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10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

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Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#121

Post by Cthulhu_ »

a_bonobo wrote: post #57
riazrizvi wrote: post #36

Writing a blog is like talking in the town square. Except because it’s digital, we seem to forget how communication works. If you just start talking in the town square, you’re standing alone talking. Sure a person who passes by might pause, but the odds you’re saying something really relevant to them are low, so they’ll move on. The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message bas…

Related, I think people have stopped.... reacting on the internet? I've been part of the X/Twitter to Bluesky migration and people often mention how 'quiet' Bluesky is. I think that's not due to algorithmic intervention of product design etc., I think people are just tired. The novelty of shouting at strangers on the internet has worn off - how many internet fights have we gotten into that did nothing in the end exce…

I feel this, but also, I am... anxious about reactions? I rarely / never go back on comments I've written on HN. I know it's actually a really bad thing to do because it means I won't allow my views to be challenged, don't engage in debate, just want to get my side out without actively defending it.

Years ago I had a blog and one time I wrote a post in response to another blog post about education vs experience, arguing in favor of formal education. And that one got a link back from the original article, leading people back to my blog. I got engagement, comments, feedback, etc... and it was very uh. Overwhelming? Like suddenly I had to defend my arguments. It made me very uncomfortable, even though it was probably a good thing, all in all.

I don't know how to break that trend. I think I'd rather have realtime communications / chat, but that's another thing that seems to have died, at least in the space I've been at for a long time now.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#122

Post by tristramb »

GMoromisato wrote: post #77
EdwardDiego wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am now intrigued in your blog, if it's still online?

It was my old astrophotography blog: https://neurohack.com/Astrophotography/index.html And the book it led to is 101 Amazing Sights of the Night Sky: https://www.amazon.com/101-Amazing-Sights-Night-Sky/dp/15919... Neither is very popular, but it was a lot of fun.

It always pleases me to see pictures of NGC 4216, the edge-on spiral galaxy with a star beside its nucleus. I used to use it as a pointer to the short-period contact binary star CC Comae Berenices back when I used observe eclipsing binaries with my Celestron 8.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#123

Post by kovac »

> My goal now is to use less words to convey an idea.

This is what I'm encouraged by Grammarly as well. To some extent, perhaps the book "Elements of style" encourages this too.

However, I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She writes long (wordy?) sentences that are clear, and even feels beautiful to read. I really enjoyed her writing.

But I'm not a native speaker. A question for the native speakers: what's your take on this? Has Shelly's writing style gone out of fashion, or are these two (Shelley's style and succinctness) different things?

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#124

Post by d-lisp »

josephg wrote: post #120
d-lisp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is somewhere in the middle Of course everything is subjective. The fact we're social animals creates the feeling that there's some kind of rules, but that's just a bias. We're biased. There is no absolute junk art-artefact, because humanity potentially extends timewise to so many instances of different humans that you cannot know in advance if something will be considered "good" at some point in time, cul…

(Hi from Australia!) > There is no absolute junk art-artefact, because humanity potentially extends timewise to so many instances of different humans that you cannot know in advance if something will be considered "good" at some point in time, culture, individusl brain etc... Look at the number of plays each song gets in Spotify. If everyone had their own, totally unique taste, there would be no mathematical correlat…

I'm happy because there is a misunderstanding of my words here. I am not saying that the ethos of the artist should be "taste is random". In fact the act of being an artist is to embrace biases.

I agree with the Kant interpretation of aesthetics as a "teleologic" thing : there is no objective "beauty" yet we perpetually fail to embrace this and instead, when we find something "beautiful" we consider this judgement as if it was universal, absolute and objective (when it is not).

On the other hand, to complete this, I agree with Wittgenstein when he says that "you cannot SAY anything about aesthetics/ethics".

These two ideas aren't forming any paradox.

> Create for the people right now.

I would prefer :

Set your own dogma or not, but do what you feel you want to do, be it creating for others, for yourself (you abominable narcissus), for your cat, for the banana you just eaten, or for whatever supreme being you chose to believe in.

Choose your audience, let an audience choose you, or choose to be alone, whatever fits for you.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#125

Post by d-lisp »

josephg wrote: post #120
d-lisp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is somewhere in the middle Of course everything is subjective. The fact we're social animals creates the feeling that there's some kind of rules, but that's just a bias. We're biased. There is no absolute junk art-artefact, because humanity potentially extends timewise to so many instances of different humans that you cannot know in advance if something will be considered "good" at some point in time, cul…

(Hi from Australia!) > There is no absolute junk art-artefact, because humanity potentially extends timewise to so many instances of different humans that you cannot know in advance if something will be considered "good" at some point in time, culture, individusl brain etc... Look at the number of plays each song gets in Spotify. If everyone had their own, totally unique taste, there would be no mathematical correlat…

--- part2

> [spotify streams]

To me, we're in a difficult position because the only way you have to quantify the value of an artwork (music in this case) is the number of streams it has.

