2025-02-15       BLOG QUESTION CHALLENGE 2025





Matto challenged[1] me to accept the "Blogging Challenge 2025".

A month passed.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?
==============================================

Building a blog was one of the ways the Internet started. I started
figuring out open source installations, playing with new tools,
practising new workflows.

Blogging forces myself to understand the technology. My former
colleague and proof editor Ruben at Computable would say: "If you
don't understand it, you can't explain it." And of course, it might
help others.

From 1998 onwards I built several websites, for work and for fun, and
some of those included a blog.

What platform are you using to manage your blog, and why do you use
it?
=======================================================================

I use Emacs to write my content, and then export it to HTML via Hugo.

I have a bit of home made Emacs lisp to automate parts of the
workflow. It will let me preview the post on the Hugo demo server, and
when that checks out, copies it to the Apache web server.

Is that a valid answer? That makes Emacs a platform, right?

Otherwise the answer would be a Debian Linux machine that runs
Apache2.

I would prefer to use only Emacs (without Hugo) -- and then serve the
blog on Hunchentoot, how fun that would be. Alas, I have not yet found
the time to create that workflow.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?
===========================================

It has always been my own web sites, and it has also always been
produced with Emacs first. Over the years, the web delivery included
handwritten HTML, Drupal, and plenty of other tools. It really proved
the value of plain text.

How do you write your posts?

How? What a strange question. Once the idea for a blog is there,
naturally it is:

,----
| m-x writeroom
`----

and then write. And delete. And write again. But the delete key is the
most-used key on my keyboard.

When do you feel most inspired to write?
========================================

Next question, please. As you can tell from the sparse number of
posts, I don't have a lot of free time to work to my blog. In
addition, there is already enough noise and misinformation on the web.

However, I continue to record some of my experiments with free and
open source software.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it
simmer a bit?
=================================================================================

I let it simmer. That is another reason some posts never leave the
laptop.

What’s your favourite post on your blog?
========================================

"The Great Conjunction[2]".

Befittingly, it has nothing to do with free/open source software. The
photo on that post does no credit to the event, (but it was a lot of
fun to make).

The 2020 conjunction was absolutely stunning. How beautiful are the
rings of Saturn; and how amazing to see the Galilean moons of Jupiter.

This brings me back to Matto, because earlier this month we were
traipsing around looking at Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Venus; there is
another great conjunction building up. Clear skies!

Any future plans for the blog?
==============================

More plain text! And no AI.

Who will participate next?

I nominate Gijsbert[3], Pol[4], and Bastien[5].

Update
======

Read the answers[6] by Bastien


[1]: http://box.matto.nl/blog-question-challenge-2025.html

[2]: gopher://gopher.hillenius.net/0/great-conjunction.txt

[3]: https://gijsbertk.nl/

[4]: https://not-a-number.io/

[5]: https://bzg.fr/en/

[6]: https://bzg.fr/en/blog-challenge-2025/

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