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Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

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Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#351

Post by davideg »

abhaynayar wrote: post #236
tricky wrote: post #123

There is an extensive network of caves under my city that were used by beer breweries in the 1800's to store beer. They are all but inaccessible, and, at the time, kind of a myth. Most people didn't believe they still existed. I was fascinated by this and I compiled as much information as I could find on my personal website in the early 2000's. One day I received an email, "do you want to go into the caves? I know so…

It's amazing how I'd never heard the word "spelunk" before today, and now in the span of the last few hours, I've heard it multiple times in three different contexts.

Have you heard of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#352

Post by phamilton »

luizs wrote: post #305
reactordev wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you don’t play video games either. Spelunky was a pretty popular Indy game back in the day. Named after, you guessed it, spelunking. I first learned the word from “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego” back in the 90s. I had to ask my parents what it meant.

There's also an old NES game called Spelunker.

This comic is my first memory of the word https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/08/07

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#353

Post by hikarudo »

pwim wrote: post #308

I started blogging about developer events I was attending in Japan back in 2010. As I was the only one writing about it in English, the content naturally ranked well. That led a fellow Canadian to my blog, who asked how I found a job here. My email back to him started to get pretty long, and so I turned it into an article for the blog. That article attracted more people looking for developer jobs in Japan, so I start…

What an awesome story! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#354

Post by xena »

adammarples wrote: post #345
xena wrote: post #12

I've been running a blog at https://xeiaso.net for almost a decade now. It has been the single best decision I have ever made in my career. It allows me to skip technical screening interviews. It has made interviewing at companies _easy_ because I have _already proven_ that I understand what I'm talking about. Learning how to write well also makes it so much easier to explain things succinctly, especially when workin…

You're Christine? I'm sure nobody would have turned your down for a technical screen!

You'd be amazed. I get way more rejections than you'd be comfortable with because 2016 was a horrible year for me and I still have that year on my resume for logistical reasons.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#355

Post by shortformblog »

I will admit that I'm a unique case because I got into blogging to blog, rather than just as a subset of my online presence. But I hope that my story inspires someone.

I started my first blog, ShortFormBlog, in 2009. At the time, I was a fully print journalist, focused on graphic design. I had just been laid off from one newspaper and was about to be hired by another. The thing that made the blog stand out at the time is that I tried to bring some of that news-design mindset to the blog.

Within three years, I had had a number of notable experiences emerge because of this blog, including:

- A regular freelance gig with AOL News

- Interviews with a number of prominent outlets for potential jobs, including the then-buzzy iPad newspaper The Daily, PBS, and BuzzFeed

- Nominated for a Shorty Award

- A large follower base on Tumblr (160k by the time I stopped)

- Transition to a new, fully digital full-time job, outside of newspapers, in which I was allowed to keep the blog going

I eventually moved to a newsletter format called Tedium, which moved away from daily news into more evergreen styles of content. That led to:

- An appearance on NPR’s Planet Money

- Syndication opportunities with Atlas Obscura, Fast Company, and Nieman Lab, among others

- An ongoing freelance relationship with Motherboard, along with freelance opportunities in other places

- A consistent revenue model

- The opportunity to bring in outside writers

- Periodic viral posts (including one last year, written by a contributor to the site, that was name-dropped by Rick Beato)

- A smaller but more deeply interested audience

- A chance to meet a lot of people who are into the same weird stuff I'm into

- A frequent outlet to write about whatever's on my mind

I have now been writing at a regular pace on the internet for about 14 and a half years. I have learned a lot over that time. My recommendation to you is that you find your pacing, and if something is not working, you switch gears.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#356

Post by paradite »

pwim wrote: post #308

I started blogging about developer events I was attending in Japan back in 2010. As I was the only one writing about it in English, the content naturally ranked well. That led a fellow Canadian to my blog, who asked how I found a job here. My email back to him started to get pretty long, and so I turned it into an article for the blog. That article attracted more people looking for developer jobs in Japan, so I start…

I vaguely remember reading this story somewhere else.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#357

Post by stl_fan »

tomwheeler wrote: post #321
tricky wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could that have been across from what is now Earthbound Beer? If so, they hand-dug all the debris out of the cave and you can pretty easily get a tour. The owner said the cave under the cave is off limits b/c they almost ran out of air while exploring it.

It probably was. It was definitely on the north side of the street and west of Jefferson, so that would be about right.

Check out the book "Lost Caves of St. Louis" - it even contains a map of the caves.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#358

Post by herbertl »

There are a lot of great comments here, though I agree with the sentiment that starting a blog will not guarantee a wild career trajectory change.

I've found the benefits of writing at a blog to be much more intrinsic (I practice every day). Sure, it did lay the groundwork for my career in tech marketing, but it also keeps me in the groove of "just writing"—easier said than done, and it makes me much happier. More here:

https://herbertlui.net/what-my-personal-website-and-blog-hav...

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#359

Post by citruscomputing »

xena wrote: post #12

I've been running a blog at https://xeiaso.net for almost a decade now. It has been the single best decision I have ever made in my career. It allows me to skip technical screening interviews. It has made interviewing at companies _easy_ because I have _already proven_ that I understand what I'm talking about. Learning how to write well also makes it so much easier to explain things succinctly, especially when workin…

More junior person: have looked up to you since my first real job in 2019. Reading your posts on tarot debugging and plurality-driven development, and seeing you being so skilled and unapologetically /interesting/ was the first time I felt that "oh, there are actually people out there that I want to be like someday." Been reading ever since, thank you for all the posts!

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#360

Post by Decabytes »

Writing about topics on my blog^1 has forced me to actually learn topics more thoroughly than I would normally. So instead of learning something only until I have enough knowledge to use it, I actually go all the way so no one calls me out for being an idiot or not understanding what I’m talking about.

1. https://www.deusinmachina.net/

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