Hello, World!

(Plus two charts.)

This is my first post here on Substack. It’s possible it will be the one and only; I’ll see how it goes. I have a hard enough time posting on my WordPress blog, Logos con Carne.

Mostly, I just want to get started and see how things work. It appears I need to spend some time in Settings to arrange all the whistles and bells. For now, I’m mostly sticking with whatever defaults Substack provides.

I thought I’d use this first post as an excuse to post two charts that will only be of much interest for my long-time online friend, Tina Forsee, who used to have a blog on WordPress but has moved to Substack. Her blog is Philosophy and Fiction, and if you don’t know of her already, and enjoy philosophy or writing, then check her out.

Tina recently published her first book, A Footnote to Plato. While she was working on it, she asked (because I’m fascinated by math and geometry) if I could come up with a diagram she could use in her book. Happily, I was able to provide something acceptable, and now (very, very cool) that diagram is part of her book, and I got my name in print!

As part of developing those diagrams, I wrote two blog posts explaining them, Plato's Divided Line, and a follow-up, Back to Plato's Line. The latter because I thought of a better way to geometrically demonstrate that the middle two segments must be equal.

Tina’s book has the URL of the first post for readers who want an explanation of the diagrams, which brings me to my two charts. They track reader activity of those two posts. Here’s the page Tina refers to in her novel:

And here’s the activity on the follow-up post:

Note the difference in the vertical scales. Much more activity on the first one, and I have to believe it’s due to the reference to it in her book. People are definitely interested in it, which is nice. (I just wish more people checked out what I consider to be the better proof.)

Anyway, that’s all for now. I just wanted to give Tina a chance to see the reader activity. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the next post!