnancy and early-parenthood paired up with some genuine 'pants on the ground' moments of complete and utter freak-out.
All I can really say is stay tuned.
Comments (4)
I have realized something over the past few years of having (or trying to have) a blog. There is a very sensitive formula of to making a good blog. You ready for it?
s = b / f
b = q * p
q = t - a
p = m * c + y
Okay lets break this down.
s: Success of the blog. That one is pretty self-explanatory.
t: Time. How much time do I, the author, have in my life.
a: Activity. How much is going on in my life? Life changes, fun events, trips, unexpected crises and so forth
q: Quantity. Basically the frequency of the updates.
p: Participation. How many people are hitting this site on a regular basis and contributing.
m: Me. This is a measurement of my motivation.
c: Content. Is my stuff any good?
y: You. This is a measurement of your contribution through comments.
f: Freak-out-variable. More on this later.
As you can see there are some really interesting and complicated relationships here. First, the obvious ones. (t-a) is pretty clear. There needs to be a careful balance of enough stuff going on in my life to write about while still leaving me time to write it. If 'a' gets too high then the blog is one of the first things to go. If 'a' gets too low then the spacing between posts gets so large that 'y' falls away. Then we are just left on 'm' which, to be honest, can get pretty boring. You see a high 'y' value gives 'm' a boost. Now 'p' can be carried for awhile my a strong 'm' with little to no 'y' but that won't last forever. 'q' on the other hand is completely outside of anyone's control. A extremely high 't' works well with a moderate 'a' but if 'a' drops too low in relation to 't' then 'q' gets so high that 'c' starts to suffer. No matter how high 'm' reaches, if 'c' is at zero then nothing…
You would think that this is a simple formula. The higher 's' gets then the better the blog. Not quite. While it is true that say a value of 's' of 42 is better than 41, 42 is not necessary better than everything below it. This is because of 'f'. 'f' can manifest in many ways. Lower values of 'f' are usually great. At those levels 'f' is usually an indication of a change or decision which can make for a great post. However, as 'f' increases in value it can actually add to the value of 'a' which more than likely will reduce 'q'. This becomes a huge detriment obviously if 'q' is reduced to zero.
Now you may say, "Micah, what's the problem? So a high 'f' is bad."
"Not so fast reader," I would say, "I have not yet told you of the platt-phenomenon."
The platt-phenomenon is a strange beast. As 'f' increases to intensely high values it can actually bring 's' closer and closer to zero. In addition, as long as 'b' retains any value at all greater than zero then 's' will never reach nothingness. The platt-phenomenon refers to the fact that infinitely small values of 's' can actually be more entertaining than higher values. You know it's true. Everyone likes to watch a good freak-out. As 's' gets closer and closer to zero, posts tend to become more like funny videos of people getting hurt trying to skateboard down a flight of stairs. The platt-phenomenon is all around us. The producers of American Idol know this well. In fact the platt-phenomenon is named in honor of Larry Platt of American Idol fame. (Think "Pants on the Ground"). Idol knows that there are two kinds of people that viewers tune in to see. The incredibly good and the infinitely bad.
Now as many of you know (both readers I currently have), Stephanie and I are expecting our first child. I view this as a perfect time to restart this blog. One thing I know for sure is that we will have a good mix of great, fun posts about pregnancy and early-parenthood paired up with some genuine 'pants on the ground' moments of complete and utter freak-out.
All I can really say is stay tuned.
Comments (4)
A Baby Lamb on the Way.
So there is a new addition to the Lamb family on the way. I have been trying to come up with ways to use this blog to keep people updated about the pregnancy and new baby.
With facebook, twitter, flickr and so forth I don't want to reinvent the wheel but also want to maintain control over the content.
Anyway, watch for changes around here.
Comments (3)
So there is a new addition to the Lamb family on the way. I have been trying to come up with ways to use this blog to keep people updated about the pregnancy and new baby.
With facebook, twitter, flickr and so forth I don't want to reinvent the wheel but also want to maintain control over the content.
Anyway, watch for changes around here.
Comments (3)
I need your help...
As you can tell the blog posts have slowed...
I know. "Slowed" might be a wee bit of an understatement.
There is a reason though. I have been trying to get Stephanie to post something on the blog. I then said that I wasn't going to post anymore until she wrote up something. Anything.
That really isn't working out as you can tell.
So here is the new plan. Anybody that wants to hear from Stephanie needs to let us know in the comments of this post. That is if anybody is still subscribed to this feed...
Comments (6)
As you can tell the blog posts have slowed...
I know. "Slowed" might be a wee bit of an understatement.
There is a reason though. I have been trying to get Stephanie to post something on the blog. I then said that I wasn't going to post anymore until she wrote up something. Anything.
That really isn't working out as you can tell.
So here is the new plan. Anybody that wants to hear from Stephanie needs to let us know in the comments of this post. That is if anybody is still subscribed to this feed...
Comments (6)
[[screeeeeeech]] test, test. is this thing on?
I don't have anything to say. I just wanted to put up a post after all these months without one...
Comments (3)
I don't have anything to say. I just wanted to put up a post after all these months without one...
Comments (3)