“I am always embarrassed by my past self. Because I am so head-strong and voice myself, it is a given that I am wrong somewhere in my opinions because I lack some extra level of experience or perspective which I receive later.”

Same here. If there's one thing that makes me want to punch people, it's when they remember that I used to think otherwise just as strongly as I think something today. I know that, but still it hurts, so I really don't want to think about it. I'm a living advertising for cognitive dissonance theory u_u

“I try and not let myself hide these days away too much because they are important in their own respect as guide-posts to where I have come from.”

Are they ? No matter how much effort I put into hiding my past, there's this thing called memory which his here to remember me the bad parts from time to time anyway, and these are the parts which make you think and guide you isn't it ?

“Your blog is a masterpiece of fine technical writing. I need to comment more on it, but I keep finding myself distracted and tired. It’s hard to come home from a day where you’ve cycled 20 miles and fought battles with crappy Vista computers and then be faced with a wall of text that requires a great deal of consideration to reply to.”

I feel the same about yours, actually :) The thing is, because of this, I regularly wonder if you (and others) still read it. As a blog editor, insightful comments makes you feel like people have read and understood your article, they're truly a joy. Plus, they help you moving forward.

To be blunt, when you say here that my blog is a masterpiece, it feels a bit like an empty statement. Of course, it's a masterpiece, since I've written it ^^ But there has to be something that tickles your nose though, something you feel I've done wrong, and I'd like to know because it helps my project improve...

“My suggestion to you is to do more personal blogging, speak your mind. It’ll leave you a trail of things you’ll regret, but it’s also a trail to show you how far you’ve come.”

I originally planned to post this on my blog, you know :) I've tried several times, but nothing came out of the keyboard. Maybe one of the reasons why I love sandboxing is that it's simply the way my mind work : TOSP is about an OS. My life has nothing to do there. The fluctuating idea of this OS exists independently of my life in the world outside, and this idea just needs me to push it forward.

“But yes, I feel your pain.”

This must be the most mysterious part of your post, actually :) I'm starting to fall asleep and it doesn't help me at the task of understanding things and writing, but this part I simply have not understood.

“You cannot change who you are. You can only change who you will become.”

Well said :) Though I'd say that I'm permanently becoming someone else, so it's not so bad... as long as I don't look back and start wanting to change the past.

“Memories are vague and unforgiving. I can look back at a blog post and say "I’m not that person any more".”

But if that person is not you anymore, how is reading about it any more interesting than reading about other persons instead ?

“Not that I can see. You are operating at several levels below me in the stack. The code is beyond me, but your articles make it very accessible by debating core OS design concepts.”

That's because for me, it's the concepts that should mainly be discussed. Code has its requirements as well, like comments and identations and other naming clarity standards, but a good code snippet can be easily changed, while a flawed design is an awful pain to correct.

“If you want and audience (a technical one) and replies, I don’t see why you don’t publish these articles on OSNews. You’re writing an OS, fighting with the fundamentals. But I can understand that OSNews is not "home" to you. I had a blogger blog before I made the new camen design, and I didn’t use it much as it didn’t feel like home to me.”

I think it's something like that. I always try to keep in mind that I could write things on OSnews, and have successfully tried once, but... It's not home for me. The interface intimidates me as much as it annoys me, because on my blog I speak on the behalf of myself (or, more exactly, of the OS-periment project) while on OSnews I speak on the behalf of OSnews... It really doesn't feel the same, and you might have noticed that my writing style on both reflects this by being a bit different.

“Consider trying to find a space that suits you for personal blogging. Perhaps Tumblr or Posterous that offer a "minimal" setup, or just stick a bunch of text files in a web root and write a tiny script to produce an index—whatever is as little effort to prevent you from using something.”

Will have a look at these later, once I go back from work (I should already be en route ^^') but right now I already have a potential issue about that : wouldn't such personal blogging eat up too much spare time and slow down my other projects ?

“If you counted how many hours you weren’t being productive, you could probably fit a whole other job in there. I certainly know I could.

Personal blogging is maintenance for the soul. If you ignore it because you’re "busy" it’s just going to make your other projects slow down as you become less effective from the strain.”

This is a subject which always puzzles me.

I do let myself "waste" time this way regularly. This is the time I spend commenting on various websites and forums, watching youtube videos, chatting with friends about weather and food, etc. And I know it's necessary.

But I can't control this time. It's almost defined this way. Giving up control on myself, letting me go.

And I regularly look at all this time and think that it could have been better employed. If only...

Well, anyway, the thing is, I don't know if I would do personal blogging during such time. Centralizing things and posting them in one place takes some effort, and during this "zombie" time I can't provide any effort.