Blog as a Sandbox

Since I’ve begun blogging again, I’ve been using The Reticulum blog as a sandbox more than anything else. I’ve messed around to entertain myself and try new things: illustrated poems, coding tips, nostalgic memories, riffs on nonfiction books, the occasional fiction, and various other random acts of writing. Sometimes to me if feels sadly self indulgent, other times like healthy experimentation and expression.

Sand Mandala

Whatever it is, though, I’m going to try to impose a bit more structure on it over the rest of the year. The idea is to focus on just two topics that are, while broad in their own right, more in keeping with the original intent of the blog.

The first topic will be what I’m thinking of as AI@Work, which leverages my interest in both neural networks and work-related issues.

As broad as that topic is, however, the second is even broader and can be summed up in the phrase “network science.” I have a couple of books by network scientist Albert-László Barabási I want to explore here before I move on to other thinkers in the area.

So, it’ll remain a sandbox but a slightly more structured one through the rest of 2023. More of a sand mandala, perhaps.

Featured image: Участник:GgvlaD, "Разрезание" мандалы Зеленой Тары на мероприятии "Дни Тибета в Москве", June 2011.