Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Have a personal web site

writing.markchristian.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 436 posts

Re: Have a personal web site

#351

Post by sosodev »

docker_up wrote: post #344

I have no identity online, except for Facebook and Linkedin. Linkedin is the only one that is public. I don't even have a photo. I'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…

I don't think many people will write something that reflects them negatively when it's long form content.

Re: Have a personal web site

#352

Post by gen220 »

loosetypes wrote: post #33
jaabe wrote: post #13

Some of the most interesting things online are people writing about things they are passionate about, for the sake of writing about them. At least in my opinion, so it’s fair to say that I agree with the author. I think it’s an equally delightful experience to journal about things though. I do it from time to time, when some subject just needs to get written down, almost as though the journaling is me thinking out lo…

Agreed. I'm a bit jealous of his (Mostly) food truck name ideas, https://writing.markchristian.org/name-ideas/ . Once, in the functional programming rabbit-hole, a coworker advocated for a hypothetical Indian food truck named Haskell's Curry. And when I was studying propositional logic I certainly wouldn't have said no to a side of De Morgan's ColesLaw.

The best one we've come up with is a Russian-American fusion truck named "Collusion", serving (alcohol-free) cocktails named after all the major players / plot points in the "Russia investigation".

It's an endless source of entertaining ideas. "Moscow Mueller", "Manafort on the Rocks", "Cohen Kvass". Or you can go for drinks that are flavored after their namesakes: dry, sweet, bitter, sour.

Park it in front of Trump Tower on central park, and Instagram fame would be instantaneous! Feel free to steal my idea.

Re: Have a personal web site

#353

Post by hotcrossbunny »

jartelt wrote: post #243
leftyted wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main goal of my blog was not to be interesting or show off That's what they all say. Humans are social creatures and the main motivator for anyone to do anything in public is to "show off" or "be interesting". "All is vanity". That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Without a desire to compete, impress, prove our worth and so on we'd be living in huts. But it's something to be aware of and something that should be…

I think your view is too cynical. People also can be motivated by altruism or by wanting to pay it forward. I've answered plenty of questions on facebook/reddit/etc. and do so because people have answered my questions in the past. The part you are correct about is that it is easy to then get wrapped up in how many visitors your blog gets or how many upvotes your answer gets. Those vanity metrics definitely pull on th…

I would up vote this.

There's a distinction between self promotion and genuine honest expression of who we are, what we presently think is true.

I feel like there is something fundamentally human when people try to do that with each other.

Re: Have a personal web site

#354

Post by jaabe »

jcadam wrote: post #196
jaabe wrote: post #13

Some of the most interesting things online are people writing about things they are passionate about, for the sake of writing about them. At least in my opinion, so it’s fair to say that I agree with the author. I think it’s an equally delightful experience to journal about things though. I do it from time to time, when some subject just needs to get written down, almost as though the journaling is me thinking out lo…

If you're passionate about a subject, you're going to have strong opinions about said subject. If you voice/publish those opinions, some people are going to hate you. Perhaps a potential employer was set to hire you until they read your blog post in which you were eloquently critical about offshoring, for example. Or worse, you expressed an off-hand opinion about some social issue back in 2006 in an otherwise technic…

I understand your concern, but I think you can avoid a lot of the negative sides by only writing about things you like. It’s really hard to piss people off if you’re sharing experiences about things you love, especially if you stick to just your experiences and never try to tell people what the “right” way to do things is.

Political views have never been much of a problem for me. I’m strongly opinionated, but I also work in the public sector, which means I leave my personal political views completely out of my professional life. That is certainly a form of self-censorship, but even though it it’s forced upon public servants, I can’t think of a single time I regret keeping my political opinions to myself. There are certainly political movements I wouldn’t work for, but over all it rarely seem like a good idea to get into politics unless you actually want to make a career out of it.

