Another benefit of bloglag

In the classic Philip K. Dick novel, The World Jones Made, the main character has the ability to see the future, in particular he knows what will happen a year in the future, with this window moving forward relative to present time. Sounds cool, huh? But that’s not the character’s perception; instead:

It’s not so much like I [Jones] can see the future; it’s more that I’ve got one foot stuck in the past. I can’t shake it loose. I’m retarded; I’m reliving one year of my life forever.

But this post is more upbeat, it’s a return discussion of my practice of posting blog entries a month ahead of time. One thing that can be frustrating about lagged posting is that I have some great idea (for example, The paradoxical nature of anecdotal evidence, which I just posted on and so will appear in a month and a half from now, i.e. “yesterday” to you) but I don’t get the discussion for a month and a half.

But the plus side—and I think it outweighs the minus—is that I’m so overwhelmed, that if I posted every idea right when it came to me, and I got the feedback right away, I might easily forget the whole incident. By spreading things out over two months, I get another chance to think about the subject, to fit the piece into the larger puzzle.

4 thoughts on “Another benefit of bloglag

  1. And you have a chance to think about it. Nothing helps you reconsider better than the thought of it going into print. Or, referring to the last post about how people should react to being wrong … one hopes that going to print in x days is a stimulus.

  2. Pingback: Why I Rant « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

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