Public (Lack of) Service Announcement

If you want to be a real first-magnitude blogger with zillions of visits, then you need to blog very regularly. New content all the time -- every day, or many times a day if you can manage it -- is the key to blogging fame and fortune. This is easier if your blog has mulitple authors, or if you tend to write short and punchy posts with one point to make and maybe a couple of links. On the other hand, if there is just one of you, and you like to write long wandering essays with interesting twists and connections, and if you also have an intellectually demanding day-job and several other important hobbies, then it's hard to keep up a high posting rate. I'm lucky to post two solid pieces in the same week.

All of which is by way of announcing a brief hiatus in blogging here at Zeroth Order Approximation. I have one or two other projects that are demanding more than routine attention, and of course there are always classes to be taught and papers to grade and all that sort of thing. My plan is to take about three weeks off and return toward the end of April.

Please do not imagine that I am tired of this business! I have lots of stuff yet to say, about global warming and the ethics of rhetoric and how I was once mistaken for a devil worshiper, just to mention three random unfinished pieces on my hard drive. For all my friends who are regular readers, my apologies, and I'll meet you back here soon. For those of you who have just dropped by and don't know what might be worth reading, I've prepared a list of not-entirely-stinky posts from the last couple of months:

• The pieces on "Well-tempered numbers" and "Cultural wisdom" -- the first about music and mental arithmetic, the second about the philosophy of engineering -- have attracted more readers than most. (I had occasion to reflect on the first piece the day before yesterday, when I happened to be playing with a Russian slide rule. I have occasion to reflect on the second one every single blessed day.)
  
• Two posts (here and here) inspired by the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings pretty well express my present views on the judiciary, abortion and American politics.
  
• My essay entitled "Enigma" (which was one of my all-time favorites to research and to write) is holding up pretty well, especially in light of the information in (and reactions to) the many captured documents and recordings from Iraq that are now being released.
  
• I thought my recent post on "Fear" said something worthwhile about our "litigious society".
• The sermon on prayer that I posted here did not, perhaps, entirely miss the point.

And of course the archives are available over to the right, including a few "favorite posts".

Back after Easter. Take care.