Note: at the time this page was prepared, these things may have been true. They may not be true now. This is, of course, part of the problem.
Q: Shall we do this as questions and answers?
A: That would be an entertaining conceit.
Q: ...er, okay. Why do you want a calendar on your web page?
A: I'm not sure I do.
Q: Um.
A: Alright. I'm thinking about an archive, for past content.
Q: You kind of need one of those.
A: Maybe. It's sort of fun, to be that disconnected. There is also a certain amount of freedom in it.
Q: But you're thinking about it?
A: Yes. As it has been pointed out to me, the site isn't really all that fun to read if it doesn't have one, unless I want to confine my readership to demented cocaine-addicted hamsters.
Q: I thought they used rats in that experiment.
A: Probably. Anyway: it makes some amount of sense to use dates as a useful index of the daily content.
Q: Like you update it every day.
A: I update it when I do. But using dates makes more sense than, say, integer digits. If the archive is going to be used by readers to catch up, and other such things, it will be easier to key it by date.
Q: So what's the problem with calendars?
A: We'll get to aesthetic concerns in a minute, but: I'm wary of putting out too much information. As it stands, the entries have no time or date attached to them at all. I somewhat like this: as useful as it is to have attached, say, the time an entry was made, it is too easy to track my movements: you would know how late I was up tapping about. Attaching the date to entries doesn't seem so...problematic, but even that makes it easy to see patterns.
Q: Like, "he's slacking again"?
A: Well. Something like that.
Q: It's not like you're putting out a lot of information now...
A: That sort of thing is beside the point, really - most of this stuff is made up anyway. No offense.
Q: None taken.
A: Okay. So: part of it is a privacy issue, and part of it is an expectation issue. But it remains that dates are the best way to deal with this kind of data, so it will probably be dates.
Q: Hence, calendars.
A: Yes. Firstly, I'd like to use a normal date system; I took a brief look at the Mayan system, but it has problems.
Q: It stops in 2012?
A: ...and it's fairly complex, and as much as this is a user interface of sorts, it should be as simple as possible. So: Julian dates.
Q: You mean Gregorian?
A: Erm. Yeah. But the thing I've been toying with, above and beyond whether or not I should have one, is what it should look like. And how it makes everything else look.
Next, an old standard
All content under copyright by the author. Dancing is permitted. The strange deltic glyphs in the sand under tidal flow are a pleasure to watch in their deepening. Offer not valid in Kansas. We put it down and then we lost it. It all happens in the corner of the eye. Commentary accepted at comment@goob.com, although the traps are agressive and the pointy bits simply drip with dark liquour. We have a dog, but we do not own it. Thank you.