meta

There are 6 posts filed in meta (this is page 1 of 1).

(pinned) living in interesting times

In this space, and online in general, I mostly talk about computers — as well as tabletop games, cats, dogs, baking, and other comparatively trivial topics.

At the same time, in the US we are currently living through a time where the government is increasingly attacking the people of this country, imprisoning people without cause, and ignoring the Constitution. Worldwide, others are dealing with the consequences this as well, not to mention the rise of the far right in their own countries.

I don’t actively talk about this a ton online — not because I don’t care, but because being politically loud on the Internet is not where I really feel I can be effective at that kind of change. But at the same time, it feels wrong not to acknowledge the reality we live in.

Among other things, I donate heavily to organizations that do good work and match my values. For a list of orgs that I’d encourage you to support, click through to the rest of the post. For more computer and pet content, go ahead and scroll down!

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why I continue to blog with WordPress

I’m generally a fan in theory of static site generators like Hugo or Jekyll. I like the idea of a blog which is just a set of html pages, especially since I don’t like to enable blog comments. (Mostly for time management reasons.)

However… in my current life situation, I often find myself most able to write or edit blog entries from my phone. Usually on the couch, at the dog park, or otherwise away from a real keyboard. And I just can’t bring myself to manage a static site generator on a mobile device most of the time.

At the same time, I strongly prefer to have my blog hosted on a service instance I own and on a system I control. Or at least that I can control. I can deal with shared hosting, eg DreamHost-style, but I refuse to host my blog on a box where I can’t get a shell.

WordPress, for all its faults, has a usable mobile app that can connect to an instance hosted on my provider of choice. So it’s still the choice for the moment.

Lowering the barrier to posting

Inspired somewhat by Simon Willison’s blog, I’m intentionally trying to lower my personal activation energy for posting to this blog. Hence the more frequent link and quote posts over the past few weeks!

This is both to try and make sure more of my thoughts are captured on a site I control, rather than just ending up on one social media platform or another. And to encourage myself to just post more frequently and share my thoughts.

I’m also trying to remind myself to link to these entries on BlueSky, the Fediverse, and even LinkedIn. But also, if you want to follow my posts, the most reliable method is the RSS feed as the Internet intended!

You should be using custom feeds on bluesky

Custom feeds are an underused feature on bsky, and can really improve the experience.

Yes, a chronological feed is nice, but so is an algorithmic or limited feed you understand clearly.

In particular I use…

  • OnlyPosts: Top-level posts from accounts you follow, no reposts or replies
  • For You: It finds people who liked the same posts as you, and shows you what else they’ve recently liked
  • Mutuals: What it says on the tin, just posts from your mutuals
  • Quiet Posters: Highlights posts from people who don’t post frequently

Right now “OnlyPosts” is my default view, and I check out “Mutuals” regularly to make sure I don’t miss things from those folks. “For You” is for when I want to vary it up, and “Quiet Posters” is checked occasionally to surface things I missed.

My Following feed is demoted to the end of the list, and I’ve completely removed Discover.

There are a ton of custom feeds out there, and they’re worth checking out. It turns out algorithmic feeds can be helpful, but it’s nice to understand how they work and even better when they aren’t trying to sell you anything.

Trying to write more, with less pressure

I’ve been pretty bad at blogging for the past *mumble mumble years*, but it’s not for lack of writing.

The thing is, I like writing. I have a rather large drafts folder filled with work-in-progress posts, not to mention all the various brainstorming docs I have for work, D&D, and other writing tasks. Those WIPs are frequently five or ten pages long, with lots of little notes on extra bits I should add to avoid missing things.

Like plenty of other folks, my problem isn’t writing, it’s finishing things.

However, this blog is titled “thinking out loud”! I don’t need to write the definitive article on a given topic, or at least I don’t need to do it here. Instead, I want this to be a place where I can get thoughts out in front of people (and myself!) so I can make them better.

To that end, I’m setting a goal for 2022 to write here:

  • At least once every two weeks
  • With only light editing
  • At most two pages of text in a post
  • And being willing to delete anything I decide I hate! 😅

To make my life easier, I’m cheating a little: I’ve written four short posts in the past week, and set them to auto-publish every two weeks!

That should get me through February. In the mean time, I’ll keep writing — with any new posts either being added to the queue, or potentially posted live if I have a particularly hot take. With luck, this process will help me stick to my goal despite any temporary crises or fits of ennui, and keep my momentum up.

Happy New Year!