Welcome
Welcome to my blog! It's super basic, but I like it.
So this website is made using Zola, a static site generator. I've tried using the likes of Jekyll and Hugo previously, but SSGs just confused me and seemed like a lot of work to get running. Now, after dedicating time to understand how they work, I settled on Zola. It's a bit of a learning curve, but it's worth it, and means that I don't need to manually create HTML and CSS for each individual post and page now that the templates are in place.
I must have created a blog dozens of times over the years, using things like Blogger and WordPress back in the day, then moving to Bear Blog and Mataroa most recently for a more minimal experience, making use of open source software. I might make a post or two, but then the blog would gather dust, and I'd move on to something else. The thing is, I don't have much time to spend writing blog posts, and the writing process can be a bit of a chore. So, will this blog be any different? I hope so. There are so many things I want to post about, mostly my personal projects, but also musing on the state of the world, cool software I've come across and such, so let's see where this goes.
I strongly believe that everybody should have a place on the internet that they can share their thoughts. Most people use social media for this, but a blog is longer form, and allows for more in-depth discussion of topics. Just based on the people I follow on Mastodon, many folk, including myself, like following blogs. So many people are involved in cool projects, and it's nice to see what they're up to. During my years on the internet, I've come across plenty of blog posts that helped me learn new things, configure software I'm using, or just provide a point of view on something I haven't considered before. It's like going round to somebody's house, sitting down with a cup of tea, and having somebody talk about something that interests you.
I feel like with the current state of social media, this kind of communication has been mostly lost. People want likes and followers, and they post pictures and videos of their supposedly perfect lives, which is just not true. It's a popularity contest at best, and it's not healthy. I'm not saying that social media is bad, but I think it's important to have a place where people can share their thoughts and ideas without the pressure of likes and followers. If somebody wants to read their post, great. If not, that's fine too. At the very least, it's kinda cool to be able to go back to older posts and see what you were doing at that time. It's like a diary you can pick up and flick through.
Anyways, I'll leave this here for now. I have made a list of posts I want to make, so hopefully with this site now live, I'll be encouraged to keep it going. I don't want to force myself to post regularly, since that tends to go the opposite way, so I'll maybe dedicate a little time to making a post now and again, in the hope that this will create some momentum.
If you'd like to get in contact, you can find me on Mastodon.