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Why Is This The Only Good Blog On The Internet?

publié sur 2024-05-29 16 min de lecture

I've recently added enough blogs to my blogroll to officially publish it. I think it's pretty cool. You should check it out right now, I'll still be here when you come back.

So I want to talk about the process of deciding what blogs were added. I've been planning the blogroll for around 2 months, and only added 5 out of the dozens of blogs I read regularly.

The gist of it is that my only criteria was that I needed to consider the blog better than my own. Unfortunately, most people (that is, everyone not on the blogroll) write shit blogs.

No but actually the blog needed to be, in my opinion, an exemplary example of what a blog can provide as a form of communication on the Internet. A decent chunk of work needed to be done to add one to the blogroll, so having to filter out them was kind of necessary. And if I were to copy the layout and design of some sub-standard blog, it wouldn't be very interesting for me to create or you to read.

Really, the raison d'être for my blogroll was for it to force the readers to actually engage with the blogs. I know from experience that just clicking on a bunch links, and trying to find the value in a blog is too much to bother with. Honestly if a blogroll has over 5 blogs, I'm just clicking away.

I wanted it to feel like a more curated experience, so that you have more reasons to pay attention. And I can't really do that if the blog isn't all that interesting.

Another criteria, and probably the most limiting was for there to be NO PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMERS. ⁽¹⁾ ⁽¹⁾ Or rather, as few as possible. Some people are just too good to leave out.

I'm talking about people who code for money here. If you maintain a blog, you probably at least know some HTML, but you wouldn't be considered a "professional."

The "blogosphere" is overrun with tech workers (for obvious reasons), and I personally find very few of them interesting. Maybe this is just arrogance, but I don't ever see the need to read your opinions on technology. I know enough to make my own thank you very much. Please let me find someone who talks about shit I know nothing about.

Yes, I understand this is somewhat hyperbolic and hypocritical. But I would really love a world where I can just find someone's blog and the first post I see isn't: "Here's my opinion on React that's exactly the same as literally everyone else."

There are plenty of brilliant programmers writing just as brilliant blogs that I read regularly. But let's be honest, most tech blogs are not that good, I'm tired of them, and I don't want to see more. ⁽²⁾ ⁽²⁾ Like, I'm not very smart so I can't write these posts where I do things that seem like fucking wizardry to the common programmer, but I at least TRY to do something interesting with my blog.

Okay that was a bit mean. Look, if you have a blog for like writing down the things you've learnt, or showing to employers, or whatever, that's great. Having a blog is good, you should keep doing it (or start if you haven't), even if it's completely uninteresting to me. You don't write for me. I just don't want to read it.

And I don't. So I'm not sure what I'm complaining about actually…

Anyway back on topic, I wanted the blog to be a "continuation" of my own. I mean it's still my blog, I just took their presentation because I thought it was the best way to sell them to you. I don't know anything about you, or what you like, so it's a little difficult to make recommendations.

I assume you're here because you like reading my inane ramblings, you sick fuck. So I wanted to point you to blogs that do somewhat similar things, or that I at least take inspiration from.

This means a preference for loosely edited, long-form writing with an informal, personal tone about a more diverse range of subjects. Not all blogs in the blogroll are like this, but not many people actually write blogs in this way. ⁽³⁾ ⁽³⁾ Which really sucks for me honestly. I've been looking for a blog similar to mine for many years now. Mostly just so I can determine how well I've been writing this blog, and how well I've achieved what I want to do here. Maybe this is a bad thing, but I find it hard to judge myself without comparing myself to others.

I think I added a decent group of blogs and I hope you've subscribed to the RSS feed of at least one of them.

The Obligatory Epilogue That Is As Long or Longer Than the Actual Post

So I reckon you're probably at least a little curious about the blogs left on the chopping block. And I have good news! We're going to be going through some of them!!! Don't say to your mum that I don't treat you well now! Also, please ignore all those times in past blog posts where I refuse to explain things to you.

Danny L. Bate

This was a tough one to keep out. I really wanted to put a linguist in the blogroll, it's like one of the top three things I write about here, and I'd love to give you recommendations to learn more.

Most linguist blogs are a "etymology of the day" sort of thing, which just straight up do not fulfil my criteria. Danny's blog is great because it's not that, and he actually writes about interesting things in detail.

But for some reason… I just couldn't do it. I dunno? I didn't feel like the vibes fit with the others, it doesn't have that je ne sais quoi. Don't get me wrong, it's a good blog, ⁽⁴⁾ ⁽⁴⁾ No blog I'm going to talk about is bad. These are still recommendations. definitely in the top echelon of Internet blogs.

I'm not entirely sure what it is, and perhaps I'll change my mind at some point and give it a page of it's own. But yeah, it is a fun linguistics blog and you should read it.

