
Ask HN: What Is Your Blog? - SuboptimalEng
Hello HN, I&#x27;ve been considering starting a blog, but realized I didn&#x27;t know where to start. Wanted some inspiration so I thought I&#x27;d ask ya&#x27;ll:<p>1. What is your blog about?<p>2. How often do you write on it?<p>3. Where do you host it (medium, substack, self-hosted, etc.) and why?<p>4. Link?
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mplanchard
1\. Whatever I feel like writing about: largely rust, things I've enjoyed
reading, opinions about work stuff, the occasional random other stuff, etc.

2\. Whenever I find the time, somewhere between a few times a week and twice a
year, depending on lots of other circumstances.

3\. Self-hosted (via azure & cloudflare) HTML generated from markdown files
using a fun little utility I built as a learning project (all the generator
code, markdown, & HTML is stashed on GH:
[https://github.com/mplanchard/speedy](https://github.com/mplanchard/speedy)).
For whatever reason I'm more motivated to maintain something I've built myself
as compared to previous attempts with medium and such. The freedom to do
whatever I want, however I want is nice. I can present things simply, with
little to no adornment, avoid pushing trackers and ads on people, explicitly
release my content under whatever copyright I want, etc. So far I've yet to
incur any costs beyond Azure's free plan, but while it's been free so far, I'd
gladly pay a bit of money to continue to keep it under my control.

4\. [https://blog.mplanchard.com/](https://blog.mplanchard.com/)

~~~
faical
> For whatever reason I'm more motivated to maintain something I've built
> myself as compared to previous attempts with medium and such. The freedom to
> do whatever I want, however I want is nice. I can present things simply,
> with little to no adornment, avoid pushing trackers and ads on people,
> explicitly release my content under whatever copyright I want, etc.

Totally agree. For my blog ([https://faical.dev](https://faical.dev)) I have a
very similar setup (S3 & Cloudflare) with HTML generated from Markdown using a
small command line tool I built
([https://github.com/ftchirou/article](https://github.com/ftchirou/article)).
For publishing, I push a Markdown file to a repo and a Bitrise workflow takes
care of generating the HTML and uploading to S3.

------
extremelearning
1\. Mainly _computational and applied maths_ \- especially in the context of
statistical sampling and computer graphics.

Some of my posts are detailed articles which, in my next life will evolve to
journal papers, but most are just interesting things I have stumbled upon and
explored, and then shared because I thought others might find them helpful
and/or interesting, too.

2\. Sporadically, but about once a month.

3\. Wordpress. Why? I just downloaded some themes and a handful of plugins,
and voila! I had a blog that is: well designed; has a responsive layout;
elegantly displays math equations, and although 99% of the time has miniscule
traffic, it copes well with occasional HN-induced traffic spikes. This means I
can then set it and forget it, and focus more on writing.

4\. [http://extremelearning.com.au/](http://extremelearning.com.au/)

------
laminatofo
1\. Anything I google and don't find an obvious answer - reinforces the
learning and may save someone else the effort! Also side project status
updates as it's useful to look back and see progression

2\. Every few weeks? Not often enough!

3\. Self hosted with Ghost

4\. [https://blog.sixpoints.co.uk](https://blog.sixpoints.co.uk)

------
papa
1\. I post my book notes and other things I’m learning about. I started it a
year ago and I’m still trying to figure out what it’s about.

2\. I post twice a week. I like the consistency and habit that regular posting
imposes (I was posting 3x/week but found that was a bit too much).

3\. I use Digital Ocean to host. The blog uses Ghost CMS. I’ve used WP in the
past, but I like the blogging focus and relative simplicity of Ghost. On the
hosting side, I like Digital Ocean’s pricing model, documentation and
community. I’m starting a newsletter for the blog using substack mostly
because it’s dead simple to setup a newsletter with them. And rather than
fiddle with various solutions, I wanted something turnkey that I could just
get started with immediately.

4\. [https://mentalpivot.com](https://mentalpivot.com)

------
the__alchemist
1\. Sensor readings, their applications, and electronics projects

2\. When I have an idea for an article and time to write it; average once
every week to once every other week.

3\. Self-hosted, since I have full control over it, and it might draw
attention to the items I'm selling.

4\. [https://www.anyleaf.org/blog](https://www.anyleaf.org/blog)

------
senjindarashiva
1\. I try to write about daily life although I am far to inconsistent for that
to work, I am a bit better at writing short reviews of books I read. The goal
is to use the blog as a practise area for general writing and reflections
about what I read.

2\. Very inconsistently sometimes weekly and sometimes yearly... however as a
target for the autumn I am aiming for monthly.

3\. Currently it's a hugo site on a S3,cloudfront stack however I am in the
process of moving away from US owned services so it will be moved to another
host shortly.

4\. [https://fredrikloch.me](https://fredrikloch.me)

------
Whirl
1\. I write mostly about happenings in quantum information and quantum
computing. Ranges between dives into interesting papers and commentary on
recent funding/start-up developments.