Call me a mad man but it is not rare for me to hate most streamed music and to prefer streamed music.

Yet I seriously doubt I am "musically dumb".

What I find instead is that advertisment, reputation, exposure, a good label, radio streams will get you a long way to become a artist.

And no, that's not "an excuse" to not try and become skilled... What sense does it make to say "Dua Lippa is better skilled than J.S.Bach because she has more streams" (or the contrary) or "AC/DC is better skilled than Alan Vega because they sold more disks" (or the contrary).

> If I just mash my hand on the piano with no skill

Okay, that's pretty sure.

Now if you wrote a small piano piece, there is no way you could predict if it will become a hit or not. It depends on factors that are really far from being limited to "the piece in question".

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#126

Post by nrhrjrjrjtntbt »

parasti wrote: post #102
petterroea wrote: post #99

One of the tough pills I and probably many other developers have had to swallow when maturing is that "non-programming skills" from schools are useful and very valuable, actually. Writing is one of them. Everyone loves a programmer that can explain themselves. An opinion isn't worth having if you aren't able to defend it either. Maintaining a blog therefore seems like a great way of improving your writing skills whil…

I upvoted but I was not taught this! I have had to slowly figure it out on my own. Writing things down is kind of like augmenting your brain. It's a memory that does not forget. When working through a problem, writing it down tends to point out the holes in your understanding. A corner case is never lost or forgotten when written down, it just stares at you until you write down a solution. The next step after realizi…

Using something like confluence religiously in a team is a big boon. Write docs about everything. Write to get decisions done, to plan, to celebrate, to retrospect, to architect, to help oncall. Everything! Doesnt need to be beautiful prose - just needs to be famn useful and ideally easy/quick to read.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#128

Post by entuno »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #121
a_bonobo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related, I think people have stopped.... reacting on the internet? I've been part of the X/Twitter to Bluesky migration and people often mention how 'quiet' Bluesky is. I think that's not due to algorithmic intervention of product design etc., I think people are just tired. The novelty of shouting at strangers on the internet has worn off - how many internet fights have we gotten into that did nothing in the end exce…

I feel this, but also, I am... anxious about reactions? I rarely / never go back on comments I've written on HN. I know it's actually a really bad thing to do because it means I won't allow my views to be challenged, don't engage in debate, just want to get my side out without actively defending it. Years ago I had a blog and one time I wrote a post in response to another blog post about education vs experience, argu…

The simple solution is that whenever you start to write a comment, ask yourself: do I want to have a discussion about this?

If the answer is "yes", then make your comment, check back and interact with the responses (assuming they seem to be in good faith). If it's "no" then just close the comment box and get on with your life.

But then I realise that it's fairly pointless writing this in the first place...

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#129

Post by entuno »

troad wrote: post #76
a_bonobo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related, I think people have stopped.... reacting on the internet? I've been part of the X/Twitter to Bluesky migration and people often mention how 'quiet' Bluesky is. I think that's not due to algorithmic intervention of product design etc., I think people are just tired. The novelty of shouting at strangers on the internet has worn off - how many internet fights have we gotten into that did nothing in the end exce…

This is relatable. I often find myself starting a reply on here, really thinking it through as I type it out, and then hitting delete on what I just wrote. Sometimes I even hit submit, and then delete a few moments later. It's just hard to justify engaging. Worst case, I get a fight on my hands with someone who's as dogmatic as they are wrong, which is both frequent and also a complete waste of my time. (A tech reade…

> It's just hard to justify engaging. Worst case, I get a fight on my hands with someone who's as dogmatic as they are wrong, which is both frequent and also a complete waste of my time.

The three mindset changes I found that really help with this are understanding that:

* You don't have to try and get the last word in.

* Other people are not entitled to your time, especially if they're engaging in bad faith.

* Outside of small and curated communities, there's pretty good odds that you're not interacting with a real and honest person.

So whenever I click into the comment box, I always ask myself "Can I really be bothered with this? Is this really what I want to be spending my free time doing?"

And then I often close the comment box and get on with my life.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#130

Post by Gooblebrai »

petterroea wrote: post #99

One of the tough pills I and probably many other developers have had to swallow when maturing is that "non-programming skills" from schools are useful and very valuable, actually. Writing is one of them. Everyone loves a programmer that can explain themselves. An opinion isn't worth having if you aren't able to defend it either. Maintaining a blog therefore seems like a great way of improving your writing skills whil…

Likewise with marketing skills.
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