Re: Have a personal web site

#355

Post by tmaly »

darekkay wrote: post #160
caymanjim wrote: post #151

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. 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. The main goal of my blog was not to be interesting or show off (even though I do include my side projects etc.), but to write about specific issues I managed to solve. As a software developer, I'm googling for problems all the time. 95% of the time I land on StackOverflow or GitHub issues. But…

I tend to mix it up on my blog. If there is a problem I encounter, I write about the solution.

I also like to write about ideas I strung together that I sourced from books, podcasts, and other posts. I followed the same path as OP in regards to blogging in early 2000's then kinds letting my site languish. I have been trying to write a bit more over the last year.

I have found that checking out the analytics on the blog from time to time also helps me guage what topics to write about.

Re: Have a personal web site

#356

Post by malodyets »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #290
jkeuhlen wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by quotes file?

It’s a text file where I’ve copy and pasted paragraphs and comments I’ve found interesting from books and online, and a few of my own thoughts. Each entry is preceded by the date the entry was made, and followed by a reference to the source. Because I’ve used some of the material multiple times I’m vaguely aware of the overall structure, and I use it as a bit of a knowledge-base. As an example I’ll probably pop this…

Once upon a time they called it a commonplace book

Re: Have a personal web site

#357

Post by hotcrossbunny »

leftyted wrote: post #268
jartelt wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your view is too cynical. People also can be motivated by altruism or by wanting to pay it forward. I've answered plenty of questions on facebook/reddit/etc. and do so because people have answered my questions in the past. The part you are correct about is that it is easy to then get wrapped up in how many visitors your blog gets or how many upvotes your answer gets. Those vanity metrics definitely pull on th…

> But, some people definitely do not care about "showing-off" when they put something up online. If you don't care about showing off then you won't publish anything. People who are actually altruistic won't tell you about their altruism. This isn't cynicism. The hunger for respect, admiration and recognition is not a bad thing. But it is necessary for people to understand what motivates them. And it is necessary for…

> Today, anyone can broadcast. But that doesn't mean that everyone should broadcast.

I don't agree here. Perhaps "not everything should be broadcast" might be better?

Re: Have a personal web site

#358

Post by kalid »

FerretFred wrote: post #242
arp242 wrote: post #216

Earlier 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.

Have you checked archive.org for a backup? It's saved me a few times.

Re: Have a personal web site

#359

Post by JetSpiegel »

hotcrossbunny wrote: post #357
leftyted wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, some people definitely do not care about "showing-off" when they put something up online. If you don't care about showing off then you won't publish anything. People who are actually altruistic won't tell you about their altruism. This isn't cynicism. The hunger for respect, admiration and recognition is not a bad thing. But it is necessary for people to understand what motivates them. And it is necessary for…

> Today, anyone can broadcast. But that doesn't mean that everyone should broadcast. I don't agree here. Perhaps "not everything should be broadcast" might be better?

I agree that everyone should broadcast, just let me filter it on the input side.

Re: Have a personal web site

#360

Post by paxys »

scottishfiction wrote: post #97
paxys wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to judge someone for having other obligations/jobs/hobbies or whatever else, but if I find a candidate with lots of great blog posts and GitHub projects/contributions in the area I'm hiring them for, I'm definitely going to factor that into my hiring decision vs someone who has none of those.

Well then you're likely missing out on good candidates - and those good candidates you're missing out on are likely to be under-represented. Parents, carers etc. - possibly very competent developers, who just have other commitments. I smell affinity bias.

Yes, but that is happening regardless. Everyone is missing out on good candidates.

Some people can't afford to go to a fancy school and don't have big companies come recruit on campus. Some people can't get certification or evening degrees because they have sick parents/kids to take care of. Some people can't do unpaid internships or make open source contributions that look good on their resume because they rely on the income from a job in retail. Some people can't do well in interviews because they have anxiety or other similar conditions.

I'm sure a lot of them are competent developers, but the reality is that there is no good selection process that tells you that with a good degree of confidence, so you have to look for other signals.

Post reply on HN