2\. Whenever I feel inspired. Sometimes that means several posts within a week
or two, sometimes it means months without posting. I realized I can’t force
myself to do it unless I’ve got something on my mind. I just can’t write about
something that I’m not obsessed with.

3\. I host it on netlify as a static site. Seemed easiest at the time.

4\. [https://whirlwind.netlify.app/](https://whirlwind.netlify.app/)

------
semicolonandson
1\. I vlog about my 10 year perspective on maintaining and growing my software
business (a web app marketplace I bootstrapped in 2010). Things like
architecture, stability, performance,seo etc. I'm a strong believer in
ignoring the fashions and searching for the timeless in software, and this is
my attempt.

2\. Once a week at the moment. It's a lot of effort but I hope to monetize
eventually (similar to railscasts or Laracasts).

3.Self-hosted (to avoid platform risk) plus YouTube (for organic inbound)

4\.
[https://www.semicolonandsons.com/l/rails](https://www.semicolonandsons.com/l/rails)

------
jonathanliu
Great to hear. Everyone should write and publish online. Writing clarifies
your thoughts. Publishing online allows you to receive feedback from others.

1\. Personal development and life updates, but I'm working towards writing
market commentary. Took a step in that direction with my latest post.

2\. Once a week. It's a fairly tough publishing schedule though and longer
essays take more than a week to write. I may rethink it in the future.

3\. Wordpress on Bluehost because it was easy when I started. I wouldn't
recommend it though. Load times aren't great and changes are unwieldy.

4\. [https://jonathanliu.me](https://jonathanliu.me)

------
stevesycombacct
1\. Data science, mostly visualization, sometimes as fiction.

2\. Only a handful of times, over the past year. The time needed to write and
edit can be long. I'm also trying to write a novel.

3\. Medium. I'm a writer for a publication called Nightingale.

4\. [https://medium.com/@PhilHawkinsDC](https://medium.com/@PhilHawkinsDC), my
top article is this one: [https://medium.com/nightingale/draw-the-rest-of-the-
chart-88...](https://medium.com/nightingale/draw-the-rest-of-the-
chart-88eb0e8babd4)

------
skorbenko
1\. Mainly book summaries/notes/reviews. Planning to evolve it into full-scale
compilatory essays. 2\. About once a week or once new material is available
i.e. I've finished a new book. 3\. Github because I haven't gotten around to
hosting it on a "real" domain yet. 4\.
[https://skorbenko.github.io](https://skorbenko.github.io) PS. Any comments as
per the improvement of content/styling/direction is welcome. You can comment
here or shoot me an email through the form on the website.

------
SkyLinx
1\. What is your blog about?

It's mostly about web programming and DevOps.

2\. How often do you write on it?

Not as often as I would like. Been very busy.

3\. Where do you host it (medium, substack, self-hosted, etc.) and why?

I actually just launched a new blogging platform at
[https://www.dynablogger.com](https://www.dynablogger.com) so my blog is
hosted there. It's a simple alternative to WordPress or Ghost. Check it out!

4\. Link? [https://vitobotta.com](https://vitobotta.com)

------
asicsp
1\. Mostly self-promotional articles to lead towards my ebooks. But I'm proud
of my 'customizing pandoc' and 'what next in Python' posts.

2\. I am averaging about 1 post per 2 months :(

3\. GitHub, because it is free and I can use markdown. Currently using a
jekyll theme, but I'm planning to switch to static-site generator like
[https://github.com/getzola/zola](https://github.com/getzola/zola)

4\. [https://learnbyexample.github.io/](https://learnbyexample.github.io/)

------
kondov
1\. I write about the more philosophical aspects of software engineering. As
the years passed I got more interested in the "why". Why do we use certain
techniques. Why do we build software the way we do. I started researching my
questions and writing essays based on what I've found mixed with some of my
own thoughts.

2\. I post twice a month.

3\. It's hosted on Netlify and built with Gatsby. All of my articles are just
markdown files.

4\. [https://alexkondov.com/](https://alexkondov.com/)

------
dglass
1\. I write a mix between programming career advice and technical tutorials.

2\. I’m writing a book about career advice for programmers that will be
published through Holloway early next year, so I don’t post on my blog very
often. I’m trying to write in the open at least once a month though.

3\. It’s hosted on netlify because it’s free. I use Hugo to generate the
static site.

4\. [https://www.exponentialbackoff.com/](https://www.exponentialbackoff.com/)

------
maverickJ
I write about ideas inspired from business,engineering and finance. I also
share original thoughts of mine.

The goal is to enable my readers leverage these ideas for practical
applications.

I currently release once a week on Sundays at 9am BST.

My newsletter is
[https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/](https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/)

Check it out and please subscribe. It's growing and exciting.

------
activatedgeek
1\. Anything and everything. It is often about my current research or an
interesting tid-bit from math, philosophy, social sciences etc. It is more of
a fluid knowledge base than a blog.