The Egg And The Rock

So actually, there was one other criteria for adding a blog to the blogroll. The blog needs to be purely "theirs" or simply put - no Substack, Medium, or Ghost blogs. ⁽⁵⁾ ⁽⁵⁾ I have no issues with Wordpress as it's pretty easy to make your own. Or maybe better put, if I can immediately tell that a third-party service was used then it's not eligible. I just didn't want the possibility of two or more blogs looking the same.

Probably a little contradictory with the "NO PROGRAMMERS" rule but there honestly weren't that many that were cut because of this.

Unfortunately, that was not the case for Julian Gough's "The Egg And The Rock," so I think it's worth mentioning here.

I myself am not entirely sure what the blog and Gough's upcoming book is "about." But I'll defer you to the first post, "In Which I Talk About Writing Minecraft’s End Poem, And Describe the Problem My Next Book Is Trying To Solve" for an interesting read.

Benn Jordan (YouTube)

I know a YouTube channel isn't a blog, and that it would have violated the criteria I just told you. But I think it would have been an interesting subversion. Like it would have been funny for you to click "next blog" and suddenly be presented with YouTube (or my version of it rather) and start watching a video, with me pretending to be Benn Jordan.

Ultimately, it didn't happen because I don't want to make a YouTube video. I wouldn't be happy with it unless I went all the way - got a DSLR, lights, microphones, the works to make it feel like an actual Benn Jordan video. Combine that with my social anxiety making me allergic to cameras… yeah it was never happening.

Would have been really cool though. ⁽⁶⁾ ⁽⁶⁾ Arrghhh, I'm haunted by all the lost potential of this idea. Think of all the funny jokes I could have made with the recommended videos and comment section!!!!

Oh right, Benn Jordan is a YouTuber (he's probably better known for his music under The Flashbulb, but I know him from YouTube) who makes videos about music and sounds. He's probably my favourite YouTuber at this point for a multitude of reasons… that I won't explain :)

Todepond dot com

I've had Lu Wilson on my radar since SandPond was called SandBoys or something like that, I honestly don't really remember it's been a long time. But that's all to say I'm familiar enough with their work to say this with a modest amount of confidence.

Lu is not an idiot.

Todepond is almost the complete opposite of my blog in many regards, and violates a lot of the criteria I set for choosing blogs to add. But it was this close to getting in, ⁽⁷⁾ ⁽⁷⁾ I'm saying it like being in my blogroll is some kind of award lmao. replacing the spot of being the sole "programming" blog. And that's because it's interesting to me personally.

I don't think this is the best place to get into it, but because of several reasons you might be able to guess if you've read this blog long enough (or know me in real life), I've become increasingly arrogant over the past seven years. I think I have earned that arrogance, but I can see that it's not particularly good to have. ⁽⁸⁾ ⁽⁸⁾ I'm not really talking about what I say on this blog, a lot of that is played up for the funnies. So maybe "arrogance" isn't the correct word, but I think I may have just found next years' anniversary post.

I think this blog has legitimately made me more receptive to other people's opinions when it comes to tech/programming, which is really the only time when I don't listen to other people.

So if I see something arguing to "Write your blog from your phone," I'm first going to be thinking "that that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, I'd rather kill myself than do that, what the fuck."

Also why on Earth do people spend so much time on the toilet with their phone? Don't you think that's kinda gross? Don't you have better things to do?? I don't understand it, when I go to the toilet - I SHIT.

But.

Lu is not an idiot.

So why are they saying something so sacrilegious? Let's actually think about it, instead of just immediately dismissing it because it's stupid and dumb.

This one is actually pretty easy. It's probably because they're right and I need to realise not everyone has been breathing with Vim bindings since they were 13 years old, so the thought of writing without them doesn't make them immediately ideate about suicide. ⁽¹⁰⁾ ⁽¹⁰⁾ It's okay, I can joke about suicide, I have depression. It's like the n-word.

Being able to write blogs on your phone is probably a lot more intuitive for people. And maybe there should be easier ways to allow that to happen.

I don't have anything on phone usage in the toilet thing yet.

Alright, here's a more interesting one. Pretty simple to understand, I can put the entire post right here.

NO MORE TOOLS

WE HAVE ENOUGH

So here's the arrogance again. I'm generally in favour of always making your own tools, because most people fucking suck at programming, so whatever you come up with is going to be much better. ⁽¹¹⁾ ⁽¹¹⁾ I'm applying the post to programming, because in the context of the rest of the blog, it makes the most sense. It could possibly be (and probably is) about other things as well. And by you, I mean me.

I generally try to minimise my dependence on other people as much as possible because it's easier for me, and for them most of the time as well. In fact, I've slowly been learning things to be able to run this blog on a distributed web server written by me, calling processes to an Operating System I made, on hardware I designed. The day that happens is the day this blog ends.

Making and using tools is also just fun as hell. I love tools. There should be more tools. If you don't like having more tools, you're probably just too dumb to learn new things.

