Okay, this may not be what you expect at an “education blog”, but I consider it highly relevant.

I’ve just done a posting at Samizdata, a cut-and-paste piece asking: Is nanotechnology about to deliver unlimited solar power? This is not a topic I have previously been greatly interested in, but something about the combination of the extravagant nature of the predictions in the article I based my piece on plus the alleged grandeur of the persons making the predictions got me excited.  Very soon, the Samizdata commentariat will be telling me and the universe whether there is any truth to these prophecies of un-doom, and expatiating on the science and technology involved.

That picture from here.

My point for here is: I will learn.

Publishing something like this, even if all I’ve done is ask if there’s any truth in what some other people are saying, is like buying a share.  That being why the phrase “buying into” is often used to describe such writing.  In a few years time, in the now rather implausible event that solar power advances even approximately as prophecied, I’ll be able to say: I wrote about that!  On Samizdata!  (My version of the mass media.) Now that I have bought into this, I am that much more interested.  Further solar power news will catch my attention.  I have added the place where I read all this to my personal sidebar, so that I can in due course read more there about the fabulous future, if that’s what it proves to be, of solar power.  Michael Jennings will send me links to more such stuff, and I will follow them, and read, and learn.

Blog and learn.  Blog and learn.