Tag: Blogging

Replied to https://brainbaking.com/post/2025/01/you-should-compile-your-own-philosophy/ (brainbaking.com)

Now you know why my hopes of reaching eighty diminish by the day. But it’s not too late to create my own philosophy. I’ve never felt a more urgent need to do something than this. I have been taking notes on how to live and how great philosophers before our time approach life in general, but in 2025, it is time to grab those notes and rework them into something of my own. Then I too can rest assured that the remainder of my life, all I have to do is to live up to my own set of rules.

Source: You Should Compile Your Own Philosophy by Wouter Groeneveld

—

Wouter, the idea of my own philosophy has me thinking about Angus Hervey’s idea of holding on tightly … and letting go lightly. I feel like my blog probably captures a philosophy, maybe? However, to bring it together? To make it more condense? To eliminate all its contradictions? Here I am reminded of (or haunted by) Michel Foucault:

Aren’t you sure of what you’re saying? Are you going to change yet again, shift your position according to the questions that are put to you, and say that the objections are not really directed at the place from which you are speaking? Are you going to declare yet again that you have never been what you have been reproached with being? Are you already preparing the way out that will enable you in your next book to spring up somewhere else and declare as you’re now doing: no, no, I’m not where you are lying in wait for me, but over here, laughing at you?’

‘What, do you imagine that I would take so much trouble and so much pleasure in writing, do you think that I would keep so persistently to my task, if I were not preparing – with a rather shaky hand – a labyrinth into which I can venture, into which I can move my discourse, opening up underground passages, forcing it to go far from itself, finding overhangs that reduce and deform its itinerary, in which I can lose myself and appear at last to eyes that I will never have to meet again. I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write.

Source The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language by Michel Foucault

Replied to The ABCs of Blogging: Always Be Commenting by ReverendReverend (bavatuesdays.com)

So acknowledging the definite limits of commenting to save the world, I’m still making a commitment in 2025 to spend a lot more time commenting on other folks work than I have in a long time. I may be overthinking this, but I have gotten the sense that folks might be planning a return to the blog.

Source: The ABCs of Blogging: Always Be Commenting by Jim Groom

Jim, when I first saw the title, I thought it was going to be about the eighties pop group ABC.

In a way, ABC were doing what Roxy Music had done ten years previously, which was create a shiny pop environment, slightly at odds with the times. In ABC’s world, men wore suits and women were grateful – before breaking their men’s hearts. The defining quality of their music was its intelligence, driven by a desire to elevate the pop genre rather than simply turn it into a commodity.

Source: Sweet Dreams – The Story of the New Romantics by Dylan Jones

To play on Jones’ description, maybe the ABC of Blogging might be something like:

In a way, bloggers were doing what the creators of zines had done ten years previously, which was create a shiny pop environment, slightly at odds with the times. In this world, bloggers wrote posts and readers were grateful – before then leaving a comment. The defining quality of blogs are their intelligence, driven by a desire to elevate ideas rather than simply turn it into a commodity.

Bookmarked For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website – Aftermath (aftermath.site)

To me, having my own website, even one I run as a business with my friends, gives me a degree of freedom over my own work that I’ve never had before. If you look at my work on Kotaku, there’s so many garbage ads on the screen you can barely see the words. Waypoint and Motherboard are both being run like a haunted ship, pumping out junk so that Vice’s new owners can put ads on it. I don’t have to worry about that anymore—I don’t have to worry about my work being taken down or modified or sold, or put in an AI training set against my will. I have my own website, and it is mine, and I get to own it completely. I hope someday soon I can visit your website.

Source: For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website – Aftermath by Gita Jackson

Although I agree with the sentiment about a domain of one’s own, I cannot help feel that my site is like one of those country bakery’s that used to thrive when the highway ran through town until a bypass around town changed that?

ᔥ “Doug Belshaw” in I hope someday soon I can visit your website | Thought Shrapnel ()

Liked Backstage blogging by Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

Perhaps the future of meaningful online discourse lies not in trying to find another ‘public square’ — as Twitter was a decade or more ago — and instead embracing both performance and process? Treating blogs as spanning both front of house and backstage, we can create spaces which allow for both authenticity and artistry, and blur the line between ‘creator’ and ‘audience’.

