Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My goal was to contribute back the same way. YES! So much of our computing-related triumphs come from documentation that other people wrote. Even super basic stuff that no senior developer or sysadmin would dream of asking, that stuff still needs to be written down by someone. I have a dozen or so Markdown documents of varying sizes that I need to finish, proof and polish before putting them online. I sorely lackin…
My quotes file recently reached 1MB of plain text, 160,257 words. I started this file 17 years ago! This is enough to fill three average sized novels! One day... I might have a go at weaving a narrative through it.
Have a personal web site
341–350 of 436 posts
Re: Have a personal web site
#342I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…
> I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. I think it's a good idea to have a personal web site. If someone wants to find out more about you, they have a chance of hearing your side of the story: what's interesting to you, what you've shared with the world, and so on. If you only post on Facebook, Twitter, etc., then when those sites di…
Re: Have a personal web site
#343I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…
> I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. My wife and I are fairly boring people. I'm a sysadmin and fill-in sales rep at work, she works for the l…
Re: Have a personal web site
#344I've been careful since about 1997 to always ensure that I don't attribute myself to anything I've written. Even accounts like this I'm always careful to write things that won't identify me ever, unless I did it completely on purpose (a blog post for my employer, etc). I learned very early on that the things that get written are forever, and I didn't want something I wrote 20 years ago to come back to haunt me.
I rejected a handful of candidates for things they wrote on Twitter (ex. "old people should give up their right to vote because they don't matter anymore", "SF is a piece of shit and everyone that lives there is a piece of shit").
Re: Have a personal web site
#345I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…
I recently wrote a blog about “Dutch Oven Fried Chicken”[1], I don’t think it’s particularly interesting and anyone can do it. However, now I can send a link to a friend and go back and make the recipe myself. Blogging for me isn’t about popularity. It’s about being able to share ones ideas and document your interests. I send links to my blog all the time, because I wrote about topics I found challenging / fun. I don…
Hmm... let's call it a Personal Open Document (POD) or something like that.
Re: Have a personal web site
#346drupal and wordpress users for years and I keep looking for a simpler solution, no not the static site generators which has no online editor and no login support either.
I plan build one with python/flask, then I will have my personal site.
Re: Have a personal web site
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think writing is just about communicating things to other people. It's also communicating things to yourself. I think the greatest value in writing things down is to order and articulate your own thoughts. Certainly in my own case, I never finish a large chunk of articles I start to write simply because during the research I find out I was wrong, or that things are more complex than I thought and I'm no longe…
> It's also communicating things to yourself. Yeah! And remember to back it up. I had a blog in the early days when it was all new, and bitterly regret not backing it up properly - 5 years of content gone.
That way, I always have an offline copy without having to remember to make one specifically.
Re: Have a personal web site
#348I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…
Granted that most people's lives don't serialise down well into a regular stream of weekly episodes. If one can put aside the requirement to "be someone" on the internet, I think maintaining a personal site can be a really great form of self expression, albeit with a few provisos.
Re: Have a personal web site
#349Re: Have a personal web site
#350>“You were a complete ghost online.”, they said Okay, so what? Is it a blogger or promoter position? Otherwise, why should you have any visible online presence? The whole thing is about one guy who decided to make a personal website and how he made it, that's fine. But why call it "You should have a personal website" without any reasoning/examples for others? I don't get it.
Because others will. It's an arms race.
Put another way:
- Who thinks it's a meritorious thing that someone screws around on Facebook, twitter, or personal blogs all the time? - Who specially wants to work for/with the people who do?
Not that it's a bad thing. But why is it a good thing? And why should we think the people who do think it is a good thing are significant?