2\. I commit to the source code a couple times a week, but keep updating posts
whenever I find time.

3\. I host the source code on Github and deploy on Netlify.

4\. [https://im.perhapsbay.es](https://im.perhapsbay.es)

------
indian369
1\. Fiji food recipes

2\. Once a week, videos as well

3\. Self hosted, Wordpress because its easier for my partner to use.
Eventually want to do a flutter app for this.

4\. [https://thatfijitaste.com/](https://thatfijitaste.com/)

A nice way to preserve and document the uniqueness of Fijian/Fiji Indian food
and something different to do apart from coding.

------
avian
1\. Various topics, most often about electronics and software. I'm currently
writing about a system for RF vector measurements I'm making.

2\. Around 1 post every 1 to 2 weeks.

3\. A self-hosted static-site generator I made myself 15 years ago.

4\. [https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/](https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/)

------
codingbbq
1\. My experience learning technology, notes on books that I read and
everything related to self improvement.

2\. I have a reminder for every friday so yes, mostly 1 post weekly which is
what I try to keep up to.

3\. Github, because I wanted to learn github pages and also design a simple
blog myself.

4\. [http://codingbbq.github.io](http://codingbbq.github.io)

------
kkoppenhaver
1\. WordPress and Laravel tips that we've learned through doing client work as
well as case studies for clients

2\. I would say we average once a month or so.

3\. Self-hosted WordPress. It's what we're familiar with and we can customize
it easily if needed.

4\. [https://alphaparticle.com/blog/](https://alphaparticle.com/blog/)

------
ivars
1\. Streaming, server-side media processing, graphics, networking and all
things related. These are things that interest me and I'm sure there are my
soulmates out there with similar interests.

2\. I just recently started.

3\. Hosted on Netlify, built with Hugo.

4\. [https://ivarsblog.com](https://ivarsblog.com)

------
mindhash
My blog is about field stories on product and engineering :
[https://amols.blog](https://amols.blog)

I started recently. So just once a week, I publish. Writing happens whenever I
find a topic worth organising or sharing

Netlify. It’s free. I use gatsby theme borrowed from Victor Zhou

------
stakkur
1\. 'Random' as I develop a new direction.

2\. Aiming for twice-weekly.

3\. Regular web host w/WP. In the interest of 'stop playing around with
tools/static sites and just write'.

4\. [https://jamesgill.net/articles/](https://jamesgill.net/articles/)

------
rozenmd
1\. I mainly write about what I work on day-to-day. At the moment, that's
using React as a frontend developer.

2\. Weekly, I aim to ship by Tuesday evening (Australian time)

3\. Self-hosted on AWS S3, with a Cloudfront CDN.

4\. [https://maxrozen.com](https://maxrozen.com)

------
rails
1\. Software engineering in general. Topics I get in contact with and think
about. A lot of it gets a bit philosphical because I don't have clear answers.

2\. Maybe once a month

3\. Self hosted. Got a server anyway, so I can as well host it myself.

4\. [https://stefanschick.eu](https://stefanschick.eu)

------
mortivore
1\. Technical topics that strike my interest. Thinking of expanding it to
include other things I'm interested in.

2\. Not enough.

3\. Gastby.js and Netlify because it was easy to get started with.

4\. [http://carlchesterlloyd.com/](http://carlchesterlloyd.com/)

------
eivarv
1\. Security, privacy, software development, music, random goings on...

2\. From a couple times a week to every other month.

3\. Self-hosted because of development-ease and customizability.

4\. [https://www.eivindarvesen.com](https://www.eivindarvesen.com)

------
aayushagg28
1\. My personal public diary 2\. Very rare 3\. Self-hosted and built on
wordpress 4\. [https://www.aayushaggarwal.com](https://www.aayushaggarwal.com)

------
vinrob92
1\. Productized services.

2\. Haven't updated it in a while but used to be every week

3\. Self-hosted, because I wanted custom features (community)

4\. [https://www.productizedstartups.com](https://www.productizedstartups.com)

------
ijustwanttovote
1\. Random thoughts and things I find 2\. At least once a week 3\. self hosted
with ghost 4\. [https://www.michael1e.com/](https://www.michael1e.com/)

------
mslate
1\. Technologies & lifestyle decisions

2\. Sporadically, 1x a month on average

3\. AWS S3 + Cloudfront, to control recurring costs and support spikey traffic

4\. [https://maxmautner.com](https://maxmautner.com)

------
rdtwo
With everyone writing blogs do people actually read them or are they more like
a public diary

------
urlaunched
1\. I'm writing about all startups we are working on.

2\. Whenever feel inspired & have a time. But trying to do this

once a week.

3\. self-hosted. want to rise own traffic.

4\. [http://urlaunched.com/blog](http://urlaunched.com/blog)

