1000

Dear Reader,

This is a sort of milestone for us, as it happens to be the 1000th post at 3 Quarks Daily. Our first post, a poem by Constantine Cavafy, was on July 31, 2004, so it has been a little over seven months since we started up. This means we have been averaging about five posts per day. I am happy to report that for such a young site, we have quickly developed quite a loyal, and steadily growing, readership. Among our regular readers, we are pleased to count such eminent thinkers as Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, John Allen Paulos, and, of course, you.

Once, when I was ranting about how people don't know enough basic math, the victim of my tirade asked me, "Don't you believe in the left brain/right brain theory?" to which I replied, "I believe in the big brain/small brain theory." What I meant is that human beings have big enough brains that we can, and should, take an interest in all intellectual fields of endeavor. We started this blog because we felt that while there are great sites which cover particular areas, like literature, or science, no one does it all. And so we decided we would start a blog where we post everything we could find in whatever field, as long as it was intellectually serious, stimulating, and well-written. We have attempted to do this. We have also tried to keep our design as simple as possible, with a single column of posts and nothing else. We have no advertising or other distractions, and each of the editors volunteers his or her time and effort.

We realize that you may not find everything that we post on a given day interesting, but we hope that if you come everyday and skim the titles of the posts, you will find at least one or two things that you end up reading in full. We keep the number of daily posts between five and ten most of the time. If you think we should have fewer or more, let us know. Also, it would be good to know if the posts themselves are too long or too short. What do you think?

The number of sites that link to us has grown steadily and is now some hard-to-pin-down three-digit number, but our audience is not as large as we think we deserve. And we believe that this is because not enough people know that we exist. Dear Reader, if you like what we do, and visit us regularly, we have a favor to ask: help spread the word about us. Maybe you could email your friends, family, and other like-minded people recommending us. If you have a blog or website of your own, please link to us, and/or write about us there. Do what you can, will you?

We are very eager for feedback, so please leave comments or email us with suggestions, criticisms, etc. I would like to thank all the editors at 3 Quarks for their always wonderfully fascinating (at least to me) posts. And last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank you for coming here and for supporting us. Looking forward to hearing from you, I remain,

Respectfully yours,

Abbas

P.S. If you haven't done so already, for more information about the site and about each of the editors, you should look at our "About Us" page here (or at the top of this page).

Comments

[Tasnim]

I have been enjoying your site since its inception. I dont read every thing but love looking through the posts every morning and pick and choose the ones I am most interested in. I like the variety and many disciplines that you and your associate editors cover. Having read all of the thinkers you mention, that is Dawkins, Pinker and Paulos I know I am in good company. Thanks for investing your time. Keep it up. Tasnim.

[Levi]

I made a comment over at Preposterous Universe saying that your blog consistently has some of the most interesting links of any site that I visit. Other fans of this blog might want to similarly pass the word.

On the matter of comments, I have noticed over time that you receive fewer comments than other sites of similar prominence, and it took me a while to understand why. The articles you link to are of such high literary quality that comments need to be of the same quality not to lower the tone of the site. Seriously.

Recently you posted an article about pain-inducing weapons. A commenter posted a short excerpt from Man and Superman. In other words, the comment was in the spirit of the site. This might be a way for ordinary readers to participate.

Happy 1000

[J. M. Tyree]

Looking smart, Abbas, nice cravat! It's been a pleasure doing posts for the site, but even better than that is reading the blog and soaking up new ideas. Here's to your hard work and the work of the other eds at 3QD. I agree with the above comments and add that many times I don't end up leaving comments on great posts simply because I don't have much of anything to say except, "Wow! Cool!"

[Simon]

Similar kudos to the ones already supplied above. This is one of the few site I have marked on my RSS reader for daily consumption. I don't read all the posts all the way through, but there is enough of a snippet on each to encourage me to click through to the full article or skim on past to the next post.

At the very least, I've got you added to my own site as a preferred link. Good choice in hosts too, by the way...

[Michael Williams]

3quarksdaily is surely one of my favourite websites, and I'll always follow up at least one link each day. I think I found my way here back in September via blackbeltjones, although I could be mistaken and it's difficult to know for sure since Google doesn't search the whole of your site for some reason. I know it can't have been any later than that, because I get a namecheck in a September entry.

Apart from a couple of comments, I've remained a silent and attentive reader since then, as I guess most of your audience does. I agree with Levi and J. M. Tyree above; there's usually nothing I can add to what has been said in the linked article. Happily this leads to an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio.

I like to think that you have a pretty bright readership, and the lack of comments is a tribute to their intelligence. Sadly, the corollary is that this comment proof of my own stupidity. I am reminded of Philip Greenspun's peerless comment moderation policy:

Alternative perspectives on the same topic are welcome.  Anything that seems like a review of the article or posting should be deleted.  A review is useful in the hardcopy world because you might want to learn about a 300-page book before investing $20 and several hours reading the actual book.  A review-comment is not useful in the Internet world because it is generally only accessible to someone who just finished reading the article in question.  If you've read Article X and liked it, what difference does it make to you that someone else liked or did not like it?  Similarly a comment praising or condemning the author as a person is not interesting to other readers who presumably have already formed their own opinion about the author.

[This policy and more ruthless variations are discussed by Edwarde Tufte and others on his excellent discussion forum]

Just so you know a little bit more about your lurking readership, I've just started a PhD in Australia in theoretical physics and astrobiology under the supervision of Paul Davies, a popular science author and physicist. I formerly worked as one of the full-time editors of Journal of Physics A in the UK and as a Liberal Democrat parliamentary researcher for this guy. I don't have much of a website at the moment, although I do maintain del.icio.us links, which you might like to point your RSS reader at.

Thanks to all your contributors for a fantastic first thousand posts. Here's to many more.

[Anna]

Hi Abbas and Robin and other contributors. Congratulations on the creation of a really great site with loads of personality and non of the overblown ego that one finds on so many other blogs. 3QD is a palpable positive addition to my morning coffee routine. I am a big fan and look forwards to many thousand more posts! Bravo!

[CT]

Congratulations 3QD!
The Time You Invest is really worth, as many like me are really benefitted by saving our Time by searching in vain such useful information. Thank You for Your contributions and expect many more.

[Javed]

Congratulations Abbas and the rest of the crew on achieving the 1000 mark!! Great work and great achievement. I enjoy going through 3quarksdaily like so many of your other readership and am grateful for this "Reader's Digest" in the literal sense. Keep it up!!

[Sean]

Congratulations to Abbas and everyone. It's a great site; I'm quite sure the readership will continue to grow steadily.

[Alex M Thomas]

This is an extremely well maintained and well written site. No doubts.

And like you mentioned, it has offered and is offering me intellectually challenging articles.

I to believe that we need to garner all that we can and experience them. And this site certainly does that.

A little more on art and artists would be welcome.

Keep up the excellent work!

[Alex M Thomas]

"We have no advertising"

:)

[Cathy]

"We have no advertising or other distractions..."

No advertising? So far, I see three adverts on your website!

WTF is that (lie) all about?!!!