This Blog Has Been Around for 7,500 Days

As of today, I've been publishing this weblog for 7,500 days. Workbench began on Nov. 7, 1999, on the Blogger platform under the name Referer_Log. The name comes from webserver files that reveal the link someone clicked to reach your site, which could be used to find out what other people were saying about what you wrote. Since I viewed blogs largely as a vehicle for ego gratification it seemed appropriate. The homepage had this kidding-but-not-kidding purpose: "Make People Like Me."

A screen capture of this blog from November 1999

Later I renamed it Workbench because I wanted the blog to be about the programming and publishing projects I was working on instead of a bunch of personal yammering about my life and opinions.

That plan, of course, failed. There has been yammering as well as jibber-jabber, folderol and even a little malarkey.

This milestone comes as the blog is in the process of coming back to life after a long period of quiescence. I have written six posts in two weeks to shake off the dust and start thinking like a blogger again.

I'd like to state some grand ambitious purpose but this is still what it was in 1999: an odd experiment writing for an audience of nobody in particular to see what happens.

Comments

Hi Rogers I think I've been subscribed since pretty close to Nov 7, 1999. (When did RSS start?) Cheers, and hope your next 7,500 days are even better :)

Thanks, Ole! The next 7,500 will stretch to November 30, 2040. I hope my blog redesign is done by then.

RSS began on July 10, 1999, when Ramanathan V. Guha and Dan Libby published RSS 0.91 at Netscape.

Wow, that is absolutely amazing. Congratulations on being around since 1999! I guess more people are into posting videos and images now on Instagram, TikTok, etc instead of blogging these days.

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