Source: Backstage blogging by @dajbelshaw

Bookmarked Pwned The Book, Is Now Available for Free by Troy HuntTroy Hunt (Troy Hunt)

Speaking of reflecting, this week was Have I Been Pwned’s 11th birthday. Reaching this milestone, getting back to travel (I’m writing this poolside with a beer at a beautiful hotel in Dubai), life settling down (while sitting next to my amazing wife, and it now being 2 years since we launched the book, I decided we should just give it away for free. I mean really free, not “give me all your personal details, then here’s a download link” I mean, here are the _direct_ download links:

1. PDF
2. EPUB

“Pwned”, The Book, Is Now Available for Free by Troy Hunt

I really like the idea of a book collating key moments of a blog over time. I wonder if the benefit is in the actual writing and reflection?

Bookmarked 18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian (The Marginalian)

On this 18th anniversary of the birth of The Marginalian, here are all of these learnings so far as they were originally written in years past, beginning with the present year’s — the most challenging and most transformative of my life.

Source: 18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian by Maria Popova

Maria Popova reflects on writing on her website for 18 years. There are so many interesting points, two that stood out to me were “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time” and “Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.”

Like so many of Popova’s pieces, this feels like one that you could come back to again and again to reflect upon.

Bookmarked Ribbonfarm is Retiring by Venkatesh RaoVenkatesh Rao (ribbonfarm.com)

After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com domain and all links will remain active, but there will be no new content after November 13th, 2024, which happens to be my 50th birthday. There will be one final roundup post before then, and perhaps a shortish epitaph post. And the main page will switch to a static landing page. But after that date, this will effectively be a museum site.

Source: Ribbonfarm is Retiring by Venkatesh Rao

—

Ribbonfarm is retiring. In reflecting upon experiences on the site, Venkatesh Rao doubles down on comments made regarding the convivial web when Musk took over Twitter, arguing that we are seeing the end of blogging. Although aspects of blogging may remain, such as RSS, the new media will have its own identity.

I don’t think there is any single heir to the blog, or to the public social media landscape it dominated, anymore than there was a single heir to the Roman empire when it collapsed. And this is as things should be. Emerging media should emerge into their own identities, not attempt to perpetuate the legacies of sundowning media, or fight over baggage. And of course, many architectural elements of the blog will live on in newer media, just as many patterns we live with today originated in the Roman empire. Chronological feeds, and RSS-like protocols are part of our collective technological vocabulary. So at least in a technological sense, nothing is dying per se. But in a cultural sense, we are definitely witnessing the end of an era.

Source: Ribbonfarm is Retiring by Venkatesh Rao

For Rao, much of this change is captured by the idea of the ‘cozyweb‘.

I like the way Rao describes the move from blogging to Substack as akin to getting a shaving and putting on a suit.

The blogosphere didn’t so much move to Substack as get gentrified by it, much as they’d like you to believe it did. And many of us transplanted bloggers got a shave and haircut, put on a suit, and went to work there, shoulder-to-shoulder with the old media types we once maintained ritual rivalries with, but are now increasingly indistinguishable from.

Source: Ribbonfarm is Retiring by Venkatesh Rao

I feel like I missed (or refused) the invite and seemingly retreated to my secluded shack in the hills.

Bookmarked The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted by John Naughton (The Guardian)

So Dave was present at the creation of some cool stuff, but it was blogging that brought him to a wider public. “Some people were born to play country music,” he wrote at one stage. “I was born to blog. At the beginning of blogging I thought everyone would be a blogger. I was wrong. Most people don’t have the impulse to say what they think.” Dave was the exact opposite. He was (and remains) articulate and forthright. His formidable record as a tech innovator meant that he couldn’t be written off as a crank. The fact that he was financially secure meant that he didn’t have to suck up to anyone: he could speak his mind. And he did. So from the moment he launched Scripting News in October 1994 he was a distinctive presence on the web.

Source: The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted by John Naughton

—

I am left reflecting about the idea that Winer is ‘financially secure’ and the impact that has on his voice.

Replied to https://social.ayjay.org/2024/09/23/why-my-model.html (social.ayjay.org)

When I write, I’m not looking for hooks to current events — for me, that’s now a reason _not_ to write about something. I don’t promote my writing on social media, and I don’t ask anyone else to do so either. I’ve become the writerly version of the family in _The Quiet Place_, trying not to attract the attention of the uncomprehending and incomprehensible aliens.