Trying to understand this "no more tools" idea is a lot harder to do, partly because it's just two fucking lines so it becomes difficult to tell if I'm reading too hard into it, ⁽¹²⁾ ⁽¹²⁾ Because most things on Todepond dot com are seeped in so much fucking shit-house subtext that it becomes a Dark Souls poisonous swamp (pun intended) that I can't most of the time be bothered to even attempt to wade through.

It's pretty cool, very post-modern. and partly because I think this is a fundamental disagreement about programming.

The closest thing I can relate it to is the consensus that there are "too many JavaScript frameworks." It's an idea that I've had my fair share of using to make fun of JavaScript. But the truth is, I don't actually really care, I say it because I like shitting on JavaScript.

I actually like how many JavaScript frameworks there are. I think there should be more if anything. Seeing other people's tools serve to make your own better. It's why I still read other people's blogs when I'm pretty sure I have the best one ;)

But.

Lu is not an idiot.

So here's an excerpt from "Getting serious about images" which gives a little more insight.

What I should have done is - kill the feed maker every time it went buggy. And I should have made a better, simpler, more throwaway one each time.

I am not developing tools, I am developing skills, and a practice of ultra-simplicity, with no compromise, without escape! Software isn’t a thing, it’s a craft. A chair maker doesn’t develop a single chair for years on end. They make more and more chairs, better chairs. And they don’t pass on chairs to future generations. They pass on skills and knowledge and experience and expertise. We should see software the same way.

It’s a dangerously thin line between a tool (bad) and a throwaway solution (good).

When we write some code that does a job for us, how do we stop it from turning into a project of its own?

Perhaps by making it hyper-specific to what we’re doing in that specific moment. Or perhaps by making it unmaintainable. Write-only code. Reading is impossible.

In my case, my problem is that I don’t know how to write a throwaway solution for uploading images to my github repo. I can’t do it quick enough to make it lightweight.

Oh my Bidoof I really fucking hate analogies about software to other professions. Software doesn't exist. It's not a real thing, and it never gets turned into a one. We made it up. Especially websites, they're not fucking real buddy.

Why is any of this bad? I honestly do not understand why something "turning into a project" is bad, which apparently according to Lu is when you have to make bug fixes or some shit?? I dunno but in my opinion, learning to fix your garbage is probably a good skill to be developing.

Also, how tf do you make something more specific than "RSS feed generator?" It very clearly does ONE thing. THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF SPECIFIC.

And FYI we have already "write-only" code, dunno if you've heard about it but it's called "compiling to assembly," it's a thing not shit languages do.

Yeah, I don't really know. I'm sure they have their reasons though.

In conclusion, everyday I open up Mastodon and see that Lu has posted again to Todepond dot com. Once I click on it, I get either an incredibly interesting and poignant text or just complete, utter fucking nonsense. As a degenerate gacha gamer, this "lootbox" style of blogging really appeals to me, and would have been a great addition to the blogroll if not for the fact that the design of the site wouldn't have provided me a fun enough experience to copy. I already dislike "front-end" stuff for my own blog enough, at least give me something interesting to do.

epilogue for the epilogue

Haha jokes, I'm not done here. It wouldn't be a blog post on justin.duch.me if it didn't have at least 5 digressions, now would it? There's a few things I wanted to mention in the intro to the blogroll, but didn't think it fit so here's probably the next best place.

So for a blogroll it's usually common courtesy to add blogs that already have you in their own blogrolls. I'm aware that I'm actually in a few, and I appreciate that a lot. But I hope you can understand why I'm not reciprocating.

I've been thinking of ways with which I could return the favour. Perhaps I could make a secondary blogroll with all the other blogs I wanted to add. To minimise the work I need to do, I'll just put them in a lis-

…

Yeah, I get why blogrolls are just lists. To be honest, I knew from the start that this would be a "failed" experiment, but went ahead anyway because I thought it would be interesting. I mean, it's literally just a curated webring but I tried my best ;(

So since I've kinda already done it, this post might be a good place to put the "list" in. But that would require me to update the post when I find new blogs, which is not something I do. Compound that with the fact that this post is also going get lost in the eventual sea of futures, meaning people won't ever see it.

I considered making a series of posts for "blog recommendations." But if I want it to be a post, it needs to be like the others - long-form, meaningless ramblings about dumb shit that only interest me. And as I don't have much to say about most blogs, I don't really want to do that.

I don't know. I've never been good at "product." ⁽¹³⁾ ⁽¹³⁾ I know what we want is not, and should never be a "product." But I have startup brain-rot, I honestly don't know what the correct word should be. And if this could have been solved with distributed systems, I would have already done it.

But seriously though. Bullet point lists? That's still the best we got?

There's gotta be something better than that.

My Bidoof, this whole blogroll arc has been really ranty, huh? I'm not usually this feisty without a couple martinis.

Meta ∇ 10