One Stop Thought Shop – that sounds promising….
The opening paragraph displayed on the palest blue header reads:
“the web log of Brian Hayes, a personal blog about ideas or biographical views sometimes written in the first person by a hardworking fellow who is big on love, tolerance, freedom and the human potential. • My interests shift from tech and science and politics to craftsmanship and building. Here are a few interesting tools, techniques and ideas.”
That would be an understatement. The most current entry of September 23rd is front and center on the page, and declares proudly: “Mark Twain For President 2004”.
So we know we are in the theoretical realm right off the bat.
In my admittedly rather short Weblog Review career, I have yet to run across a blog that discusses such a variety of subjects. Our author not only writes about Mark Twain for President, but gadgets of all kinds, soil testing experiments, discussions on the meaning of Nirvana, pet food label rules, Noam Chomsky, plus a consistent smattering of political topics.
Added to this dizzying array of interests, he also maintains two other blogs. One he calls “Construction” and the other is a computer/technology blog. They are crammed with even more amazingly diverse things. Both are worth a look.
I wanted to browse the archives which go back to September of 2003, but not one of the links were functional on the day of my visit. Even though they were not working, I noticed that they are listed by full date, thus making for a rather long list. A month my month archive link would be less cumbersome in my opinion. Also the sidebar had been relegated to the bottom of the page, making for awkward navigation. I’m sure a small adjustment would take care of it. There is no comment function, which I thought was curious.
My overall impression was that the author is a quite intelligent and complex person with his fingers in many pies. But that very quality, plus a rather oblique writing style made for a kind of muddled picture. Now, I will admit that taken one day at a time, this blog might be a lot more user friendly. But read all at once, it was a bit overwhelming.
This blog would appeal to the technophile and those with wide ranging realms of curiosity. To me this site and its companion blogs are the epitome of the word “eclectic”.