04/02/2018

The archive contains older posts which may no longer reflect my current views.

# I've made some changes to the Today page (no posts) to bring it more inline with the day view, as well as tweaking the post spacing a little.

I'm a bit happier with it now.

Before & after:

Today page - before & after

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The life model of blogging

Amit asked:

"do you write some long posts too? If yes, would they available at different section or as part of same stream?"

(By "long posts" he means refined, independent items.)

I gave a couple of replies on micro.blog but thought my approach to blogging warranted a bit more explanation.

While I initially separated micro posts from the main feed I eventually decided that everything should be served up together. 1

Rather than have specific topics, the blog is very much a stream of consciousness - I write about whatever I'm thinking. Sometimes that's a long post, sometimes short and they can be about the same topic - more paragraphs or continuations than independent posts. Separating them would (did) only give half the story.

There's currently nothing specific that I would want to host in it's own section (Amit gives examples of fiction and reviews which he doesn't include in his main blog) and I'm not sure I'd want to even if I did have those types of things.

I would probably provide a category that could be subscribed to independently but that's all.

CJ Chilvers wrote in "Welcome Back blogging?" of the two approaches to blogging people are commonly advised to take:

  1. deep, subject specific, long-form posts designed to drive attention and sales, and
  2. short-form writing, just getting your ideas out there which is good for your mental health.

While they can both be right, depending on what you want to achieve, he has a theory about these two approaches:

"one is a business model, one is a life model."

Ann Althouse writes:

"I don't write posts and then schedule them to go up later. I write and hit the publish button. And I don't set an alarm to wake up. I just wake up when I happen to wake up."

And that's exactly how I am.

There is no plan or structure, I don't schedule anything, I just write and hit publish when I'm done. I have no set times to write, no topics to consider, and no routine that I religiously follow. Maybe I'll write something late at night and wait until the morning before committing it to the blog but that's as far as it goes.

I used to be more focused but (most likely) was trying to be something I wasn't; blogging for attention, to make a name for myself.

But now I am very much an adherent of the "life model" of blogging. I have nothing to sell and any attention is a bonus.

If no one was reading I would still be here.


  1. A conversation with Colin Devroe saw to that. Thanks Colin. 

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# And there's no doubt that blogging has helped keep me sane over the past five months - a virtual voice when I couldn't use my physical one.

Magnets

There have been a few instances lately where I've reached forward to the adjust the screen angle on the MacBook and it's just gone black.

I was starting to worry it had some kind of a problem, perhaps a loose connection, until I realised it only happened when I did it left handed with my arm along the side of the computer.

The magnet in the Watch strap obviously lines up perfectly with the one in the MacBook which detects when the screen is closed.

Panic over!

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