• The abortion non-issue
• A new kind of surge
• Congrats Cap'n!
• Game over, man!
• Regarding Education
• Trivia Question of the Day
• What Right to Privacy?
• John McCain is 72 years old! [laughter, applause]
• Bug Braaaaaaaaaains!
• Sarah Palin
• Reich's advice to Democrats
• Women's Lib
• On Barak Obama and Joe Biden
• Late Night Punchline Imbalance: the details undermine the headline
• Better questions about climate change

• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005

« Top Ten Headlines You Won't Read Today | Main | Roxanne, You Can’t Cross That Red Line… »

Unintentional Hiatus

It cracks me up to see the ebb and flow of the blogosphere. Activity goes up with major events and minor controversies, of course, but there is also an underlying baseline pattern. Most blogs are less busy on the weekends, for example. Some people seem only to post during banking hours – why could that be?. Traffic certainly goes down here at AtlasBlogged, with weekends appearing as local minima on our sitemeter graphs. For example, check out our last month (the red circles represent the last five weekends).

And on most weekdays, our sitemeter could practically be used as a sundial. A slow climb begins midmorning (EST) and peaks in the late morning, dipping down around lunchtime and then giving it another go in the afternoon and a third time in the evening. Much like Sitemeter itself, or USA today, it may not be very accurate, but it’s pretty reliable. I assume that busier blogs have a similar pattern, but I have to admit that I was too lazy to go look.

And then there are the college kids. Every once in a while, a site becomes very inactive for a while, and then the author pops up to apologize, blaming “exams”. Sometimes it really catches me off guard, because I hadn’t realized the blogger was a student.

But AtlasBlogged is a group blog with no students, so we should be immune to the outdated balancing act between agrarian society and education (usually called “summer vacation”). Unfortunately, my co-authors are a bunch of unreliable slackers, leaving nearly all of the writing around here to yours truly. Scroll down on this page to see what I am talking about. Thus the recent near-total lack of activity around here as I begin my fourth year teaching at a public high school. AtlasBlogged is a slave to the school calendar – isn’t that sick? Student or no, I have just been too busy to hit the keyboard. My last couple of weeks have been spent showing n00b teachers the ropes and learning the names of new students. As much as I would have liked to, I just haven’t had time to come over and talk to you.

And I might point out that none of our readers checked on me – I mean, I could have been on my deathbed, and none of you cared. (sniff) I’m just saying. Nary a worried call from Kip or from Scott Stein or Chris Smillerz. I’m pretty sure that Kos and Malkin troll our site, but no emails from either one of them. Sigh. I see how it is.

But chins up, friends. I've got a backlog of thoughts and comments, and they will soon see the light of day. The real question is, what the hell is wrong with my co-authors?