10 years of technology diary
Today the technology diary turns ten years old. Like every year, there is a PDF version for the birthday, which this time contains 8,536 contributions and is 15,506 pages long. The best-of version has a manageable 207 pages and can be read as a PDF or EPUB. This year the “Best of” version is also free because it takes a lot less work to upload and the revenue donated to the Internet Archive was small. Anyone who can should simply donate to the Internet Archive.
Self-crocheted cover image
The PDF version is nicer and contains fewer errors and more working footnotes than ever before. The 10,430 links it contains are also probably in their best condition since 2015, because we have put a lot of effort into converting them to the Internet Archive over the last few years (except for about 1,900 links that are still unedited, but maybe that will work until the next edition). At this point it should be mentioned again that you can donate to the Internet Archive. Without the Internet Archive, the Internet would be a sadder and more inconvenient place.
After ten years, it also appears that some republished posts that originally appeared on other blogs no longer exist there. Another reason to write or republish here! You can do this here or by email to [email protected], but also in almost any other way. (“Almost” just as a precaution so as not to provoke anyone into sending in stacks of punch cards, cuneiform tablets or faxes.)
Everything almost turned out differently this year, and it was like this: Shortly after last year’s book edition, I started thinking about whether a print edition could perhaps be produced for the tenth anniversary. Not for the first time, as the editorial chat log shows:
ALT
I had already started to create the technical requirements for a 20-volume book edition. Or 21, because Aleks Scholz suggested putting all the links in a separate volume, which you can then have next to you while reading so that you can follow the links. Because in the unprinted PDF edition linked above, the links still work. This would no longer be the case in a printed edition. At the moment, all links could barely fit into a volume with the maximum length of 800 pages set at lulu.com.
Then, in the spring of 2023, I talked to a person who found this plan very bad and said that unreadable books shouldn’t be printed all the time just because it’s possible. That made sense to me again. Therefore, only a screenshot of the first page of the unprinted 21st volume with the links remains from this project:
But if several rich technology diary fans are immediately seized by the desire for a (then 22-volume) printed edition: I now know how it would work technically.
(Kathrin Passig)
