I have read that there are 70 million blogs. That figure or any other is difficult to verify, I think. Many blogs are more or less straight from the author to the world wide web. But many others are housed on individual company servers or elsewhere. To me, a blog is an on-going column, much like the syndicated columns run by writers and correspondents for a century or more. Regularly or irregularly, the columnist writes something, an "entry" or "post" or an "article". The main difference between a typical magazine or professional journal article and a blog post is that the blogger intends to make additional writings later. Thus, many blogs and podcasts (live or recorded sound presentations) offer RSS ("real simple syndication") or some other "feed" that will alert subscribers that there is a new entry. The actual content of the new item is often delivered to subscribers, like a magazine in the mail or a newspaper on the front step.
On my blog's site, http://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/, I follow, that is, subscribe, to about 20 blogs that often have something interesting to say or show. One of them is O'Reilly Radar from various authors working for or with O'Reilly publishing, a house that specializes in computer books. Today's post is another from Andy Oram who often writes eye-opening entries about things I would not otherwise know about.
When something is computerized, it is sometimes described as being "rationalized", since humans have to decide just what they want a machine or several of them or some sort of system to do. Making that decision invites rational thought, as well as inspired thought and just plain play. Oram writes interestingly about the Veterans Administration health service and mentions the book by Phillip Longman "Best Care Anywhere". Oram's post is worth taking a look at, especially since there has been plenty of negative publicity about the VA health service and about health care in general.
