Words I wrote in 2018

I wrote just shy of a hundred blog posts in 2018. That’s an increase from 2017. I’m happy about that.

Here are some posts that turned out okay…

• Ends and means. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
• Thanos. Avengers are wizards; Thanos is a prophet.
• Frustration. Applying the principle of least power to tools and technologies.
• The Gęsiówka Story. Republishing a forgotten piece of history.
• Robustness and least power. A tale of two principles.
• Preparing a conference talk. The four steps I took in putting together a presentation.
• Prototypes and production. Don’t build prototypes with a production mindset. Don’t release prototype code into production.

A lot of my writing in 2018 was on technical topics—front-end development, service workers, and so on—but I should really make more of an effort to write about a wider range of topics. I always like when Zeldman writes about his glamourous life. Maybe in 2019 I’ll spend more time letting you know what I had for lunch.

I really enjoy writing words on this website. If I go too long between blog posts, I start to feel antsy. The only relief is to move my fingers up and down on the keyboard and publish something. Sounds like a bit of an addiction, doesn’t it? Well, as habits go, this is probably one of my healthier ones.

Thanks for reading my words in 2018. I didn’t write them for you—I wrote them for me—but it’s always nice when they resonate with others. I’ll keep on writing my brains out in 2019.

The Case for Blogging in the Ruins

Start a blog. Start one because the practice of writing at length, for an audience you respect, about things that matter to you, is itself valuable. Start one because owning your own platform is a form of independence that becomes more important as centralized platforms become less trustworthy. Start one because the format shapes the thought, and this format is good for thinking.

Blog Alarm Clock | Brad Frost

See, I’ve always compared that building pressure of need-to-blog to being constipated (which makes the resultant blog post like having a very satisfying bowel movement), but maybe Brad’s analogy is better. Maybe.

Resonance | James’ Coffee Blog

Ah, the circle of life!

The Free Web - The History of the Web

I am going to continue to write this newsletter. I am going to spend hours and hours pouring over old books and mailing lists and archived sites. And lifeless AI machines will come along and slurp up that information for their own profit. And I will underperform on algorithms. My posts will be too long, or too dense, or not long enough.

And I don’t care. I’m contributing to the free web.

POSSE: Reclaiming social media in a fragmented world

This rhymes nicely with Mandy’s recent piece on POSSE:

Despite its challenges, POSSE is extremely empowering for those of us who wish to cultivate our own corners of the web outside of the walled gardens of the major tech platforms, without necessarily eschewing them entirely. I can maintain a presence on the platforms I enjoy and the connections I value with the people there, while still retaining primary control over the things that I write and freedom from those platforms’ limitations.