Incidentally, I'm trying really hard to adapt my hyperlinking style, so that I link off the verb phrases not the noun phrases. The blog convention seems to be
NP => at most link to some kind of contextual front page,
VP => specific link to topic of sentence.
So in the previous story I would have written before that

Tim Bray mentions....
I will try to rework that into
Tim Bray mentions
whenever I can remember to. If the link collision is not too blatant I'll add general contextual linkage such as
Tim Bray, XML godfather, mentions

I'm curious where I got the old NP convention from. Obviously a piece of text is a thing not an action, but in the direct style of the blog, inactive phrases like "In a recent essay, by XML godfather Tim Bray a reference is made to...". I am trying to detect some kind of deep, philosophical "this is evidence to my particular feeling about life and writing"-style conclusion here, but I think it is mainly a case of mental economy: I have the link on my mind and in my clipboard and I want to get rid of it as fast as I possibly can, wherefore I drop it at the earliest possible convenience - which is the NP in the simple direct language of blog link-dropping.

I'll spare you the "Isn't it interesting how a text, clearly a thing, is interpretable directly as the action of writing it. The reification of intent." supersmart and way too long post for now.