Paul’s Writing Archive

The archive is incomplete and I am in the process of adding more old content, but you can already find over a million words of my writing here. I build this content from Markdown source files using Pandoc and GNU Make.

The Coffee Underachiever Newsletter (2019-present)

This is my e-mail newsletter, published approximately weekly from mid-September 2019 through 2020, and irregularly in 2021 and 2022. What’s it about? Whatever was on my mind at the time, including books, films, current events, politics, and software engineering.

The Books that Wrote Me (2012-2019)

Approximately 636,700 words • Originally published on Blogger, these posts range from long autobiographical essays (2012) to short summaries of the books I’ve read and the films I’ve watched (2015) to extremely detailed personal journals (2018). I hit “peak blogging” in 2018, posting over 470,000 words that year, but did not sustain that pace in 2019. During 2013 and 2014 I spent my writing time on other blogging projects (which I intend to bring to this site as well, when time allows).

The Whisky Dungeon (2010-2012)

Approximately 12,600 words • Originally published on Blogger, these posts contain reviews of scotch whiskies and other fine adult beverages.

Geek Versus Guitar (2007-2014)

Forthcoming

Geek Like Me Too (2006-2017)

Originally published on Blogger, these posts cover a huge variety of topics including computer hardware and software, reviews of scotch whiskies, politics, and more. Posts range from just a few lines to longer reviews and essays.

The original Blogger blog, subtitled “A middle-aged software curmudgeon’s rants, raves, gripes, and prophecies,” is still here, with the original comments. As part of my migration away from Google, I will likely delete the blog completely in the future, unfortunately losing the comments.

Praise, Curse, and Recurse (2006-2015)

Originally published on Blogger, these posts cover programming and programming languages.

The original Blogger blog, subtitled “On programming and programming languages: because there has got to be a better way,” is still here, with the original comments. As part of my migration away from Google, I will likely delete the blog completely in the future, unfortunately losing the comments. In the process of editing the original posts, I have appended some of the more informative comments.

Forthcoming

Geek Like Me (1998-2006)

This is my old blog, frozen in time. Some of this content is also included, in updated form, in the two collections below. Many links in the old posts are now dead. You have two options to read the old posts:

The Books that Wrote Me Collection 1 (1988-2016)

Approximately 83,100 words • A collection of essays and reviews chosen from my earlier writing, going back to an essay on Stanislaw Lem’s Fiasco I wrote in 1988.

The Films that Formed Me Collection 1 (1992-2016)

Approximately 42,526 words • A collection of essays and reviews on film, chosen from my earlier writings going back to 1992, with an introductory essay.

Blogs Elsewhere (Most are neglected or deleted; I am in the process of migrating old content to static pages here)