This Site Is Two Years Old Today

Status report

Two years ago, on May 6, 2022, I decided to publish a few articles on Substack. At first, I thought it was going to be a farce, because I couldn’t imagine that I would be allowed to publish my thoughts openly, which is what my pen name also suggests. To my surprise, it was clear for me within a week that I was allowed to speak my mind, and I was filling a gap with contents and materials that would have been otherwise ignored or or left unnoticed.

With two doctoral degrees as a “cognitive scientist” (a computer linguist and an AI researcher), I could have promoted myself as Dr. Horvath, but I don’t care for that sort of thing. I firmly believe that everybody, including me, must prove themselves every step of the way. I am also aware of the value of “doctoral” degrees, and working in a military hospital for eight months in my youth, volunteering for the Psych Ward at a V.A. later on, and collaborating with MDs and sick-care personnel in the last 12 years, I accumulated hands-on experience about Medicine, while doing my own research. My life experience resulted in my unique type of familiarity with a wide range of subjects, and teaching mostly Linguistics and Communication at colleges and universities in the US and in Europe for 23 years further added a lot of specifics to my knowledge that would have been a lot less detailed without it.

My readership has been quietly increasing over these two years. One year ago, it was slightly over 1,400, and today, it’s approaching 2,800¹. From 18 paying supporters, the total has gone up to 23, amounting to about the same $10 a day as a year ago, which doesn’t include additional contributions through “Buy Me a Coffee,” but the latter is few and far between, anyway (like about one “coffee” a month). I have published a total of 853 articles, which is above an average of one a day even without the handful of cross-published articles by other authors. As I promised from the beginning, everything remains free on my site, although a couple of bonuses are offered to paid subscribers.

Please, notice that I often precede other sources by days, weeks, or even months or years, so you can take advantage of searching for specific key words of phrases under “Archive” on my main page, and find something unique. Despite their journalistic style and format, most of my articles don’t go obsolete and often contain details that cannot be found anywhere else.

Also, this site would have been a lot less prolific and versatile without my wife’s contribution to whom I remain grateful as eternally as such a thing is possible. I also thank you for your support with your posts in the comment sections.

On average, enterprises succeed no sooner than two years after start, but most of them give up before striking even. In reality, the success rate is a whole lot lower, because businesses with connections are the ones that primarily succeed. The good news is that this site is not a business, but bad news also abound. While there are plenty of things to be discouraged about, I hope to stay the course. The first part of the following prophecy is already happening, and one can only hope for the second part:

1. Over 300 are “followers,” who might or might not know that they can’t receive supplementary e-mails, because Substack reserves that privilege to subscribers.