10 thoughts on “The blog has moved”

1. I want the bragging rights for having posted the last comment on the ASK blog.

   RIP ASK blog: ~2010 – 2021.

   It has been awesome. Look forward to continue reading you on Substack.

   • Correction: 11/23/2012. The data are more accurate than my recollections of Arnold’s cutover from Econlog.

     Here is how things launched:
     ***
     About two months ago, I quit blogging at EconLog. The main reason was that I was right in the middle of trying a start-up that combined two big trends/fads: online education and mobile computing.

     The result, vhandouts.com, is something that I am using in teaching two high school courses, one on statistics and one on economics. My original vision was to build something that other teachers could use, also. I might very well have had a good idea. Just as computer programming these days relies a great deal today on shared code libraries, with “reinventing the wheel” an awful sin (and I have a hard time giving up sinning), what I was trying to do was create a platform for creating shared libraries for highly interactive simple quizzes. From the beginning, I had doubts about my ability to execute the full concept, and ultimately the doubts won out. I am glad I tried it, because (a) I can use it in my classes and (b) I learned about how computer programming has changed in the past dozen years.

     I want to get back to blogging for two reasons. One is to record links and book reviews for my own benefit. A second is to rejoin the blog conversation–I found that I missed participating.

     I decided to go with my own blog, rather than return to EconLog, because I want to have total control over the blog content. I want to model a very particular style of discourse, as indicated by the tag line “taking the most charitable view of those who disagree.” In June, I wrote

     Suppose we look at writing on issues where people tend to hold strong opinions that fit with their ideology. Such writing can

     (a) attempt to open the minds of people on the opposite side as the author
     (b) attempt to open minds of people on the same side as the author
     (c) attempt to close minds of people on the same side as the author

     So, think about it. Wouldn’t you classify most op-eds and blog posts as (c)? Isn’t that sort of pathetic?

     My goal is to avoid (c). I will try to keep the posts here free of put-downs, snark, cheap shots, straw-man arguments, and taking the least charitable interpretation of what others say. So, if what you most enjoyed about my past blogging efforts were the put-downs, be prepared for disappointment with this incarnation.

2. “Substack makes it easier for people to receive email notifications and for me to tweet my posts.”

   It’s your show, but these are not very compelling reasons for switching everything to Substack, IMHO. Email notifications were not needed for people who visited your blog everyday. As for tweeting, I’ve been on twitter a few months, and I’ve found it to be mostly a nuisance, the computer equivalent of soundbites, even when the tweets are from people I respect.

   On the blog, I Iiked usually being able to read your whole post without clicking anything, which does not seem to be the case on Substack. But the worst thing about your move is that you are apparently going to lose Handle as a commenter, due to his understandable anonymity concerns, and probably some other worthwhile commenters as well. Handle alone outshines your whole galaxy of so-called “all stars.”

3. The primary reason I came to your blog everyday was to read the insightful comments from your followers, in particular Handle. If you lose commenters in this move you will be losing the appeal of your blog.

   I can understand reducing the cost and your time with maintaining two similar presences on the web. I do hope that the comments section on the new Substack based blog is as enlightening.

4. “It is now on substack (In My Tribe). There is still no charge to read it.”
   – the link does not open into the entry but rather into comments.

   “I am trying to maintain the feel of this blog, including the daily scheduled posts and the comments section. Substack makes it easier for people to receive email notifications and for me to tweet my posts.”

   anonymity aside (not a trivial issue), I do not prefer “pushed” content to “pulled” i.e. asynchronous retrieval.

   Arnold, I hope you return to the blog format.

5. Grateful I could catch the blog version toward the tail end. I think I first accessed in 2019.

6. And call the vales and bid them hither cast
   Their bells and flow’rets of a thousand hues.
   Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
   Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
   On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
   Throw hither all your quaint enamel’d eyes,
   That on the green turf suck the honied showers
   And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
   Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
   The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
   The white pink, and the pansy freak’d with jet,
   The glowing violet,
   The musk-rose, and the well attir’d woodbine,
   With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
   And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
   Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
   And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
   To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
   -Milton

   • Thanks “anonymous” (aka edgar).

     Is the animal alive or dead in this particular poem? Full disclosure: I’m too ignorant to tell.

     In any event, don’t forget to spay or neuter. It’s the only logical outcome.

     • Thanks for the blast from the past. Sorry, not a dog, as I suspect you well know, but I admire your memory of earlier exchanges.

       Lifted from Milton’s elegy Lycidas written for a college friend, James King, who was drowned at sea. Thought it perhaps an appropriately ambiguous source to lament the passing of this blog: on one hand James Holly Hanford asserted that Lycidas is
       “‘probably the most perfect piece of pure literature in existence” but on the other Samuel Johnson asserted “Surely no man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure had he not known its author.”

       • Yes, thanks for entertaining me! I had fun and thanks for your response.

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