Source: POS, not POSSE by Alan Jacobs

I appreciate your point about POSSE Alan. I remember the days when I would Tweet and Retweet my posts, in the hope that someone would read it, I guess. These days, I only POSSE when I feel it is applicable. For example, if I see something online, whether it be a blog (like yours) or a social media post, I will write on my site and syndicate if required. Most times it is not required, so I just leave it to chance. Although I sometimes fear I have become a recluse in the digital woods living in the small hut that is my own website, just talking to myself as the local habitat walks on past wondering what I am doing. I think it has been important in realising why I write here, first and fore mostly for me. If someone wants to follow, they can easily follow via RSS. It makes me wonder about the future of Eli Pariser’s ‘online parks’.

P.S. Austin Kleon told me you were here, blame him.

Replied to The Gift of Comments (cogdogblog.com)

Given the abuse of comment spammers making it a PITA to manage, many bloggers turn them off, or use some fancy new hip static publisher that does no support comments (aka D’Arcy). Or it happens away from the publishing source, maybe tied back with something like ActivityPub. There the depth of the response is thin, quick, all the intensity of an emoji or some meme gif.

So when I get a genuine, non spam blog comment from a real person, with maybe complete sentences that indicate they actually read what I wrote, not glancing at in during a scroll session, it’s quite a gift.

Source: The Gift of Comments by Alan Levine

—

I agree with you Alan about the gift of a comment on the blog. As Robert T. Schuetz’ once said,

Comments are like the marshmallows in Lucky Charms, the sugary goodness that adds flavor to our day. Comments turn posts into conversations. Sometimes, these conversations turn into friendships, and sometimes these friendships span the globe.

Source: Comments are the Marshmallows by Robert T. Schuetz

I remember in the past at the end of each year I would go through all my comments and collate the bits that stood out. I managed to do this for four years (2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017), but then it fell on the way side I guess. I wonder if one of the challenges is the way in which comments and general conversation have become distributed over the years? Ironically, looking back, it is sad how comments on platforms such as Disqus have been lost to time. Personally, I find something in writing my comments on my own site these days and POSSEing them elsewhere, although it means I do not always get around to commenting as much as I would like.

Replied to https://austinkleon.substack.com/p/newsletters-should-be-letters (austinkleon.substack.com)

People often ask me for advice on how to write a newsletter. I usually tell them some variation of what I wrote in Steal Like an Artist: “Write a newsletter you’d like to read.” 

I have a few more tips, like “Pick a repeatable format” or “Be consistent at a regular frequency.”

But my current personal motto is: “Newsletters should be letters.”

What I love most about newsletters is the letter part — the epistle, the missive, the bulletin, the dispatch! What’s going on — in the studio, in my life, in my mind — that’s worth sending out? Worth opening? Worth reading?

Source: Newsletters should be letters!
 by Austin Kleon

—

I have been wondering about why I fell out of love with the slight obsession I had with my newsletter, I think it was because it may have become a letter to no one in particular. I feel that a ‘letter’ has an ideal reader in mind, maybe?

Liked https://blog.ayjay.org/the-uncanny-valley-of-blogging/ (blog.ayjay.org)

a blog is probably the least cool way to communicate with people. It doesn’t have old-school cred or state-of-the-art shine; it falls into a kind of uncanny valley. To be a blogger is sort of like being that Japanese guy who makes paintings with Excel. But that suits me.

The Uncanny Valley of Blogging

Replied to Message in a bottle by David TrussDavid Truss (daily-ink.davidtruss.com)

Write a note, put it in a bottle, cork it, and throw it into the ocean. The tides move the bottle from one shore to another and the message is picked up randomly by a stranger who isn’t expecting the message. An audience of one. Today, the internet lets us toss our message into a […]

Today, the internet lets us toss our message into a cyber ocean. As I write this, I have an idea of some of the people who will see it, but I also know that it has the potential to be picked up by some random person somewhere far away, opened up and read at random, without me ever knowing where my post, my message in a bottle, landed.

David Truss https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/message-in-a-bottle/

—

Hi David, I was wading through my ocean of RSS and this post popped up. Personally, when I publish on the web, I am always left with the thought that it could be read, not that it will be read. This possibility forces me to be clear and concise with what I write. This is something that Clive Thompson once wrote about regarding the power of blogging:

Having an audience can clarify thinking. It’s easy to win an argument inside your head. But when you face a real audience, you have to be truly convincing.

