EOL

End Of Life

For the past several years tomorrowland has been a personal technology blog about all the things that made MY life futuristic and fun.  When I started that iteration of tomorrowland.com back in October 2008 it was my goal to blog every day, which I did for several months.  But over time my attitude changed and I moved away from the desire to blog with such regularity.  Eventually I had to ask myself “What is the point?  Why blog at all?  What do I get out of it?”  I suspect many PERSONAL bloggers have gone through this cycle.  At first they’re all gung-ho and then eventually they realize how much personal time is being wasted and how many other things they’re missing out on and how little money their advertising has brought in.  Sure there are those out there who are trying to make something real out of it.  Turn it in to a business or be seen as journalists.  But for me it was always mostly just therapy.

Then there was the time that I was at CES and in the middle of a discussion I mentioned to someone at an audio company that I had a blog and it basically ended the conversation.  Suddenly I was seen as a ‘journalist’ and that was that.  Let me be clear – I am not a journalist.  If anything I was a journal-er… meaning that I was journaling, or basically writing ‘a diary’ that I allow other people to read.  In general I don’t believe that bloggers are journalists.

Next is the fact that if I’m honest with myself I can admit that when I started blogging in 2008 it was a distraction that took me away from another important project I was working on.  There are posts in here that took several hours per night for several nights to complete.  I spent money on products, did photo shoots to try to get good pictures and would send links as tips to all the ‘real’ tech blog sites. Then would check in every few hours to see how many reads I had.  And all of that effort sabotaged the other project that I should have worked on.  And eventually I did get back on track and get that other project moving again.  But how much quicker could I have been successful in that other venture had I stayed focused on that instead of being distracted with this?  I’m not the sort of person to look back with regret.  But I do try to learn from the past.

Therefore as I’ve mentioned before, I won’t be blogging much any more or maybe not at all.  It doesn’t mean that tomorrowland.com won’t see any new posts.  From time to time I might get the itch and post something – maybe just for the therapy.  Or maybe someone else will jump in and post here.  But it sort of doesn’t matter.  The fact is that THIS post will probably only be read by 5 people.. and I’m ok with that.  I’m ok with zero people reading it.  The therapy works the same either way.

Old content

Since I feel that most of that old content is still relevant (or maybe has some historical value) I plan on leaving it online and reachable from the same old links.

Comments

I’m mostly shutting down comments. The comment system here is like a giant glue-trap for spammers.  Without the love and care a daily blogger can give this place, comments just bogged down with questionable things that honestly many times I can’t tell if they’re real comments or fake ones.  Here are a few examples:

“This is the most informative article I’ve ever read”  – Really?  How flattered I am right now that you would say that!  Even though you sound very much like an alien robot trying too hard to sound both human and english-speaking.  I’m gonna vote spammer on that one.

“Fantastic blog! I definitely love how it’s easy on my eyes as well as the facts are well written. I am wondering how I can be notified whenever a new post has been made. I have subscribed to your rss feed which really should do the trick! Have a nice day!” – Whatever.. Even if this one isn’t spam who cares.  But again sound like a very general comment to me.  (oh plus the link on the poster’s name takes you to a RX site).

“What a globe we are living in!! It just exhibits us all up to the fools we are…”  Wait.. what’s with the dot dot dot at the end?  Couldn’t bother finishing the sentence?  SPAM!

“This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like ‘Mixview’ that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you’re listening to.”  and it goes on like that for a few more sentences.  See this one can be tough because it sound like a real person giving their opinion… except that it was a comment in a post that had nothing to do with this.  Plus.. who gives a crap about the Zune anyway!

This next one is tough and represent a new strategy in comment spamming… “Hey! Just wanted to thank you for this article. It’s the best one I could find on how to do this. I wish more people took the time like you to inform people of this stuff. I love mac but why in the hell would they place sata ports THERE!?”  See it starts off sounding very spammish but then ends totally on the subject matter that the post was about.  But the poster’s name link that takes you to some dude’s photo site.  SO I let this one slide.  People do have websites.  But still.. I almost deleted it because, again, no new info was given here.  Not like he said “I found it easier to slide the power supply out FIRST and then use a little tape to hold the sata connector in.”  Something more than just “you’re so cool thanks for posting this.. oh and since this post is about sata ports.. I’ll say  ‘sata ports’ in my comment so it will get past the spam filter.  Yeah on second thought this one is clearly just a post to get their web site name out there.

I’ve actually seen a trend of comments that are completely on subject but have a slight oddity to the language that could be a real non-native-english speaking real person who wanted to comment… but then have a single link to some other site.. maybe a legit comment, maybe not.  Honestly I don’t have the time or energy to figure it out or worry about it.  The truth is that if someone has a real question about something I posted, feel free to send me an email.  But otherwise, comments are just too much work to manage.  So we will be completely disabling comments on all old tomorrowland.com posts.