on mathematics blogs.

i had started drafting this last week, probably as a reaction to j.baez's post about "what a mathematician should know about blogging."

this is what i concluded about my own writing on this blog.

---

after some thought, i realised something. this is not a mathematics blog. rather, this is a mathematical culture blog of a highly idiosyncratic nature.

in contrast, these are mathematical blogs, as popularised by t.tao.

interestingly enough, the associated wiki seems to be using the arXiv:math style of categorization. i suppose a blog now has to be something serious and have a specific topic.

maybe blogs are going the way of the webpage. they used to exist mostly for fun, but somehow transformed into a professional tool. as for where the fun can go, now ..

my purpose here is not to educate -- at least, not in the sense of writing a lecture and posting it in a mix of HTML and LaTeX.

if i learn a cool theorem, i'll share it.

however, i'll also avoid the long expositions that are pages 1-4 of research papers or the first section of a textbook chapter.

you see, i like my job a lot. i voluntarily work most nights. i like maths ..

.. but i don't want to read technical mathematics all the time. the idioms of "definition, lemma, proof, example, theorem .." makes for very good learning and research ..

.. but i have enough papers to read.

i'm not the sort of person who, returning home from work, runs a web search to look for more of this stuff. instead, i get to it tomorrow morning.

---

as for what this blog's purpose is, let's just say entertainment value, perhaps catharsis, too.

if my teaching goes oddly one day, at least you the reader can have a laugh about it, as long as i write well enough.

if my research isn't going well, then maybe you can relate. then again, it might make your workday look better in comparison. i don't mind.