Valhalla Island

Shawn Blanc’s interview with John Gruber inspired me more than anything has when it comes to my weblog. I’m in constant pursuit of enjoyment and while I’ve changed my focus and attention constantly during the last two years, one thing has stuck, the blog. While I’ve been extremely fickle about my other interests, my love of writing and language has strengthened. It may have something to do with blogging being the last of my interests I haven’t been paid for — the freetard in me is a strong force — but it’s beside the point, right now, I love writing more than ever.

So I’ve decided to take things a little more seriously and the first step in that was moving off Dreamhost. I’ve always argued that Dreamhost is a fine web host despite the occasional downtime, the problem was always just a false sense of self-importance. Now, I’m extremely self-important and no longer content with having my blog down if it saves me some money. My other websites will stay at Dreamhost and they’ll be fine, Valhalla Island is now at Segment Publishing, my first Australian web host. They come with strong recommendation from the brilliant folks at the Maniacal Rage Podcast, so they must be good.

The move comes with a change of format. The addition of inline links — smaller posts linking to and commenting on external sources. Regular, longer posts stay the same but the main feed — what you’re probably reading now — will include more frequent links. If you don’t want the links in your feed you can subscribe to the articles alone. In the feed links are indicated by the ∞ character and the external links will be treated as permalinks are treated by feed readers. There’s a permalink text link at the bottom of links in the feed. Articles behave the same way they always have.

Why Valhalla Island? I’ve owned the domain for a while, it was acting as an incredibly unprofitable Amazon store front. I always loved the name and the design which both felt wasted as unused online store. Meanwhile, I feel like I want to write for a publication rather than run what felt like a public consciousness. Valhalla Island by Jim Whimpey feels like there’s an extra layer of editorial integrity and quality — I feel like I owe it to the name to write well.

Valhalla (pronounced val-harl-la) from Scandinavian mythology is the hall of those that died in battle, a glorious paradise for soldiers. The name comes from my fascination with everything modern and ancient Scandinavia and my equal fascination with the idea of natural paradise. There’s probably some LOST and the beach in there too.

Everything jimwhimpey.com will now redirect to Valhalla Island. If you’re reading the feed through Feed Burner, no need to re subscribe, all is good.