So, about that redesign…you might have noticed just a couple of minor cosmetic changes here and there. Just a couple.
theLogBook.com has had very, very minor variations on the same logo ever since I first rendered the word “LOGBOOK” in Microgramma Bold Extended on a Video Toaster in 1994 or ’95, just for giggles. Ever since then, that’s been the logo, and that’s been the “look”.
In 2011, Amazon.com cut off all of its affiliation agreements with affiliates in several states, as a response to those states pushing for laws that would force Amazon to collect state sales tax in those states. This action was a calculated effort to get the affiliates to put pressure on their state legislatures to rescind the bills in question, but as many Amazon affiliates are either small businesses or sites run by individuals, Amazon didn’t get the result expected. If collecting the taxes in question made business impossible to do in those states, Amazon would’ve stopped shipping things to Arkansas and the other states in question, but of course they didn’t. That would affect the bottom line. Can’t have that.
theLogBook.com had been an Amazon affiliate since the late 1990s, which was really the point at which it went from “disorganized fan site” to “somewhat more focused site that can make a bit of money”. Then there came a tipping point at which the site was legitimately paying its own bills – the costs of hosting, the domain name, bandwidth, even my internet connectivity at home, were all being paid for by the site. This justified expansion of the site and the time spent on it, and led to a few “boom years” where content seemed to increase nearly exponentially. That had to slow down substantially when my first child arrived, but it was still worth spending time on. When Amazon cut all of its Arkansas affiliates off in 2011, myself included, it was like losing a limb. What point was there in generating more material for the site when it was no longer going to pay its own bills? Indeed, the money to buy the things frequently covered here – DVDs, music, and so on – ran out. The emphasis rapidly changed: it was time for that Doctor Who book I’d been working on at a slow burn for several years to come to the front burner in a hurry. The kind of content I could charge for was the only kind that there was any justification to work on.
Now, thanks to a change in federal law, Amazon is required to collect state sales tax nationwide…and without announcing it to anyone, they’ve re-opened the doors of their affiliate program to sites in those states they once spurned. Here’s what that means at theLogBook. … Read more
I’m giving up, for now, on the podcast. The existing podcast material has been folded back into my blog for the time being. (Damn you, Time Being!)
Fig. 1: Time Being
I simply don’t have the time, at present, to do this on a consistent enough basis to merit its own whole section of the site. … Read more
The true (but necessarily vague) tale of the time I had to sue someone for stealing from theLogBook.com. 😯 Also included: more weird radio stories, waterproof droids and… a cat on crack.
Listen here:
[audio:https://www.thelogbook.com/earl/podcast/10292010-ohpoopy.mp3]
Right-click here and “save as” to save to your hard drive or MP3 player; leave feedback with this post or in the forums.… Read more
This blog has become a bit of a no-blogging zone here lately. The whole site has. I’m working on that a bit, but it’s been slow going. My hours aren’t conducive to me getting… well… much of anything done. (I just mowed my yard this week after getting a long-distance call from the guys aboard the International Space Station, asking me to do something about the fact that my grass was tall enough to brush up against their windows when their orbit carried them over Arkansas.) Daddy duty is taking more of my time as little E reaches the age where he wants to explore things, learn more stuff, and have conversations. I love the little conversations we have. It’s the whole reason one’s in the dad business. He cracks me up sometimes, especially when he comes up with some humorous response that’s like something I would say in the same situation. He really is turning into a little me. (I want him to turn out better than that!)
I’m trying to figure out what to do with theLogBook.com. Daily updates, frankly, ain’t gonna happen anymore. It was a valiant try, but at this point I think it’s all about finding clever ways to leverage what’s already on the site. You’ll be seeing quite a few instances of “It aired today X years ago!” stuff soon, as we’re going into the time of year that American TV shows generally premiere – it’s kind of a no-brainer. I wish the forums were generating more activity that I could point to without having to go in and constantly goose it, but I guess this is to be expected when I pretty much fell off the grid for about a week or so (without really planning or preparing to do so, it has to be said). Responsibility for the site going comatose lies solely at my feet.
At the core of the issue is: I have less time to do all the watching / listening / reading that I used to do, to say nothing ofr writing about all the watching / listening / reading that makes up the site. My schedule has really become more about drive-by forum postings (and an awful lot of them are links to other places) when I have the time – perhaps a little too much influence from Facebook, but really much more of a function of my schedule.
I’m open to ideas on how to make it work. I’m not ready to give up yet, even though by any measure that includes common sense, I probably should be.… Read more
“So that’s it?” you’re asking. “No posts in over a month, and you post a picture of a stupid frog?”
Well, yeah. Something like that. … Read more
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