Why Even the Worst Bloggers Are Making Us Smarter by Clive Thompson

Reflecting on research into education, he argues that their is power in explaining your thoughts.

Children who didn’t explain their thinking performed worst. The ones who recorded their explanations did better.

Why Even the Worst Bloggers Are Making Us Smarter by Clive Thompson

Interestingly, in reflecting upon Pluralistic and his memex method, Cory Doctorow discusses the importance of doing it first and foremost for yourself.

First and foremost, I do it for me. The memex I’ve created by thinking about and then describing every interesting thing I’ve encountered is hugely important for how I understand the world. It’s the raw material of every novel, article, story and speech I write.

20 years a blogger by Cory Doctorow

Thinking of blogging like this makes me wonder about the ‘message in a bottle’ metaphor. Maybe there is an alternative history to ‘messages in a bottle’, but all the tales that I read about them was that they related to people trying to escape their little island. I am not sure that is why I write? I am happy if someone passing finds my message and wishes to trade ideas, something you commented on ten years ago:

“As connected learners we are not just curating ideas and resources, we are creating relationships, some are just ‘weak ties’ but others are very meaning, rich and strong. I don’t just read Dean, I hear his voice, I connect to previous things he has said, and I pause just a little longer if he says something I disagree with.” David Truss in response to Learning in a Connected World

It Takes a Village … by Aaron Davis

But I am not sure I wanted to be rescued? I wonder if Doctorow’s dandelion metaphor is more apt?

Dandelions produce two thousand seeds every spring, and when a good, stiff breeze comes around, those seeds are blown into the air, going every which way. The dandelion’s strategy is to maximize the number of blind chances it has for continuing its genetic line—not to carefully plot every germination. It works: every summer, every crack in every sidewalk has a dandelion growing out of it.

Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free by Cory Doctorow

Replied to Publish Your Work by Wouter GroeneveldWouter Groeneveld (brainbaking.com)

I don’t create or publish in the hopes of influencing others. I create things because I have an urge to create. But it sure is great to help others along the way, however small my contribution might be. I don’t care about being found online and I am certainly not actively pushing my stuff down others’ throats (Kleon’s rule #7: Don’t turn into human spam). I love reading about the creation process of others. I love sharing my creation process. It’s almost second nature: it feels like a wasted opportunity to do something good in this world if I didn’t.

Source: Publish Your Work by Wouter Groeneveld

—

Wouter, your argument about the wasted opportunity missed by not sharing ideas in public reminds me of Clive Thompson’s piece from Wired from a few years ago.

Just as we now live in public, so do we think in public. And that is accelerating the creation of new ideas and the advancement of global knowledge.

Source: Why Even the Worst Bloggers Are Making Us Smarter – How successful networks nurture good ideas by Clive Thompson

I personally find the benefit of working through solutions and often find myself refining things as a part of the process.

Replied to The drag of experience by Oliver Quinlan (Oliver’s Newsletter)

I can see how people start to become more resistant to change. When you’ve got lots of legacy stuff to unpick it can be a lot of effort to do things any differently.

But all that experience is incredibly valuable. It just needs a bit of curation every now a then. A lot when you make a big change. You get to a point where it just isn’t possible to start from scratch, you just have to unpick things a bit and keep on building.

Really enjoyed this reflection Oliver. I must admit that I was a bit latter to things than you, but I still care about my digital archive even if I do not ‘blog’ as much as I used to. One of my biggest frustrations with my archive is that I didn’t start earlier. I really rue not having a digital copy of my Honours thesis. Fine I have a scanned copy, but it is not the same.
Replied to Subterranean Blogging (tomcritchlow.com)

We think of blogging as being performative but the value is subterranean. You can watch someone blogging and think that all they’re doing is throwing words into the feed, when in reality they’re sparking many interesting conversations and connections below the surface.

I really like your point Tom about the invisible nature of blogging. I sometimes wonder if blogging is a way of seeing and thinking. Maybe activities like actually keeping drafts is a power unto itself.
Bookmarked Slow Social (slowsocial.us)

Slow social is a social network built for people who want a place to connect with their friends online in a more intentional, sustainable manner. It is run and developed by a small team looking to make online communities more human and inclusive.

Slow Social places constraints on the practice of posting to reverse the gamification of platforms like Twitter. Although it creates a sustainable practice, I wonder if we really need another platform?