What does “PersonalLog” really mean? Better yet, where did the inspiration for the name come from?

“PersonalLog” can be seen to mean “personal” + “blog” except without the b. This is a correct interpretation of the meaning of “PersonalLog”. We intend our service for individuals who have little or no ability to get hosting, set up databases, download source code, upload that code and install their WordPress blogs. That’s why the Terms of Service are restrictions on the way that one may express one’s own opinions — particularly those extremist views that some of you know you have. Our service wasn’t meant for business-oriented blogs, or even subject-matter-focused blogs (even though that has worked well on our service), but rather originally for personal blogs.

But where did this phrase come from? Here are some clues:

“Personal log, Stardate 3013.1. I find it hard to believe the events of the past 24 hours or the plea of Mr. Spock standing general court martial…Why? Why does Spock want to take to that forbidden world his former captain, mutilated by a recent space disaster, now a shell of a man unable to speak or move? The only answer Spock would give was on the hearing room screen. How Spock could do this, he refused to explain, but there before our eyes actual images from thirteen years ago… of Captain Pike as he was when he commanded this vessel, of Spock in those days and of how the Enterprise had become the first and only starship to visit Talos IV. They had received a distress signal from that planet and discovered there still alive after many years, the survivors of a missing vessel only to find it was all an illusion. No survivors, no encampment, it was all a trap set by a race of being who could make a man believe he was seeing anything they wished him to see. And Captain Pike was gone, a prisoner for some unknown purpose.”

“Captain’s personal log, Stardate 4309.2. We have established that the thing which destroyed the USS Intrepid and the Gamma 7A system is an incredibly huge but simple cellular being whose energies are totally destructive to all known life. Both Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy have volunteered to go in a specially equipped shuttlecraft to penetrate the cell, find a way to destroy it, and free the ship. Dr. McCoy has the medical, biological knowledge. Mr. Spock… is better-suited physically and emotionally to stand the stress. Both are right, both are capable… and which of my friends do I condemn to death?”

“Personal log, Commander Spock, USS Enterprise. I have noted the passage of the Enterprise… on its way to whatever awaits it. If this record should survive me, I wish it known that I bequeath my highest commendation and testimonial to the captain, officers, and crew of the Enterprise… the finest starship in the fleet.”

Evident enough?

Yes, the name “PersonalLog” did come from Star Trek. It comes from the tradition of main characters keeping — what are essentially — journals. And those journal entries are the sort of blog posts that one might see on a personal blog… though not about spacecraft and huge cellular organisms.

So blog to your heart’s content. You’re not limited to one blog; while signed in, click on the registration link in the right sidebar on this site to get another blog.